AI-generated transcript of City Council 04-28-26

[Unidentified]: to test one two.

[Zac Bears]: Eighth regular meeting Medford City Council, April 28, 2026 is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Present. Councilor Leming? Present. Councilor Maloney? Councilor Scarpelli? Present. Councilor Tseng? Present. Vice President Lazzaro? Present. President Bears?

[Zac Bears]: Present. Seven present, none absent. The meeting is called to order. Please rise to salute the flag. Announcements, accolades, remembrances, reports, and records 26-075 offered by Councilor Leming and President Bears. Resolution to commemorate the life of Judy Kaplan. Be it resolved that the Medford City Council send condolences to the friends and family of Judy Kaplan who tragically passed away on April 15th of this year. Judy was a Medford activist, former member of the Medford Human Rights Commission, co-facilitator of a national thyroid cancer support group for over 20 years, Board member of the World Fellowship Center, one of the original members of SAFE Medford, and a beloved friend and colleague who touched the lives of many in our community, Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you, Council President Bears. In Medford, the progressive community is pretty big and some of the younger progressives like myself and some of my colleagues have been mentored and inspired over the years by a lot of the folks who in previous generations really built up the foundation of what the progressive movement in Medford is today. Judy Kaplan, one of the Original members of Safe Medford and many of the current members are here to join us. A couple of them requested that we put this commemoration on the agenda, are here today. It's a tragedy to see folks like this go, Knowing that she helped build up so many good movements in Medford, knowing that she was so vital to building up this community, bringing Medford into the 21st century, is touching. would also invite some of the folks who didn't know Judy to say a few words about their lives if they wish to. But at any rate, I'd like to thank folks for entertaining this resolution, and would like to also offer my condolences to Judy's friends and family. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. I think you've said it well. Judy's loss is a loss for our city, for our community, for our activists, and for all of the people who knew and loved her. And we will miss her. If there's anyone who would like to speak about Judy now, I know some of her close friends are here. You have the opportunity to come to the podium or raise your hand on Zoom and we'll start at the podium if there's anyone who'd like to speak. Hi, Steve. Name and address for the record, please.

[Steve Schnapp]: My name is Steve Schnapp. I live at 36 Hillside Ave. And I really appreciate the council doing this. Judy was a friend of my wife and I for a very long time. My wife went to camp with her. She's a camper. We knew her a long time and it was really great when we moved to Medford in 2011. Judy was a resident here and we already had friends in the community. She's the person who introduced me to the Human Rights Commission. She was a commissioner for many years, over a dozen years. And after the Medford Conversations project got going and Safe Medford got going, she joined that as well. I want to point out that this was a multi-talented person, an artist whose work in photography was displayed in City Hall. She was an editor of highly technical information. for the state and federal government. She was a brilliant editor, and many people relied on her for correcting their manuscripts, et cetera, including Safe Medford and the Human Rights Commission. And she was a stickler for details. And she will be missed. So thank you for this. Much appreciation.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Steve. Go to Munir Germanis. Name and address for the record, please, on Zoom.

[Munir Jirmanus]: Munir Germanis, Three Summit Road. I had the privilege and pleasure of working with Judy for several years on the Human Rights Commission. Her work and participation in this commission were beyond compare. She was always honest, forthright, and respectful as a key member of the commission for many, many years. She was also an invaluable resource during the process of generating a new human rights commission ordinance that was passed last year. I, for one, will certainly miss her. Godspeed, Judy. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Muneer. Recognize Eileen Lerner on Zoom.

[Ilene Lerner]: I met Judy over 40 years ago up in New Hampshire at World Fellowship. And we became friends. We had mutual friends and mutual interests and When I moved to Medford 12 years ago, it brought me into greater contact with Judy on the Human Rights Commission and in various activities in Medford. I greatly admired her. I was grateful to her for her editing of my writing, which she did for free. And I learned a lot from her. And this is a great loss. I will miss her. And I know we all will miss her. And I do want to thank the city council for giving us this opportunity to express our feelings about this loss. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Eileen.

[Ellen Epstein]: Ellen Epstein, 15 Grove Street. I'm just going to be brief and say that I think the thing we can do to best commemorate Judy and her life is to get the Human Rights Commission up and running again. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Ellen. Is there anyone else who'd like to speak on this commemoration at this time? All right. Seeing none, is there a motion? On the motion to approve and then we'll do a moment of silence. But on the motion to approve by Vice President Lazzaro, seconded by Councilor Callahan. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion passes. Please rise if you're able for a moment of silence. Thank you. Resolution 26-076 offered by President Bears. Resolution to celebrate Medford Youth Volunteers for the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless A Bed for Every Child Program. Be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we commend and celebrate the 18 Medford Youth Volunteers from St. Rayfield Parish on their project in partnership with the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless to raise funds for and build 18 beds for children on the wait list for the Coalition's A Bed for Every Child Program. I wanted to put this on the agenda because I did receive a communication from the Mass Coalition for the Homeless about a program, and you can see kind of the letter and some photos attached in our agenda. They have a program called A Bed for Every Child, which is committed to making sure that every child has a safe and comfortable place to sleep. And in late March, several youth folks at St. Raphael's completed their project, fundraising beyond their goal and building 18 beds for children on the wait list for that program. And I think that's something that we should honor and support. So I asked for my colleagues support and there's also some additional information in our agenda. If you'd like to contact them and thank them for their service to our community. Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you for bringing this forward, Prison Affairs, and it's really a wonderful opportunity to say thank you to the youth in our community for taking on this kind of volunteerism. I love when kids in our city can work on projects that give back to, especially kids who are experiencing homelessness. It can be very destabilizing and scary. And to know other kids are helping and wanting to do that work is really kind and wonderful and a great thing to celebrate. So thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Is there a motion on the floor? Motion. On the motion to approve by Council Vice President Lazzaro, seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes. Records, the tabled records of the meeting of March 24th were passed to Vice President Lazzaro. Vice President Lazzaro, how did you find those records?

[Emily Lazzaro]: I found them in order and I move to approve.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion to approve by Vice President Lazzaro, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Leming. All those in favor?

[Emily Lazzaro]: Aye.

[Zac Bears]: Opposed? Motion passes. Records of the meeting of April 7th were passed to Councilor Leming. Councilor Leming, how did you find those records?

[Matt Leming]: I find the records in order and move to approve.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion to approve by Councilor Leming, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Malayne. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes. Records of the special meeting of April 14th were passed to Councilor Malayne. Councilor Malayne, how did you find those records?

[Liz Mullane]: I found them in order and moved to approve.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion to approve by Councilor Malayne, seconded by? Seconded. Seconded by Vice President Lazzaro. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes. Reports of committees, 26-066 offered by President Bears, Committee of the Whole, April 7th, 2026. This was a meeting where we discussed the potential implementation of a residential exemption to our property tax with our city assessor. We did receive a presentation that went into some significant detail. I recommend folks take a look at that meeting if they want to better understand the residential exemption. We requested additional information, had several questions about the information that was provided. in the hopes of having another meeting hopefully in the next couple of months where we can further dive into what the impact of a residential exemption will look like either this year or in years to come. Is there a motion? The motion to approve by Councilor Tseng, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Leming. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes. 24-033 offered by Councilor Leming, Planning and Permitting Committee Report April 8th, 2026. Councilor Leming?

[Matt Leming]: Thank you. During this planning and permitting committee, we discussed the borders of the Boston Avenue upcoming rezoning. Am I permitted to just give the April 22nd report as well? Sure. Same paper on April 22nd, we continued the discussion on Boston Avenue and largely decided to redraw, to keep the borders to essentially all of the non-residential areas along Boston Avenue going from the Somerville border up to the Whole Foods. I motion to approve this and the April 8th and the April 22nd report.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion by Councilor Leming to approve the reports from April 8th and April 26th in the Planning and Permitting Committee, seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes. I'll follow Councilor Leming's lead. There's two other Committee of the Whole reports. We have 25189 Committee of the Whole, April 14th, and 26-061 Committee of the Whole, April 21st. On the 14th, we discussed the draft standard compensation ordinance to address the standard compensation for contracted employees in custodial and security services. And that advanced to the agenda tonight for consideration. And then on April 21st, we had our first preliminary budget meeting for the fiscal 27 city budget. And we have another one of those tomorrow night. Is there a motion? On the motion to approve the committee of the whole reports from April 14th and April 21st, 2026 by Councilor Tseng, seconded by Vice President Lazzaro. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes. 24-354, 24053, and 26-024 offered by Councilor Millane. The Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee report April 14th, 2026. Councilor Millane.

[Liz Mullane]: Sure. Thank you. At this meeting, we discussed the newsletter, which was to cover from February to a little bit of April. We had to reschedule the meeting from the previous month. That's why we're a little bit backed up. But we made some adjustments and the newsletter will go out shortly. We also discussed more about the neighborhood ward meetings to put together more planning around each one of them. We should have more information to be able to share with the community shortly. But if you have any questions, feel free to watch the recording and I'm happy to answer any questions that might come up from it. Can I motion to move this?

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, on the motion to approve by Councilor Maloney and seconded by. Seconded by Councilor Leming. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion passes. Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you, Council President Bears. Motion to suspend the rules and take papers 26079, 26080 and 26081 out of order.

[Zac Bears]: And the motion is to suspend the rules to take communications from the Mayor Papers 26079, 26080 and 26081 out of order. Seconded by? Seconded by Vice President Lazzaro. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes. All right. 26079, submitted by Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Capital Stabilization Fund Appropriation Request, Missituk and Brooks Elementary Schools, MSBA Accelerated Repair and MSBA Projects Update. And I know we have our MPS Director of Finance, Chief of Operations, I think that's the right title, Ken, and Vice Chair of the School Committee, Jenny Graham with us on these papers. We'll start with Capital Stabilization Fund. This is from the Mayor. I respectfully request and recommend that your Honorable Body approves the following appropriation from the Capital Stabilization Fund that the City of Medford hereby appropriates the aggregate amount of $400,000 for the purpose of paying feasibility study and schematic design costs related to a potential accelerated repair project involving potential roof and heat pump conversion replacement project at the Missittuck Elementary School located at 37 Hicks Avenue in the amount of $200,000 and Brooks Elementary School located at 388 High Street in the amount of $200,000, including the payment of all costs incidental or related there to the project, which proposed repair project would materially extend the useful life of the school and preserve an asset that otherwise is 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, set about to be expended under direction of the Medford School Committee. To meet this appropriation, the mayor, with the approval of the council, is authorized to use funds from the capital stabilization account in a set amount. The city acknowledges that MSBA's grant program is not an entitlement discretionary program based on need as determined by the MSBA, and if the MSBA's board of directors votes to invite the city to collaborate with the MSBA on this proposed repair project, Any project cost the city incurs and excess of the grant that may be approved and received by and received from the MSBA shall be sole responsibility of the city of Medford. The capital stabilization fund currently has a balance of $9,950,051. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter, Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Mayor. And I'll turn it over to you guys.

[Jenny Graham]: Did you wanna put up our presentation?

[Zac Bears]: That's on it.

[Jenny Graham]: Okay, perfect.

[Kenneth Lord]: Great, so we're here tonight, I'm Ken Lord, I'm Chief Operations Officer of the Medford School District, here to update you on several projects we have working on. Let me go to the next slide, please. So the first is the Medford High School building project, and we wanted to start by pointing out that our project website is the best place to find all of the information about what's going on. It has all of our meeting minutes, recordings, presentations, documents, proposals, everything is there. So anybody from the public who wants to know anything about the project, please go to our school system website, and right under the About menu, You can go to the Medford High School Project or go directly to the address medfordhighschoolproject.com and you can find all about what's going on in our meetings. All of our meetings are open to the public and are broadcast and are available for people to watch online. You can go to the next slide. So this is a slide that shows the schedule of the project and where we are. So we are in the feasibility study portion of the project. So in this project, this part of the project, you study all of the different options that are possible. So we started out with 29 different options, and we have now recently moved down to six options. And we'll be moving towards making a decision on the option that we want to move forward on June 10th. And then once we go to that option, we'll move into the schematic design phase. We take that one option and we work with our designers and architects and build that out to a very high level design that comes to a good cost estimation that we can bring to the public for their consideration for voting on the project. We'll be in the May, June timeframe of 27. Once we get the city approvals, we would then move to design development and then on to construction and hopefully for So these are the six options we are at right now. The MSB requires us to carry what's called a code upgrade option. So this option A1 is simply an option which would bring the building up to code. It does not change the program to increase educational program. It doesn't alter the building other than to bring everything up to code, which is a mammoth amount of work. She's talking about bringing in, eradicating the heating system, all the electrical, fire alarms, roofs, windows, doors, all the walls, everything. It's really a massive amount of work to get that done. And then beyond that, there are three addition renovation options and two new options. Sure.

[Jenny Graham]: I think one of the things to know as we've sort of gone down to these six options is that we really are, the six options are sort of nice because they explore essentially everything that's possible on the site in a whole variety of ways. Last night we did share, the architect shared with us another iteration of these designs. This presentation is pre those designs being updated and I think what you'll see if you go out to the website and take a look at those or come to our Community forum next week is that what you see here is like sort of version one It's just like blobs on a page version two has a little bit more life to it It's a little bit easier to understand like what's happening in the building. There's some more detail about the elevations and traffic flow around the site and all of those good things but it also really reflects. all of the feedback and input that they've received so far about what people liked about these options, what they didn't like about the options, and what people liked about other options that we actually didn't move forward. So the version two set of designs is or will be posted on the website probably the next day or so. And we did talk about them at length last night in our meeting and that is available on YouTube if you want to take a look there. So we're exploring all of these options sort of for a whole variety of reasons. Some of our ad reno options for us would allow us to preserve our very large gym space and our pool where they stand. The new options, which are those D options, are really new builds. The gym would get smaller by about 12,000 square feet. We would lose some features that we have today. So that's not without real consideration. However, there are possibilities to sort of bring the pool forward in all of these options. I know that's been a big topic of conversation. So lots to look at, lots to consider. And our community forum is next week on the 11th. Sorry, two weeks from yesterday on the 11th. And I would definitely encourage everybody to come join us like there'll be bigger versions of all this stuff to take a look at. So we are moving through the study of these options and the refinement of costs. So we'll also expect some updated cost estimates. based on the evolved designs and some changes that we made to the scope last night, sometime in May. So all of that is coming with like a more refined cost estimate, which is still sort of very high level at this stage in the game by design and by intention with six options to go.

[Zac Bears]: And these look better last night, too. They did.

[Jenny Graham]: They really did. I think everyone sort of has the things that they like about these different designs. I know Ken does. I do, right? And when I saw them last night, I was like, you've totally changed my mind about what I like and what I don't like. I'll share one of the things that has been a huge concern for the school administrators is the heavy reliance or need for modulars as we renovate the site. It's a big site. but it is actually very tight in terms of what has to happen on it. And in order to construct a building on the same site where you have to teach students, we would be looking at a large number of modulars. They actually were able to reduce a whole bunch of those modulars in almost all the options except for the A and the B options. So all the other four no longer require modular. with some changes to phasing. And one of the things that happened, like one of those D options sort of was a favorite because it was like you could build it all up on the field and then everybody could move in and it had no modulars, right? So that was like really I think exciting to a lot of people. And then once you saw what was possible last night with all of these options, you're like, Gee, that D option is no longer the thing that's most appealing, at least for me. I saw it. I was like, OK, it's still fine. But all of these other options have so much more appeal now that we've been able to resolve for that issue. So yeah, lots of changes. And they actually are starting to look like buildings instead of like LEGOs.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. I really appreciated the feedback that the SBC gave and then the project team did to improve the designs. I think what we were, what you presented last night was a significant improvement. So really encourage people to watch at least that part of last night's meeting.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. And I think the thing about this process, MSBA has a really rigid process. It's there so that communities don't go rogue. It's there so that communities do the due diligence and the thoughtful work. And the iterative nature of this process is by design. It's not like we did something different or we did something unusual in going from version one to version two. That's totally natural and expected. And it's going to continue to happen even after we pick one. So even when we get to one on June 10th, we're still going to be making changes, because that's sort of the nature of this kind of project. You start exploring, especially when you start saying, where can these things go in the building? All of a sudden, things have to shift a little bit, right? So what these buildings look like will not be complete. and in focus until February of next year. So everything you're seeing, everything you're hearing, all the costs, all of those things are like everyone's sort of best estimate to provide data points along the way with the knowledge that like the final data points are still quite a ways away. And the team is working really diligently and around the clock. So they are moving just as fast as they can and it's still will be until February before there's all of those like sort of answers people seek in terms of like what this really looks like in the end.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Vice President Lazzaro, before we continue the presentation.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to agree with a lot of what Chair Graham is saying that the presentation last night about the more honed designs for the different options were really, really exciting. And anybody who hasn't been paying close attention, It can sometimes feel, this happened with a few projects that the city council was doing over the past few years. It can sometimes feel like things are sneaking up on community members, but there have been, there has been quite a lot of community outreach. We're trying to make sure that people are able to pay as close attention to this project as they want to. So the community forums are a really good opportunity for people to get engaged now. We wouldn't want anybody to feel blindsided by this project at a later date. So I'm glad that you all are coming to give us these updates so that anybody who's watching online or on YouTube can know about the next community forum and attend if they like or just catch up with where the project's at right now. These are very long-term projects. It has an impact on everybody in Medford and it's in everybody's interest to pay as close attention as they can and weigh in as they would like. We had a lot of public comment last night, a lot of people saying maybe don't take away opportunities from students before we've even gotten to the point where you know, we need to do that. So that sort of changed a lot of the conversation as we were moving forward through the meeting last night. I'm the city council representative on that committee, so I've been going to these meetings. But last night really felt like an inflection point where we were having to make real decisions that felt like they were, I mean, we've made a lot of real decisions, but it felt like a time that we wouldn't be able to come back from if we were going to decide to cut a lot of stuff. So, you know, it's important to hear from our community members. So go to the community forums. If you're not sure, go. OK, thanks.

[Jenny Graham]: It's friendly. We usually have coffee or snacks or something. But yeah, there's usually a lot to see and a lot to interact with. And in an increasing way, that will be true. just by way of making sure people can interact with this project as they want to. Not everyone wants to do that the same way, and I just want to say that's okay. We don't all have to sort of be with the same old energy about all the things all the time, but what we want to make sure is when you want to plug in, you know where to go, that's our website, when you want to hear about our meetings.

[Zac Bears]: Could you pull up two slides from now? I think this will help.

[Jenny Graham]: Oh, thank you. When you want to hear about our meetings, you can go to our YouTube channel. Everything is recorded there. If you want to hear from the architect, our lead architect, Matt Rice, and I have been recording with the help of our film and TV students short bits about the project. And the students have done a really amazing job with all the editing and the production of those. But there's lots and lots of ways to sort of learn the facts. And I think if there's some fact that people are seeking, I would just encourage you to email the project email box. Call me. Email me. We're all very, very happy to answer the questions. And there's so much to know about this project that it is impossible to sort of lay everything out in the exact way that any of you might want to consume it. So if you need help navigating to find your answers. you can definitely just reach out and we'll be happy to help. But I think the big thing for me is like this is exciting. It's a real it's a huge chance for Medford to move forward in all kinds of ways. And it's not just about our 9 to 12 school. It's about the MFN. It's about kids corner. It's about pre-K. It's about our pool. It's about our playing fields and our green space like There's so much that goes on at that campus. If you've ever been there on a Saturday morning you know exactly what I'm talking about. But there's so much that goes on on that campus. It's a this is a real opportunity for Medford to do something truly transformational where we otherwise are really sort of starved for space. And I think we're trying to sort of think through all of that really carefully and intentionally as we go through this process to make sure that In the end of this we have a flagship school that we can all be proud of that we that our kids can go to and have heat and air conditioning like real basic stuff that they don't have today. But also that we're doing something sort of to. to bring the community to that campus. So I think it is a real transformational opportunity. And I think if anyone's like, I don't know what's there for me, like, just give me a call. I'll take you around myself and show you. But yeah, I think there's just, there's so much going on and there's so many chances for this project to really meet the needs of the community in a way that we can. None of it has to be all or nothing like we're we'll work through all of there's a lot of decisions coming and I look forward to the day where the decisions are like what color tiles go on the floor versus like how much space goes in this particular closet but. like all of these things really matter and they add up and they give us a chance not only to do something for the people who are going to be there when we get to cut the ribbon, but they're also it's also our chance to do something for the kids that are going to live here in 50 years. So this building has to be able to withstand like whatever's coming in education and I think None of us exactly knows what that is just yet. And so really thinking about flexibility, thinking about how we promote our vocational programs, which does continue year over year to be one of the darlings of Medford Public Schools, and rightfully so. It is not the vocational school that you know of when you went to school. It is a real place where kids belong. and get skills whether they choose to go on to college or into career directly. And we're trying to we're trying to expand those programs. We're trying to meet our wait list. All of those things are possible with a with a building that is carefully planned.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I know there's some other MSBA stuff, but I think let's do the high school and let's do everything else.

[Jenny Graham]: Any questions about the high school?

[Zac Bears]: Anything else you want to add? I think we skipped a slide. I don't know if you need to go back to it. I think you might have captured it.

[Kenneth Lord]: We covered most of it. Just that one of the next steps is we'll be starting to go out to procure a construction manager at risk. That's one of the next steps that we're working on.

[Zac Bears]: And maybe we can just... either leave the events page up, Matt, or we could pause sharing. But anything anyone else wants to add from the council or any questions on the high school project at this time? Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: I want to thank you and the committee for doing such hard work. I know thinking about the square footage of each closet isn't necessarily the most glamorous of work. But as someone who graduated from there not too long ago, it's something that really students and teachers can really feel on the ground. And, I mean, you mentioned heat and air conditioning, and those really were, I mean, those things really made studying in December and June really difficult for students. And I'm glad to hear that that kind of perspective, taking in that perspective from the ground, is being infused into this project. You guys mentioned you've done a lot of community forums, listening sessions, and I'm curious what you've been hearing from parents, from educators, and from students.

[Jenny Graham]: I think it really depends on sort of where you come to the project from, right? So if you're a parent like myself whose kids go to school there right now and will not see the future of this building, what we hear is, I wish this started 10 years ago. Me too. And what will this be like for my children while they're learning through construction, right? And so that's where the modular conversation gets really anxious. What you also hear is like, because people don't want their kids learning in trailers, even though they have heat and air conditioning, which is like more than we can say for some of the rooms in the building, right? But you also hear about the reasons kids feel like they belong at Medford High, whether that's athletics that could be disrupted, whether that's the swim team where like a renovation of the pool will take it out of commission. And so we have to think about what those alternatives are. Or if it's your student is in a vocational program that like cannot learn in just any classroom. Right. So there's a lot of concern about like the staging and the phasing for those folks. And it's those are real valid concerns. We're just not there yet. Like that's for schematic design and that's for like the construction planning process. So there's like concepts of how those things will happen right now and no answers. And I can sort of appreciate that that's like really uncomfortable. If we're hearing from folks with very young children, they're like, hurry up, finish this project as fast as you can, because I want my kids to go to this school. And I'm really excited. If you're talking to people with very young children, they're super excited about the MFN having the support that it needs. and the consolidation of the pre-K programs to do a little bit more than we're able to do today with pre-K. If you hear from folks whose kids have already gone there, there's sort of a mix of reactions, which include, like, again, I wish you did this 10 years ago so my kid could have experienced it. gee, this is long overdue and I'm with you. And then I think, you know, you do hear sort of across all of those groups of folks that they are concerned about how much it's going to cost. And I think that's a real concern and it is something that we'll have to grapple with together. One of the reasons that we waited, honestly, to do this project is so that we could participate with MSBA and all of the funding that they're going to provide to us by following through with their programming, right? So that's a big portion of this, but I think the picture of how this gets paid for is really complicated. And anybody who tells you like today that they know what that number will be, those are estimates too, right? And those are estimates based on No feedback yet from the MSBA about what they will cost share in. Those estimates are based on really sort of incomplete decisions about space. And very, very, very high level estimates that'll get refined further. So there's a million variables that will go into how how much this building costs. I do think the numbers sort of take people back. Like it's surprising to me that we are talking about a building that at the last estimate was like in the $800 million range. Nothing unusual is happening here in Medford. This is happening in every school community and school building across the state. What we have going on here is even more complicated, because vocational programming is always much more expensive than a traditional classroom. So you can't compare us to Lexington. Even though they were the most expensive school, that's true until the next school comes along, essentially, is where the trends are in school construction. So I think there's a lot of conversation that people want to have about cost. And I completely get it. I appreciate it. And I think we will get there. But it's one of those things where I, if I could like encourage people to do one thing, it's just like. stick with us a little while longer before we start to worry too much, because we are still talking about really, really, really preliminary information. So I've had people say, Jenny, this is going to cost me $20,000 a year. Jenny, this is going to cost me $6,000 a year. None of those numbers are true. And I can almost promise you that every single number that I've heard so far is not the actual number, because there's so many variables that we still just don't know about. So we're waiting on feedback from the MSBA, which we're expecting any day. And even that will give us an idea of what is to come, but it won't give us all those final answers again until we get through the schematic design process and into like February of next year.

[Justin Tseng]: I really appreciate that you guys are thinking about cost to our families and also being very graceful and very delicate with not putting numbers out there that are misleading or not making decisions based on information that we don't know for sure yet. Because, I mean, I think a worry that a lot of parents brought up last night was that we would start cutting based on numbers that we're not sure about and then we'd have those options off the table forever. And my understanding is that we have until October when it's pencils down. Can you explain that really quickly?

[Jenny Graham]: Sure. Yeah. I think two things happened last night that I think were important. One was we gave the project team some clear instructions about what we wanted them to cost and how. And we asked them specifically for some consistency across the options around things like parking the pool. the auditorium and then a handful of programs that are like sort of outside of the school day kind of programs, like central administration, for example, is like sort of separately listed. So we gave them some clear direction on how we wanted that cost to be presented back to us so that when anybody looks at those numbers, they can say, If I take that away, I can be clear about what I'm taking away, right? The first version was a little bit less clear, so this next version should be super clear. And like parking is a good example. Surface parking, cheap, right? Cheaper. But we, on that site, we have some opportunities. So we could put a parking garage. I don't think that really excites anybody, but what it does do is make way on the site for other things to be possible. increase playing fields. The other thing that we asked them to do was give us pricing for a field over parking situation, which Waltham did recently. So their parking sort of appears underground, but on top of it are multiple playing fields, right? So that is interesting. It's intriguing. If you don't like to look at a, you know, sort of sea of cars, that's kind of nice, right? But more importantly, like we have like really few opportunities in Medford to increase the green space available to us. Playing fields are at a premium when you talk about. athletics in Medford. And so continuing to explore what is possible there, I think is really important. And if we just took that off the table last night, it would be gone forever. We would never be able to really talk about field over parking. And we would be sort of stuck only talking about a sea of 450 or whatever parking spaces, right? And we may decide that's what we want, but we don't have to decide right now. What when we will have to make those decisions is by October. So we can make them in an iterative fashion as information comes into focus. But what the team has told us is like pencils down is like October so that the construction manager and architect can really do their costing and get those numbers into into lock for February. So that was like, you know, sort of one thing that happened last night was giving people some clear instructions on what we wanted to see. The other thing that happened last night was we did take up several hundred recommendations to cut space. Some of them went forward. Most of the ones presented by the superintendent and the educational leadership team did go forward and they are, that's very natural to be happening at this phase in the process. The other proposals got tabled by and large, and I think that's fine, and I think what happened last night was the committee heard from everybody saying, we don't have to do this right now, and maybe we shouldn't, right? So I think that was a really, really good outcome last night to say we all hear and appreciate that there is still refinement yet to happen in this building, absolutely, but the urgency to do it last night didn't have to be there, and so I think that clarification really changed things for people. So I think you'll continue to see us refine space as we can, right, as those things come into focus, as there's more time to consider particularly the feedback that we're expecting from MSBA.

[Justin Tseng]: That's really helpful to hear. I think, you know, I have heard from some residents about scope and I think it's been helpful for them to know that there's time to get solid information for us to make choices first and then to hear feedback and adjust the plan to that. And I think yesterday's meeting also, if folks tuned in, does show that our school team, our educational team, is thinking a lot about how we can use space more efficiently and how we can right size a lot of the space as well. Um, something that, um, a question I've gotten is just, I mean, I think this is more of a basic project question, um, what criteria or parameters are we using to kind of whittle down these six options to an ideal option? And I think, uh, kind of going hand in hand with that another question I've gotten is, um, With the first option, just the code upgrades, does that preserve the programming that's in the high school? Does it align with our educational plan? Because something that, in my experience, has been important is, I think being at MHS quite recently, it's become clear that it's hard to get a 21st century education in a building that's built for the 20th century. And I think voters, there are people who are kind of finding it hard because they see option A and they're like, this seems much more affordable. They're also worried that it doesn't kind of achieve all the goals that we want to set for our schools to really make it a state of the art institution.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, so option A is a code upgrade, and it's really restrictive. It means nothing changes. So while we may have to take every wall out and rebuild it inside the school, every wall must go up in its exact current place. So what that means is, for example, the 55,000 additional square feet that are being planned for vocational expansion. That cannot happen in a code upgrade. But more than that, our special education ed plan cannot be met, and the ed plan overall cannot be met by option A. So what that means is if Medford decides to go with option A, that $450 million price tag will be ours to bear 100%. If it met the Ed plan, that would be different, right? It's not like code upgrade means never MSBA, but it has to meet the Ed plan. And we're not talking about like an increment away from the Ed plan. We're talking about a really big gully between the Ed plan and what the building, the current building can provide. So that's option A in terms of like, what is possible, right? So it's kind of not possible under that. But all of the other options do meet the ed plan. And the ed plan is another document that's going to continue to evolve. So the MSBA is going to come back to us and ask questions and say, gee, you asked for the space, but it doesn't say anything about it in the ed plan. Why is that, right? So they're looking at this as like another set of eyes and ears and as people who do this work for a living to say, is there complete alignment in what you're proposing to do so that We all can feel good that when we go ask our residents to vote on this project that we have sort of left no stone unturned, right? But yeah, the ed plan is super important. It's like the anchoring document and it doesn't get a lot of discussion. But it's really important. It paints a picture of what education should look like. And it was written by our educators, but it was written by our educators after many days of meetings with teachers, students, parents, and There's lots of conversation in our various meetings and in our school committee meetings about the ed plan. And one of the things that you'll hear again and again is that the students were the real leaders in those conversations. And they talked about what impedes their day every single day in the current building and where they shine and where they feel like they can't shine. And the ed plan is there to be responsive to like moving that dynamic forward. At the same time like that conversation sort of unveils that like Medford Public Schools has options where to take action now so that we can start to address some of those things even before a building but the building will limit you know, how far we can go. So all of those conversations are happening. There's lots of transformation happening at the high school in particular. But the building, the building is like a big, huge piece of it. And we just like, there's, you know, certain times in life where you just can't work around something or somebody. And like, the building is one of those things. You just can't, you can't muscle around it to get what you want out of education anymore.

[Justin Tseng]: Yeah.

[Jenny Graham]: It's too, it's, it's too restrictive.

[Justin Tseng]: I definitely have felt that on my time there. There were times where we, you know, as clubs tried to do things or we tried to get more involved in the nature or have assemblies and it just wasn't possible. And the other part to the question, sorry, I got a little muddled, but could you give us a sense of what the committee is thinking about when it chooses between the sex options?

[Jenny Graham]: Oh, sorry.

[Justin Tseng]: I knew there was another part of the question that I forgot.

[Jenny Graham]: You know, one of the interesting things about the committee is there's 25 people on the committee. There are 15 voting members. And, you know, that's a huge committee, actually. And people, everyone who I tell that to is like, oh, my, like, how do you manage that big of a committee? And it's not easy. But I think what we have done is assemble a group of people who have really varied and broad expertise and interests. So everyone's gonna come to those decisions a little bit differently. And I think that's okay. So we have lots of data and we have lots of facts available to us. We have a giant evaluation matrix that'll get updated and we'll be able to look at it. And for those people who like, need a score, there will be a score, right? For those people who are like really going to make a choice based on price, that data will be available to them. For the people who are gonna say what is the best value and how am I optimizing the things that the community is telling me are important, they'll have that choice. I think in the end, I think there'll be a lot of coalescing around Maybe one or two options. I don't know which they'll be, but I'll be interested to see what the community says. So people really care a lot about what they're hearing in these community meetings and out in the community, people pointing out what they like and what they don't like. So it will be, it will simply be a majority vote, right, that picks the final winner. But I think what we have found some success at in the past is being able to like narrow down a bit. So probably what you'll see us do is say like these two options or three options we're like eliminating and then you can sort of focus the attention a little bit more. And all of that will happen at our June 10th meeting.

[Justin Tseng]: Great, I really appreciate this explanation of where we're at and how folks can get involved in walking us through what you guys are thinking about. It's really, I think, important for the community here. Again, it's early days. There's the June 10th meeting. There's also time until October for us to really think about the small bits and pieces of the design. And there's time for the community to get involved as well. So I'm really grateful for this rundown. Thanks.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, no problem. Any other MSBA questions?

[Zac Bears]: Just on the high school really quickly, I just want to thank you and the SBC for your work and your leadership on this, for commitment to engaging the public extensively. And I think, you know, just driving home that point that the cost and the price is going to change. It's going to get lower, likely, as we move through the process. And that's really important, right? You've got very high level estimates. We're going to maximize our efficiencies. We're going to find exactly which spaces need to be in this building and which ones don't. But that kind of brings me to my other point. You brought it up about Lexington. Lexington's was 660. And that's basically just a 9 through 12 high school. That's correct. And this complex or the things that will be included You know, they don't have a vocational school. We do. They don't have the MFN, Medford Family Network. We do. They don't do child care in their building. We do. Pre-K, we don't do it there now. We used to. That's coming back to Medford High. But that opens up space in our elementary schools that we need in those buildings. There's no central offices in Lexington. They don't have public-facing programs like the Culinary Bistro 489 or cosmetology or cars and think, you know, their playing fields maybe don't get the same kind of utilization that ours do necessarily either, never mind programs like the Japanese Language School. And bringing Curtis Tufts finally back to integrated, you know, not having our alternative high school be far away and separate and in an old building that also needs repair. So I think when you think about the things that we do in this building right now that we need to keep doing, the things that we want to bring to this building because we'll do them better there and they help us in our other spaces, you just really can't compare this to the other high schools that have been built recently. And to be honest, when you say Lexington does one thing for $660 million and we do 17 things for 775 million and probably less or 800 or whatever the estimate is right now that's going to come down. I think that's just really important for folks to be aware of too. This is not the same as these other projects. So I know you said that a little bit. I wanted to just iterate it and reiterate it a little bit more. And just closing, I think, One, I think it's really important for us to have an honest convo. If we're at the end of the day and it's like, well, this option is 650 million and this option is 700 million and one of those options doesn't bring pre-K or has a surface parking but no new field or doesn't bring Curtis Tufts back, you know, maybe we're doing that for 50 million on this site that would cost 100 or 120 million in the long term to try to do that in other places. So I think folks need to understand that we're really trying to maximize the efficiency to the city in this one project. And, you know, it might have a bigger price tag but it actually costs less than it would for us to do five or six projects and that to reach those same goals. So I really appreciate your commitment to maximizing the value for students and for our community spaces and, you know, working really, really diligently to minimize the cost and the tax impact to the taxpayer. I think like that's the work and you guys are doing it. And the one thing I really hope to talk about more, I think we can be a partner on, is creative decisions to help fund the project. And I know there's grants that have been applied for in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars that we'll get from the MSBA. But I also think if we're able to build a stadium, a new stadium on the Medford High School site, Hormel is in tough shape and there's millions and millions of dollars that would need to go into that. I think that's something We can look at Hormel is right by the highway right by a bunch of residential construction right by some of our main commercial areas. Maybe that's a place where we could look at a land lease from the city. We get a brand new stadium at the high school. We do a land lease from the city and that helps to fund. this project instead of the debt exclusion, right? And I know that's something that's been brought up. I know that's something we're talking about. And I think we just can't get stuck in this thing where it's MSBA will only cover X and the rest is on the taxpayers on the debt exclusion. And that's the thing where I think being worried about how do we keep the cost as low as possible while doing all the things we need to do, that's right on. Getting into this trap of there's no chance that there's any other way to help fund this project. I think that's something that I'm hearing more of. And I'm worried about, you know, kind of dominating the conversation. Because I think there's so many ways that we can, that you guys are working to bring the price down and still do what we need to do. And other ways to fund the project other than just say, throw up our hands, the only solution is the debt exclusion. It's going to be a big part of the solution. There's going to be a debt exclusion. But I don't think we should just say that's our only option. And because of that, let's cut. big important programs, let's cut the MFN, let's cut the pool, let's cut fields for our kids, let's, you know, cut the vocational school. I don't think any of us want that. And I think there's other ways for us to fund, you know, to fund this project. That means we don't have to make that decision. So I hope we can have those big conversations. And to me, that's like the one thing that this body might be able to help you guys with.

[Jenny Graham]: Don't worry, you're on my list.

[Zac Bears]: So just want to, I just really think that's important. I think we're getting a little some of the cost conversations not being creative enough.

[Jenny Graham]: I think the other thing about the cost conversation is like, we have one estimate, right, so far. And that one estimate was done by two different independent cost estimating firms. The next set of cost estimates, they'll have more inputs. The same two firms are gonna go down the same road. But at this early stage, there's so many variables that they cannot control for, and it's a bad time in our world to be reliant on things that come from other countries, right? This week there's a tariff, next week there's not. The week after that there's a tariff. All of that sort of feeds the economic picture of like how they're having to cost for this. The estimators, they do this for a living. None of them wants to be known as the firm that undershot the estimate, right? So that means all of the conservatism is gonna be there right now. And as we go forward, more things will come into focus, the timing, all of those things comes into focus. They can be more precise. When we bring on our construction manager at risk, they will help us through the late stages of cost estimating during schematic design. So the construction manager who's going to build the project, who's going to ultimately agree to a maximum price will be there with us doing those estimates. So they're going to have a completely different point of view than an architecture firm is about how to accelerate the project, how to phase the project, how to keep costs in line, what the tradeoffs are, where the efficiencies are, where the economies of scales are. So all of that is to come from a cost perspective. And we just have to, we just all sort of have to hang on for the ride as that happens. But to your point, the other conversation that is a huge evolution is like, where will the money come from? Like, you know, Well, fam, they're my heroes. They did their whole high school without a debt exclusion. Like, that's not us. We're not going to be able to do that here. But what can we do? Like, we successfully did a capital campaign for the Medford Library, right? So is there a capital campaign? Are there grants that we can apply for and we already have to start to help pay for some portions of this program? Can we tap into our CPC funding for the green open space? What are all the things that we can do to leave no stone unturned and not have the debt exclusion be the whole only answer? I don't personally see a way that it won't be a part of the answer, but I think the conversation can be more nuanced if we're willing to go for that ride. And yes, we'll be knocking on your door to do that soon enough, I'm sure.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Thank you. All right. Do we have any more questions about the high school? You want to talk about Missituk? And we'll come back around at the end of the paper for public participation. Okay. Let's finish the presentation on the accelerated repair projects, ongoing, future, present, past.

[Kenneth Lord]: Yeah. Sure. So there's still lots of projects going on at the other five schools we have. So we've been recently accepted to the accelerated repair program by the Mass School Building Authority for the Brooks, the Mississippi, and the Roberts. This repair program would encompass a roof refurbishment or replacement as well as replacement of our aging HVAC systems. These systems that they would look to replace would study ground source or air source instead of gas or electric to be the source of the energy for these buildings. The Roberts School was the first school to be accepted in, and we have an engineer and an OPM on staff already. They were actually, had a whole team of engineers out at the Roberts studying it over April vacation, pouring through the plans, looking through the building, taking measurements, and they're working together to get us to a proposed project that would do that, do those tasks. We are in the early stages of the Missituk and the Brooks. The Missituk will be the next one that we'll start off, and then we'll go to the Brooks after that. They'll be almost identical projects because the buildings are very similar. They were all built at the same time, but you have to study each one individually and move forward with that. The, our OPM is a firm called PCA 360, and the engineer is a company called Rist Frost Shumway. Their draft schedule is that they'll have something ready for us by June and early July as an early plan of what they expect. We'll be bringing a schematic design over the summer and bringing that to the school committee in late August. and be ready to submit something to the August MSBA. We have to submit it in August for the October MSBA board meeting. Once we do that, they'll come back with a project funding agreement, and then we'd come back to the city to seek funding for that first project. That project would likely last a year or two, most of the work being done in the summers because, of course, school is in session. and then we'd move on from there. So we probably may be able to start construction in the summer of 27. That's a very aggressive schedule for the Roberts, but we'll see how that works out. The Missituk actually, their program commenced on March 2nd, which just means that we kick off our paperwork portion of the program. We'll be seeking our funding to authorize that feasibility study go forward, as well as the Brooks will be commencing in the beginning of July.

[Jenny Graham]: And I think the other thing worth mentioning is the vote that you all will take tonight would authorize funding for Missituk and Brooks in one paper. That doesn't change the timing of any of this. It just means we don't have to come and ask you to take the same vote three times. We'll just do it the two times. And the amounts in the paper are reflective of what we were able to learn from the first project at the Roberts so that we feel like those are the right numbers. and in lower numbers than what we had planned for with the Roberts.

[Kenneth Lord]: At the McGlynn and the Andrews, there's the $25 million HVAC project that was going on there since last summer. That project is doing an air source, heating and air conditioning system for both buildings. It's replacing the roof at the McGlynn. The Andrews roof was already replaced, making them both solar ready. The accelerated repair programs also make those buildings solar ready, I forgot to mention that. So the project is scheduled to be substantial completion by the end of the summer, early September, in which case then we'll follow immediately with the McGlynn roofing project to get that as a liquid applied roofing system that will apply over the top of the McGlynn roof. The solar installation for the Andrews will start first and then the McGlynn will move on after that. We had a really big week last week during April vacation for both buildings. The new rooftop units were all activated and we transitioned to those new rooftop units over April vacation, getting us ready to be able to kick off the air conditioning season with the brand new systems ready and online by mid-May on schedule. The contractor, Consigli, has been wonderful to work with, working very, very hard with us. They also did a lot of site work because of the cost of the project. So a lot of ADA issues were kicked off. So they had to pour all new concrete patios. They had to do work in bathrooms with landings and different things. So they're doing a lot of work. They've been a really great partner working with us and collaborating with the principals to make sure that the project goes with the least impact to the students as possible. I think that's it for that.

[Zac Bears]: All right. If we could stop sharing. Do we have any questions on the elementary school and middle school projects? From the council. Just a second. We'll go to public participation. Yeah. I just wanted to say it's like all six of our schools are in MSBA right now. That is Herculean.

[Kenneth Lord]: Well, the McGlynn and Andrews are not an MSBA project.

[Zac Bears]: Oh, those are just us. Oh, great.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and I think when we submitted the statements of interest for the three elementary schools, we did not think that we would get all three awards. And MSBA has moved to only funding those every other year. We're really, I think, fortunate that we did get them all because now we can sequence the projects and make sure we don't hit the point of failure on any of those systems where if we had to, if we only got one, we had to wait two more years to submit and then a year for that process to kick off. We are at the end of life with all of these units and systems. We won't have to foot the whole bill of any of those projects like we had to do with McGlynn and Andrews. So, yeah, it's really fortunate that we were able to get all three projects through the pipeline at the same time while actively having the high school project going on. So, we're really lucky.

[Zac Bears]: It's impressive. And, you know, major work on every school building all at once is significant. In terms of the life cycle, you know, We're 25 years from the quote-unquote new schools, right? They opened in 2001 and 2003, I think. So we're there. Do these projects for those buildings, is that a 25-year project? Are we thinking a bit differently? They might last us a bit longer than that. How do we look at that?

[Kenneth Lord]: I think the heating and air conditioning systems, you're looking at like a 25-year lifespan on those types of systems. What these projects are doing is being able to extend the lifespan of those buildings by making sure you get the roofs done and properly, yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Right. Okay. So at least gets us another 25 years in our five schools.

[Kenneth Lord]: And then there's also our facilities condition assessment report which we did, was done last year, which really did a thorough investigation of all the buildings, looking at all the capital projects. Pursuing those projects will also extend the life of those buildings and make them, you know, last properly.

[Zac Bears]: Great, well, I appreciate that. I think that's some work that's long overdue for our city to make sure that these investments that we make last. So I'm glad that we're doing it. All right, any further questions from members of the council on the MSBA projects for the high school and the elementary schools or the middle school project? All right, we will go to public participation. You can raise your hand on Zoom or come to the podium and you will have three minutes. Name and address for the record, please.

[Sharon Deyeso]: Good evening, everyone. Sharon Diesso, Mass Avenue, Circuit Road in Medford. Pardon the garb, I ran from the yard forgetting that this meeting was going on. I'll give you all a wave because the Queen is here and the King is here having dinner at the White House tonight, so I'll give you all the Queens. wave, I just wanted to ask a quick question. I knew a couple of years ago that the school talk was in the works, that people were saying, we're going to get a new school, they're going to knock our school down. You know, you have to look at the big picture, and I hope that some of the public does go to the meetings because our future is from our youth. I just had a couple of questions for anyone who might know or someone who just gave a nice presentation. I would imagine what prompted all of this need was probably safety. I know, like the library, had a lot of electrical issues, et cetera. So I'm imagining that safety prompted a lot of this and then further investigation. A lot of the people are unsure exactly in the public, and some friends, exactly how old that building is. I taught in that building. I know the first floor is extremely, extremely maintained and very sound because it leads to a lot of administrative offices in the libraries, guidance departments, et cetera. And as those needs grew, those accommodations were made and done over very, very nicely. So I'm hoping we don't have to lose any of that first floor. I know that in one or two of the elementary schools, I'm hoping that in their study that they looked over dynamics of student new enrollment coming in through the next, I would say, 20 years. I think it's shrinking. So I don't know if they've compared this need to other towns who have been questioning the same thing and I'm hoping that they have enrollment in mind so that we don't just over-ideologically build because we have a philosophy in mind of what a school should be like rather than what are our needs. Thirdly, I'd like to address the fact that a lot of buildings, even like for instance the library in Winchester, They've built up, they've built out, they've revamped beautifully. I have to say I go there and visit sometimes as much as I do Medford because I enjoy what Winchester has done also with their space. I would like to know what the needs would be that focused beyond the safety and is prompting some of this building that would be going on. I think they said they will get down to one option. That's really not an option. And it said, just 10 more seconds, that this would be voted on by the city, what is meant by the word city, who will be voting on that. And that's really not a vote. If that's the only option that you have and the project's going to go forward, if it's going to be done by the public, you should have at least two or three options that they would vote on. It's our money too. Even though you get a grant, sometimes you have to match part of it. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Sharon. I think there are definitely some questions. I will go to the building committee chair and chief of operations for the schools. But just before that, you know, it is, I think we've put a lot of lipstick on the pig that is the Medford High School building. And, you know, it might look You know, it's certainly a functional space right now, but there's a lot of issues underlying the main infrastructure. It was built, it was opened I think in 1970, built in the late 60s. We're about 55 to 60, certainly probably by the time we start construction nearing 60-year-old building. And there's just a lot of issues at the core of it. Its main systems, its roof, its HVAC, the construction materials that it was built with. It's a tough building. You know, I think there are many of the options are to either renovate or partially reuse the building with varying amounts of the building falling into that. But there's a lot of parts of the building that it's very hard to reuse. It might look good in the lobby, but if you go in the back of the locker rooms, which is built kind of, it's the back of the building, built towards the hill, they are in brutal shape, like very, very deteriorated, and I think they reflect a lot of the issues. In terms of the approval process, so the building committee is working through the process that the state MSBA has for how you come up with a design. In terms of the voting of the city, that committee will present an option final after all of this design, construction, assessment, architect work, and then the voters will decide whether they want to fund that construction project. So at that point, all of the voters of the city will have a vote on the project. And I think everything else, you know, I'll turn it over maybe to Jenny and Ken just to get into it a little bit more.

[Jenny Graham]: I'm going to try to remember them and if I forget any, just let me know. So the first question that I heard was about sort of like what's driving the need for this building. Certainly safety is obviously a really, really big important thing when you talk about a school of any kind. So that is definitely one of those things. And when we talk about safety at Medford High, we also talk about site access and circulation around the site so that our first responders have an easy an easy time getting on the site if they need to be there. More importantly, when we talk about safety, we talk about things like structural support, so the building is not code compliant with current standards around earthquake mitigation. All the lateral supports are not sufficient to carry a building into the future, certainly not if you're gonna put something up on top of it. So there's lots of safety aspects of the building that actually, the cost of all of that adds up quite quickly. In addition to all of that, our vocational programs are out of space and undersized. So we are putting more kids than is recommended by our state standards into spaces so that we can give them access to vocational programming. It's extraordinarily expensive to send kids out of district. We want to keep our students here. We have fabulous teachers and really great programming. But there is a point at which we just have to grow the wait list. There's also huge demand for things like plumbing, HVAC. criminal justice, and dental assisting. Those things are not just demands of our students, but when you look at the labor market in the area, those things are very, very in demand and supported. And we don't have space for those kinds of programs right now. So the expansion of those vocational programs to do two things. One, to mitigate the wait list, and two, to expand the program is a huge portion of this space when we talk about sort of the increase in space. Our special education program is another place where we have been working in woefully undersized classrooms and spaces for a really, really long time. Our special education population is important. They need something different from us to thrive, and we have a really, really hard time providing that in the current space. So that's another place where there is going to be a change of the amount of space that we are gonna be able to dedicate to a program under this. And then I think finally, when you are a student learning in this building, things like how far it is to get from one sprawling end of the building to the other. all of those things impede how you can access your education. So really thinking about a classroom in a more modern sense is really important. Our classrooms are actually quite small. So I think there's lots of myths that have perpetuated in the community, like our classrooms are really very big. They are not. They are smaller than the standards that MSBA uses to decide on the space of a classroom. There's all kinds of things like that where we are doing more with less already and we can't keep sort of strapping the system in that way. So from a what else is driving this project, all of those things are driving this project. And also trying to say how do we alleviate some of the pressure that we're feeling in other buildings that are at capacity? So we have several elementary schools that are at capacity and If we don't address those things in a variety of ways, this is one of the ways that we'll plan to address that. We will be looking at needs for expansion of some of those buildings in the next five to 10 years. So this project gives us an opportunity to push that off in a meaningful way. And there's no, like the cheapest time to do this project was 10 years ago. The next cheapest time is right now. It is not the cheapest time to do a construction project 10 years from now. So all of those things are sort of factoring into something fairly complicated. In terms of enrollment, one of the biggest parts of the process, so we actually were accepted by the MSBA in 2023. It feels like it's already been like a short lifetime with this project. But part of the work that has been happening over the last couple of years was a really detailed enrollment study that looked at Medford historically and into the future. It looked at everything from how our enrollment has changed over time. It looked at what they call a survival model of students. What that means is how many kindergarten students become first graders next year and second graders the year after that and third graders the year after that. So all of that study was done in collaboration. We provided lots and lots of information to the MSBA. They did a detailed study of our enrollment, and that is how we certified that 1,395 students are the right number for us to build for here. That is more students than are at the high school today. and that is because this building needs to last us 50 years, and there is evidence to suggest that the student population in Medford will increase by that much. The MSBA absolutely would not just sort of blanket give us space, like capacity in students that is not provable or warranted. So all of that, and there's a really detailed enrollment study that's available. I wrote a blog about it, so if I can send it to Sharon, if she wants to take a look at all the bits and parts. But it looked at everything from real estate in the city, planned construction, the MBTA Communities Act. It looked at all of the factors reasonably that we know about to come up with those numbers. And then the third thing was about the choices. So I would say we are following the MSBA process. We do have to pick this option before we can go into like a vote, so the vote that we're talking about of the community is the debt exclusion, that is next year. But in the meantime, you do have a say. Come to our meetings, you get to vote. There's lots of different ways we're asking people to vote and weigh in. And I think what we saw in terms of what the public was thinking about the 29 options really did make a difference. align very closely with how the options were down selected to six. So I'm anticipating that we'll be looking for the same kind of feedback. So you do get to vote, you just get to vote really early and with stickers and fuzzy craft balls instead of a paper ballot. And then you'll get to vote on the paper ballot next year. Does that answer them all, Sharon?

[SPEAKER_24]: So I'm just wondering, I know the idea, you know, courses that are needed are changing.

[Zac Bears]: Guys I think I think we've got to avoid the back and forth here but yeah if we could talk a little bit more about I mean it sounds like you talked about enrollment and you've done an extensive and we did look at birth rates and all of those things all that is part of the study that the MSP did. Great. Thank you. Any further comments from members of the public on this item. Seeing none, is there a motion? And mind you, this is the Capital Stabilization Fund Appropriation for the feasibility study for MSBA at Missittuck and Brooks Elementary Schools. Motion to approve by Councilor Callahan, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Malayne. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Yes, 079.

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

[George Scarpelli]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng?

[George Scarpelli]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Vice President Lazzaro? And President Bierce?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Sixteen affirmative, one absent. The motion passes. 070, sorry, 080 Capital Stabilization Fund Request, Mentored Public Schools Capital Improvement Plan. Dear President Bears and members of the city council, I respect the request and recommend that your honorable body approves the following appropriations from the Capital Stabilization Fund. Fire alarm replacements at Brooks, Missituk, and Roberts, 45,000 each. Phase 2 of the network refresh at every school, 425,000. Intercom upgrades at Andrews and McGlynn, 60,000 and 110,000. Cafeteria tables at the McGlynn, 35,000. Condenser at the McGlynn, 40,000. Doors and windows at the Andrews, 384,000. Doors and windows at the McGlynn, 269,000. Railings in the Cairn Theater at the high school, 20,000. Flooring and rug replacement at the auditorium and library at the McGlynn, 100,000. Drainage at Field and Turf Repair at the Brooks, 30,000. Curtain and Shade Replacement, McGlynn, 10,000. Window Screens at the McGlynn, 10,000. Auditorium Seating Repair at the McGlynn, 50,000. Auditorium Seating in the Front Row High School, 30,000. McGlynn Andrews Commissioning Repairs, 50,000. Karen Theater Lighting, 100,000. And that's it. As of the submission, Capital Stabilization Fund at $9,950,051. Ken and Jenny or Ken or Jenny or Mayor Kenny.

[Kenneth Lord]: So these projects almost all came from the facilities condition.

[Zac Bears]: Sorry Noel. Oh for the next one.

[Kenneth Lord]: Most of these, all these projects came from our facilities condition assessment report. So we had Habib and associates do a big examination of all our buildings. And then also we pulled input from principals, our own issues and things like that, came up with our capital plan. The capital plan is massive, multi-year. There's a lot of projects on there. So I don't know if there's specific questions about any individuals. Some of these items are studies to build specifications for a future year project.

[Zac Bears]: Could you specify which ones are the studies? The fire alarm ones were studies. Okay. Do we have any questions from members of the council about these requests? I just have one on the high school projects or I'll go to Council Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: It might be the same thing you were going to ask. The Karen Theater lighting at the high school for $100,000 plus I mean, I think the railings are important. I've been in the Karen Theater. My daughter does spotlight. It's not great. And for sure, railings seem important for accessibility and safety. My questions about the lighting, just about, you know, $100,000 in the scheme of $9.9 million situation. It's not a ton.

[Zac Bears]: That's not the request. That's the stabilization fund balance.

[Emily Lazzaro]: That's the fund balance.

[Zac Bears]: Great.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Good.

[Zac Bears]: I definitely reviewed this.

[Emily Lazzaro]: This is about $2 million.

[Zac Bears]: How much is it?

[Emily Lazzaro]: What's the total amount? It's a little bit less than $2 million. Great. It's still, in the scale of how much we're looking at here, it's not crazy, but I guess It's an obvious question. So can you explain to me why we need the theater lighting when we're planning to probably knock down the theater?

[Kenneth Lord]: So the house lighting system has failed.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Oh, it's not.

[Kenneth Lord]: So right now, to turn the house lights on and off, you have to go backstage and flip a circuit breaker.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Wow, cool. Love that. So that's why that project is there. OK, that's enough. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I was going to have a similar question. It sounds like the system has failed. It needs to be repaired.

[Kenneth Lord]: Yeah. It's a concern of being able to continue to use the theater until we can get to that part.

[Zac Bears]: It does seem like, in general, in this request, you're trying to minimize the request for the building.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, we definitely are. I mean, the capital planning process that we did took everything that Habib looked at and prioritized, like, what is the most pressing, urgent thing? And obviously, we didn't spend a lot of time trying to prioritize items at the high school. However, it is going to be years. We're not talking in months. We're talking in years. So there are some things that are failing at the high school. kind of don't have a choice but to address them right now. That's sort of where we're at. And the railing is truly an accessibility issue. The whole building is an accessibility issue. But that is a place where, like, something relatively small can make a big, big difference from an accessibility perspective for many.

[Zac Bears]: Got it. All right. Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I just think this really highlights how critical it is to as we carry forward with the new high school and all of these projects that we continue to keep in mind the how irresponsible it is to delay important maintenance work on our schools and all of our municipal buildings, all of the buildings that are owned by the city, that are our responsibility as residents and leaders to maintain in a rational, logical, responsible way. When we have new buildings, like we call all of the elementary schools and the middle schools, the new buildings, and now they're starting to fall apart because they have not been maintained. And also even when they were built, I won't get into it, but the way that we approach our municipal buildings should be with an eye toward not having to frantically you know, throw $100,000 at house lights so that the kids that are there at the high school right now can still have assemblies, can still turn the lights on, and can, and can use a railing to walk up the stairs. I am annoyed by this, and it's not you guys, obviously. But I'm, I'm glad, I'm happy to, of course, of course, we do all of these things. But, like, it's frustrating to see that, like, as we are We're like holding together with scotch tape this building as it crumbles around the students that are currently being educated in it. And it's not fair to them. So I get really frustrated by that, that we were irresponsible with their education. And we can't let it keep happening that way. So thank you for bringing it forward. Motion to approve.

[Zac Bears]: Motion to approve by Vice President Lazzaro, seconded by, seconded by Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion by members of the Council? Any discussion by members of the public? On the motion, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Zac Bears]: 7 in the affirmative, none in the negative, the motion passes. 26081 fiscal 25 prior year unpaid bill for public schools. Dear President Piers and city councilors, I respectfully recommend. Request to recommend that your honorable body approve the expenditure of fiscal year 2027 school department appropriations in the amount of $48,866.17 for the payment of prior fiscal year bills in accordance with Mass General Law Chapter 44, Section 64 as detailed in the enclosed documents respectfully submitted. Brigadier General Gohern, Mayor. We have a further. Memorandum from Chief Operating Officer Ken Lord to Finance Director Noel Velez. Gone Green unpaid bill, date April 1, 2026. We've received invoices totaling $48,866.17 from our electrical fire alarm contractor, Gone Green, from fiscal year 25 and earlier. We completed the work and received invoices via email, and the invoices were never processed for payment. It's unclear if failing to process these invoices was because of facilities or accounts payable to staff error. Gone Green sent the invoices but never followed up on payment until now. I'd recommend that we request permission to pay these invoices from this year's budget. I met with our staff and facilities to discuss the process and procedures for ensuring they properly pay invoices. They had already implemented improved record keeping this year prior to these overdue invoices being discovered. Going forward, we'll implement a process of regularly checking in with vendors to ensure they receive and pay invoices. Let me know if you have any questions. I'll turn it over to you guys.

[Kenneth Lord]: So as the memo is written, we were notified of these invoices being unpaid. It was quite a shock to us that they had never asked for payment usually. You know, they're beating down the doors for a check. It's really, we did an investigation. It's really unclear where the failure point was. Prior to these coming in, they had already started doing better record keeping, tracking of invoices, checking to make sure things were paid. So we've done an investigation. We've put extra precautions in place to make sure this does not happen again. But we do owe this money. It has been verified this work was completed. This was presented to the school committee and they did approve, but we also need your approval as well.

[Zac Bears]: All right, great. Do we have any questions from members of the council on this item? All right, I'll go to Councilor Scarpelli and then Councilor Malauulu.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President, through the chair. I'm sorry, just I can't accept that we don't know how it happened. There's got to be something more than that, guys. There's got to be. It's got to be. We got to figure that. We're looking at so many. fiscal issues right now. We're talking about millions and millions of dollars of a new high school. We're talking about upgrades. We're talking about not paying a bill and us not knowing about it, and we don't know where we made that mistake so it doesn't happen again. That's unacceptable. I'm sorry. I can't. As someone that is responsible for the fiscal future of this community and what goes on, there's got to be a better answer.

[Kenneth Lord]: So during our investigation, I can prove the emails were received. Because there was a very paper system involved, I cannot prove who didn't do the right thing next. There was some staffing changes in both departments that handled these bills at that time. Some of those people aren't here anymore. The e-mails were received. We can't find them in the records that they would then move from who received them to accounts payable to pay them. So we don't know if it was a failure in the facilities department or in the accounts payable. So that's where the failure is that I can't figure out now. after the fact, why they weren't paid. We had discussions with the people that were left behind here, why, and we were not able to find a reason why this happened. I agree, it's incredibly frustrating. I wish if it was an electronic system, I could track and prove what happened, but I have no way of doing that because it was called paper. Was it that the people who received the emails didn't print them? They say they did. If it wasn't, you know, they gave to accounts payable, they weren't processed. They say they didn't receive them. I'm not sure where to go from there. I don't know if you have any more to add to that.

[Noel Velez]: Yeah, we can add more to that. Definitely, this is unacceptable and I do agree with you on that. We have been working internally both with our accounts payable and meeting with not just this facilities director but other directors in making sure that we're running monthly open PO reports and we're running monthly bill statements to reach out to our vendors and making sure things are being paid on a timely manner. Now, this sadly came to our desk after the fact. We wish we had known. previously, of course, prior fiscal year to be responsible both to the taxpayers and their hard-earned money that they do pay to make sure that we are being respectful with our budget. And so, you know, this coming to the forefront definitely made us put a few more procedures in place in meeting with directors, holding directors responsible, but also holding our business office as a whole responsible and making sure that we're doing our part in running more reports and meeting with everyone monthly.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Scarpellilli.

[George Scarpelli]: Yeah. I understand my frustration. I don't. This happened within, what, five years ago?

[Kenneth Lord]: Within the past. These were FY25 invoices?

[George Scarpelli]: So it wasn't done with an abacus. It wasn't done years ago. You're making it sound like this was done. I just, I can't fathom that. I know if it was a dollar, but this is substantial money. We're talking about, we're talking about, Understand my frustration. It doesn't fall totally on what happened tonight. We're looking at a council that still hasn't received receivables of what monthly payroll systems and what's going on in the day-to-day function that we used to get on a regular basis with former administrations. This is very frustrating when you hear this, and the leaders of our school financial team says we just don't know where it is. I can't go on, I don't want to say anything that disrespects you two, but this is totally unacceptable. I will come back during the budget season. I hope you find a better answer during the budget season, because it can't be just We don't know who did it. It can't be. It can't be. I cannot move forward to what we're going to be presented from the school department for a budget, and our leaders in our financial world telling us, we just don't know where it is. We just don't know where it happened. Because you're telling me it was a paper pencil system or whatnot, or people left. That's not a reason right now. Take a deep breath, focus on, hopefully we get a better answer during the budget season because I'm going to ask. Okay, thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Go to Councilor Malauulu.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. I think you may have answered it, but just to kind of be, to wrap it up, you mentioned that putting more safeguards in place so something like this doesn't happen again. Do you mind just highlighting again what those are so that we know moving forward?

[Kenneth Lord]: Sure. So prior to this year, when invoices were received, they were just printed, signed on them, paper sent off to be paid. They're now tracking each invoice number on a spreadsheet, making sure. So we have what are called blanket POs to a vendor like Gone Green. So those POs are now being tracked individually with the invoice numbers noted and tracked. And then we are now going back to the contractor on a regular basis verifying that we have all the invoices. Hey, do we pay this? Do we check this? Verifying the work is done and making sure that we have the invoices properly done. Most of that process is put in place before they've even discovered that these invoices weren't paid because of staffing changes and other things.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Just to make sure I understand it, the people who didn't get their money was this company and they didn't ask for it for over a year. So we didn't have any... there's no like missing money from our end. It's we didn't catch these invoices and then we never paid them.

[Kenneth Lord]: Right, so instead of expending this funds in FY25, we need permission to pay for it in FY26 from our operating budget.

[Zac Bears]: All right, and so basically what happened here, if I understand it correctly, maybe that money was used for a year-end transfer or something else when it should have gone to this. Yeah. Okay, well, you know, and I think that that's, Something we need to catch. It sounds like could you talk a little bit more. It sounds like you are you using an electronic system now or are we still on the kind of paper trail.

[Kenneth Lord]: So the once the spread is all tracked on spreadsheets and what's put into our the city financial system for payment. So there is still some paper trail in the middle but now there's processes in place to make sure that it gets processed correctly.

[Zac Bears]: So this couldn't happen now.

[Kenneth Lord]: I damn well hope not. We are checking and checking. We're having monthly meetings, going through everything we possibly can to make sure, because it's not just about the fact that they didn't get paid. It's about tracking our own budget, how much money we have left. Most of these invoices were in the fall of 24. So if I was here at that time and they just showed up in the spring of 25, And same fiscal year, I'd be like, well, wait a second. How am I going to have $48,000 to pay for these things if I'm not tracking what I'm spending going along? So it's incredibly important that as we do work, we know how much we're anticipating to spend on these things so we can, you know, manage what we're doing and how we're doing it. So it's just serving on multiple levels.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Thank you. I'm going to go to Councilor Callahan, then Councilor Lazzaro, then Councilor Scarpellilli.

[Anna Callahan]: So I know that we have approved the funding for a like to update our financial software and that will take you know five years to get all the branches of city government to be trained and to have everything moved over. It sounds like what you've put together is a combination of financial software emails spreadsheets. in-person meetings and double-checking. Is the new financial software, will it get rid of some of these extra things that you need to do? Is that financial software, do you think, gonna be able to help us to track these things?

[Kenneth Lord]: So we moved to Munis in my prior district. I used to work in Wilmington. And the process in that system is when an invoice comes in, if it's electronic already, it's uploaded into the system, or you scan it into the system. Each invoice has a barcode. It's tied to an invoice. So if you need to look back at records, it's all in the system. That's all paper right now. It's all in file cabinets and things. I would say.

[Noel Velez]: Same process in Chelsea when I was working in Chelsea. Yeah. Invoice would come in. Everything was paperless in Chelsea actually. We went paperless in 2018 and to prevent paper invoices being missing. Yes.

[Anna Callahan]: Sounds like the answer is yes. That it will in fact prevent all these problems.

[Noel Velez]: But you said it right though. Proper training. Proper procedures put into place. You just can't you can't invest this much in a munis program and making sure that we don't have procedures put into place.

[Anna Callahan]: And it'll take up to five years for the entire city to yeah lots of modules to lots of conversion and training. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I used to work at the high school I used to work for the superintendent and I remember. And this is partially just because of how I am doing paperwork, which is not great. But I would get a request for reimbursement for someone from the school committee for something, an expense they had that was reimbursable, and I would have to do a PO to get the reimbursement and the amount of paperwork to just reimburse a school committee member that I had to do, I could absolutely see, and this is not an excuse, it shouldn't be this way, but I could absolutely see how you could just lose it, you could just lose it, because you know what, it's hard to do. And it's a ton, it's an unreasonable amount of work to receive an email and be required to print the email in order to pay a bill. And I I'm hearing you guys say that this is not the process anymore. And when Councilor Callahan asked if you that about the new system is that citywide or is that just the schools. So that means. Right. OK. So you're saying the paper process that's in the middle is that the paper process still exists. And will that be the case even with the new system. OK. So once that's implemented we will have no paper process.

[Kenneth Lord]: So there are still instances where vendors will send you things on paper. That's fine. That's fine. But it all has to be brought in. That's on them. Yes.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Electron. Electron, yes. Sure. Somebody's like a landscaping company, and they send you an invoice. That's fine. Whatever. But we will not be required to take any papers and staple a thing to it and put a stamp on it. The stamp. Ridiculous.

[Kenneth Lord]: Upload it right to the system and pay for it.

[Emily Lazzaro]: It's taken way too long. I feel that I must tie this into what we were just talking about with the delayed maintenance, that this feels like a very late stage globally for us to be having this discussion. It's a great example of what happens when you don't adopt technology. Not you guys. It's not you guys. It's when you take a long time to adopt technology that's going to avoid mistakes that happen because human beings are prone to making mistakes like this. I just, it's, it was one thing when I thought it was like one unpaid bill. I didn't realize it was like 30 unpaid bills. Thirty invoices. It's crazy. But I can also completely see how it would happen. I found it so onerous to do those reimbursements. And I think when I left, I didn't even do one for Paul. So I hope he got reimbursed. He's still on the school committee. I think he must have. The point is, I think that it's a great articulation of why, you know, when we debate things like this, like is it really necessary for us to pay a large amount of money up front for a system that's going to be making things supposedly easier? But it's like the, you know, you can really see the effect sometimes of what can happen if you're not, utilizing things that can pave the way and avoid mistakes like this. I'm glad you caught it. And also it's not an excuse for somebody to not have asked again. They asked like they asked with the invoice in the first place. I do appreciate receiving this. I mean frustration or not motion to approve.

[George Scarpelli]: Councilor Scarpelli. Thank you. I just, again, my frustration doesn't fall on you two. I hope you understand that. I apologize if I came off on that. Please come back to work tomorrow. I will be. The trend is frightening. And I don't, when we have good employees, sometimes when they are given the abacus and said, you know, instead of Munis, because I work with Munis every day. It has all the fail safes, and that's why I fully supported the function. Unfortunately, it does take years to train everybody, because that's the biggest piece of it. It's just not a software. It's a software that everybody has to align to it. And getting everybody aligned with all of our city departments is going to be pretty exciting. But my frustration comes in with the totality of what we're seeing. So I hope you understand that. If it came off that way, I apologize. I just wanted to hopefully say that. So thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks. And just to be clear, I'm actually just noticing something on the paper itself. Is this an expenditure of fiscal 26 already appropriated school funds for this purpose? Like it's, are we just authorizing you to spend on a bill from a previous year using your existing allocation? Yes, yes, yes.

[Kenneth Lord]: I haven't made the PO yet because I need your permission to make the PO. He's got to come out of our existing current budget. Yes.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, it says fiscal year 27 on the paper we got from the mayor. Oh, no.

[Noel Velez]: So we're not, no, no, we're not going to. Yeah. I don't want to wait until July 1. I'd rather not.

[Zac Bears]: I'd like to do it then. Well, then we should amend and, I mean, to be honest, I'm not even 100% sure. It's a Scribner's error and like. I think we should amend that to say fiscal 26. Yes, please. Thank you. But I also don't know if we can, because it's an appropriation from the mayor. Oh, so she has to do it. Does it have to go back to her? I don't know. I mean, I think let's vote it.

[George Scarpelli]: Why don't we make the motion to make that correction, and then in lieu of the mayor.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I would just check in with the mayor. So we don't have to come back to us. But they don't have anyone from finance here tonight from their end. or yeah, so I don't think the Chief of Staff's here either. So is there a motion to approve with the amendment that this should read fiscal year 2026? By Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Vice President Lazzaro. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Mulling? Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. President Pierce?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. So the affirmative, non-negative, the motion passes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Thank you very much, everybody. Thanks.

[Zac Bears]: All right, so we got like eight more things to do tonight, so everybody stop talking. 26023 offered by Councilor Leming, proposed amendments to the Medford Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 94, Medford Square District. And we do have, I believe Director Hunt was here. She's still here on Zoom. But we do have, I don't know, Matt, if you want to share the map or the text at all. But we have the final draft of our proposed Medford Square District Zoning Ordinance. This has been through innumerable public meetings, most recently several sessions between this body and the Community Development Board. And we are here tonight with a map and final CDB recommendations. I'll recognize you, Councilor Leming, for a short summary, and then Director Hunt for another short summary, and then let's get going.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you. I'd like to apologize to everybody who saw this as the first item under motions. orders and resolutions on the agenda and are now here at 9 p.m. No, so this was the result of months and months of planning, false starts and stops, collaboration, several different joint hearings between the City Council and the Community Development Board. to rezone Medford Square. I'm going to leave it to Director Hunt to give an overview. We talked before the meeting and she has comparison maps to present to the public. on what was originally proposed, what's changed throughout the process. There were some, some of the most substantial changes had to do with differences in parking, reclassification of some of the districts from the old, from the MX1 to et cetera system to Medford Square specific districts, and increased historic, preservation steps, but I would be interested to hear what, I would be interested to hear Director Hunt's comments on it, and I'd also motion to approve the package.

[Zac Bears]: All right, I recognize Alicia Hunt. If you want to share those maps and a quick presentation, and then we'll move to discussion. Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: Good evening. Thank you. Um, as we discussed I don't have slides I just have the maps, but as a Councilor Leming mentioned this. I did sort of check some dates on this this was first presented to the. City Council in meetings in March of 2025. There were a number of meetings and public hearings and information sessions during the spring and summer of 2025 on Medford Square. That process, as you all know, stopped. In January, we restarted. In January, this is the map that was in front of the City Council. One of the things that was agreed upon at that time was to remove anything that was pure residential from this. So I'm going to show you in a minute the map that we're voting on this evening. But these pure residential areas were removed from the map, as well as a couple other little pieces that were truly residential areas that would never be really mixed use. Through this process, we actually, as the councilor alluded to, tried something new, which was joint public hearings with the city council and the community development board, which I believe was actually quite successful in allowing the public to speak to both bodies at the same time, the both bodies to hear the same presentations from the consultant, and to ask each other questions, which I think was super helpful in coming pretty quickly to a final version of this. The colors did change on here. Some of the members of the Community Development Board simply had trouble distinguishing between the shades of the colors that were on the other map. So this just reflects trying to make it a little easier. This final version has a couple of areas that are we also called this Medford square zoning rather than mixed use zoning to distinguish it from other parts of the city recognizing the unique nature of Medford square. So these purple light purple areas very light purple are four stories by right with one story with incentive zoning where a consultant can do things that would be beneficial to the community in order to get another floor on their building. The pale blue areas are five stories by right with two stories of incentive zoning. This large area is the old Medford High School, and we all wish that Medford High School could come back to Medford Square, but that is not happening. It was great for the economic development. There are a few things I'll just sort of mention. For example, the cemetery, we put it in that. It could have been in anything. Nobody is taking a 1600 cemetery and ever building on it. It is protected land, but it does need to have zoning on it. So it got that zoning, for example. The green is seven by right, two with incentive zoning, two more incentive, and then the eight here by the highway is eight stories by right, five incentive zoning. And that actually reflects that these buildings down here are both over 12 stories tall. So this would make them conforming buildings. However, they still remain somewhat nonconforming because they're set back in a sea of parking. Along those lines, we some of the things that were worked out most recently were incentives and waivers that encourage the preservation of historically significant buildings. One of so one of the things that has been a little bit of a stress is what caused what Qualifies as high frequency transit. We did not touch that definition, but rather said that Medford square has a lot of transit. If you want to be high frequency transit and get if you want to just get reduced parking, you can do a couple of things. 1 of them is preserving the historic facades of your building. But you want to go up a story, then you can get the .8 parking because you preserve the historicness of the building. Some other things are you can meet some additional transportation demand management techniques that include more bike parking, one bike parking spot per unit, loading zone for commercial vehicles, 15-minute pickup drop-off space, and joining the local transportation management association. which also involves then additional benefits to the residents of that building to encourage shared use or using them. transportation. One of the other things that in our last meeting, there was a lot of angst around how did you show that a building has plenty of daylight, the clarification of daylight minimum. And what we realized was we were actually having a translation miscommunication, that it is in fact the shadow studies. Like, of course, a shadow study shows us how much sunlight is on a building. It's literally the inverse. So we basically said that the buildings must have a minimum amount of daylight on the buildings, the ones across the street from the new building. And the way you will show that is by showing us a shadow study from the correct days and times of times of day. And so that was really simplified things. Every architect in the United States knows what a shadow study is. So those are basically the things that we resolved since our last public meeting, and we believe this is now ready to go. We did include the library in the zoning. Again, nobody's about to tear down our brand new library, but if this zoning sticks around for 50 to 100 years, there should be zoning on that, and it should be a mixed-use zone, not a residential zone. So that's, I think, the only other noticeable change from this one. Any questions? We ready? That's it. It's late.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Do we have any questions? Director Hunt, could you go through the meetings really quickly? How many meetings we had on this?

[Alicia Hunt]: Sure. So actually, I had our intern, Paul Christian, has been wonderful. So overall, he found that we had had 16 public meetings focused on Medford Square. Some were joint with West Medford from back then. We've had five public information sessions. And we've actually had 99 written and verbal public comments specifically about the squares. And then if you were to include all the general zoning comments, we actually had 225. But these were specifically for the squares between both last summer and now. And this most recent, we had four joint City Council Community Development Board joint hearings. three public information sessions, one at the Senior Center during the day, one at the McGlynn School at night, and one morning during a snowstorm on Zoom with the Chamber of Commerce. We were going to go in person until we had a blizzard. And then the Community Development Board had a couple of working sessions with the consultant, where they just sort of got some better understanding and worked through some things. But then they had one, they had on May 15, April 15, their public hearing, that was the, where they made these final recommendations. And their recommendation was unanimously to adopt this version of the map in the zoning language that is on the City Council agenda tonight.

[Zac Bears]: All right, Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: I wasn't tracking. Did that include the internal meetings that we had about this, that count that we just had?

[Alicia Hunt]: No, those were just the public meetings.

[Matt Leming]: Oh, OK.

[Alicia Hunt]: I did not actually go back and check how many internal meetings because, you know, we have. Would you count the times that we sat around the planning office talking with the staff between ourselves before we made comments to other people as well as as internal meetings? Yeah. These were just the public meetings.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, sorry, I'm just beating a dead horse here. And this also, what we also need to consider is the many, many meetings that went into the Medford Comprehensive Plan as well as the previous plans that were made in, I believe, 2005 and 2017 for reimagining Medford Square. So there has been, quite a bit of thought and effort behind this, and I'm glad that we are finally at the finish line for this particular piece of zoning. Once again, it's late. We've had a lot of discussion on this. I have a motion to approve.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Do we have any further discussion by members of the council? Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, President Bears. First, I want to thank our Planning, Development, and Sustainability Department, NS Associates, and the Community Development Board for their work on this. These weren't always easy conversations, but they were thoughtful ones, and I think this proposal is stronger because of that engagement. I think as we have noted tonight and many times before, this has been years in the making, and we're finally meeting a major milestone. When we knock on doors here in Medford, people don't usually come up to us talking about zoning. But they do ask why their kids can't afford to live in the city where they grew up. They ask why storefronts in the square sit empty for years and why this square doesn't feel as bustling as it can be. They see that Medford Square has real potential. And we can all feel it when we walk by Mrs. Murphy's, Alta Cuba, Deep Cuts. But we also all know that the bigger picture isn't quite there yet. So they ask why a place they love can feel stuck. And often the same breath, they'll say that they love Medford Square's historic character, It's neighborhood feel, and that's what makes it special. I don't see these as competing values. I see all of this as one community asking us to do both, and that's exactly what this proposal tries to deliver. I want to push back on the framing that this is some binary choice between growth or preservation, new housing or neighborhood character. I don't think it has to be, and I'd go further saying that Doing nothing has never been a neutral option. Our zoning status quo was itself a choice, a choice that came with real costs for young people being priced out, for small businesses trying to survive on the block without enough foot traffic, for downtown that has the bones to be something great and hasn't been allowed to get there yet. This ordinance says yes and. Yes to more housing while protecting surrounding neighborhoods with mandatory step backs, landscape buffers and sunlight protections. Yes to additional height, but not as a giveaway to developers. We say yes when our community gets more affordable units, more public space, more support for local businesses and nonprofits. That's very intentionally designed into this ordinance and it matters. This ordinance says yes to new growth and yes to preserving what makes Medford Square worth growing. This plan makes it easier to adaptively reuse our historic buildings and not tear them down. Because we recognize that a square that loses its history in the name of development isn't a success. But a square that stays frozen in the name of preservation isn't one either. We're saying yes to finally taking advantage of what's coming. Medford Square is on track to become a real transit hub with increased bus service, direct connections to the T. And that's a once in a generation opportunity. But transit-oriented development only works when people actually live nearby, when people actually can get connected. It works when businesses have a customer base, and this plan gives us the tools to build one right where we need it most. A city that can't make room for future generations or for the people who already built their lives here isn't preserving something. It's deciding who gets to stay. And I don't think that's the Medford we want to be. We can welcome growth and we can protect what people love about this place. We don't have to choose between one or the other. We can choose good planning and good governance instead. We've worked really hard to get to this point, and I'm really proud of the work that we've accomplished. I know people have feelings about this not going far enough or going too far, but I think this shows an earnest effort to listen to everyone. And I would encourage everyone to vote yes tonight.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. I definitely share a lot of the thoughts that you brought forward. And I think one thing we just need to be aware of is we're putting this into place and then we're going to see if it works. And if we don't see the kind of growth and change that we want to see or if there are pieces of it that need to be adjusted, then we need to continue to iterate and update and improve our zoning. So we're going to have something to work through. We're going to have something to help us build a new future for Medford Square and it's come out of a lot of work. And I really hope that it's the start of a continued commitment to regularly look at our zoning to make sure that we are building the types of buildings that we want to see here in our city. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Again, to elaborate what Councilor Leming was saying, I think that what he was bringing forward was the concerns we had and we heard at the beginning of the process is that we just weren't listening. And we weren't bringing the information to the neighborhoods. And I think that working with our partners in the Community Development Board and listening to their expertise and really, for me, what really excited me is the fact that the people that have to listen to the process, and that's our Community Development Board, and understand what the hurdles were and the differences were and bringing everybody together in a meeting and sharing those thoughts and then listening to community members and really bringing those meetings to them and then bringing it back over and over again. I think that we have really a true picture of what everybody who wanted to be part of the process took advantage of being part of the process. And that's why I feel comfortable today that is it in everybody's eyes the best options? No. Still hear it from both sides. But the bottom line is this is what democracy is about. This is what the process that we were talking about at the beginning and that I first complain so much about but I appreciate for this council to work together and partner with the Community Development Board and then really work with Alicia Hunt and bringing the team together and then bringing it out to the public and listening to everybody. I mean something simple as just the map in front of us and understanding the different color codes so it's understood for the common person, that it makes it a little bit easier, makes a huge difference. So that's why I'll be supporting this, and I hope everybody follows suit. So thank you, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: There was a motion at some point. I can't remember who made it. It was Councilor Leming? Yes. The clerk actually just asked him before I said that out loud. I would have sounded so much smarter if I'd asked our acting clerk, Alicio. Councilor Leming made a motion to approve the version accepting all of the recommendations of the Community Development Board as well as the zoning map and ordained the Medford Square District. Great. So it's a motion to accept the recommendations of the Community Development Board and adopt the proposed Medford Square zoning district ordinance and map to be ordained, seconded by Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion by members of the council? Any discussion by members of the public? I see a Community Development Board member. I don't know if you want to share anything. You don't have to, no pressure. Thumbs up. We got a thumbs up. All right. On the motion, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes, I'm in the affirmative, none the negative, the motion passes. Medford Square Zoning District is ordained. Great job, everybody.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you and have a good evening.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Director Hunt. All right, 25189 offered by President Bears, amendment to chapter two, article five, division two, Medford standard compensation ordinance. So we met on this in committee of the whole two weeks ago, and there was a motion to refer out the version as amended by myself based on, you know, we had, I think it's now version 5 but this is the version that includes many of the items that we wanted to see. We had a pretty robust discussion somewhat on the merits of this ordinance, you know, at least to start and then we got a little sidetracked and distracted by some, I don't even know how to characterize it but, you know, what do they call that, the dog wagging the tail, the tail wagging the dog? And what we have before us tonight, we had a pretty extensive discussion and we also heard from legal experts and others who said this is something that we see in other communities and is, you know, more than within our authority to implement. So, that's where we're at. I don't think we've received further communications. I don't know if there's any other councilors. I know Councilor Tseng made that motion. Other councilors spoke if they want to speak to this. I am the lead sponsor. And I did, you know, do the initial drafting and the latest draft. So if there's anything other councilors want to add, my feeling is to move to a first reading, but I will go to Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: I would recommend moving to first reading as well. I'll make that motion. I strongly support this ordinance. I think, I mean, I've kind of said this at the committee, the whole meeting a few weeks ago, or when we last met on it. I think at the core, this is about a pretty simple principle. It's about saying that when our city spends public dollars, those dollars shouldn't drive down labor standards. We should be in charge of uplifting them. I know it was a sensitive kind of moment when the school district switched janitorial contractors. A lot of the workers who'd done this work for years lost their jobs overnight. And they were replaced by workers who were making less with fewer protections as well. That happened right here in Medford. And it happened because we didn't have a floor. And I think it's really important to say plainly that too often it can be easy in government to reduce workers to line items on a spreadsheet. But these are people. They're people supporting families. They're people paying rent in an increasingly expensive region. They're people who are doing essential work that keeps our city running. And this ordinance really recognizes that. If you say you contract with the city, there are basic standards that you'll have to meet around wages, benefits, paid leave, creating a floor. And just as importantly, it's about including transparency and enforcement into the process, because we can set standards, but without accountability, it doesn't mean very much. I think this is, at the end of the day, really just about what role we want our local governments to play. We should be using public dollars to support decent work and to strengthen the community we all serve. And it's not some abstract ideological statement to say that. It's practical, it's fair, and it's overdue. Our city should stand up and say that we value the people whose labor keeps this place running, who've built the city and made it what it is. I'll, again, motion to approve this for first reading and I urge my colleagues to support it too.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I do appreciate all the work that everyone has done on this. I just want to tie in a little bit the relationship between democracy and inequality. You know, in urban planning graduate school many years ago, inequality was my primary focus. And one thing that people who study inequality understand is that when inequality gets really high, that's when democracies fail. And I think we are in a moment right now where our inequality in the United States is higher than it was in 1929, which is the highest that it had been for a hundred years. So I think it's really imperative that as a society we think about these things more carefully and we don't allow ourselves to get into situations like what we are in now. You know, all the pressure on every city is to pay less and less and less. All the pressure on every company is to pay less and less and less. And unfortunately, there are dire consequences, not just for the people who are being paid so little, but on all of us. So I will be supporting this. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan. We have a motion from Councilor Tseng to approve for first reading, seconded by. Seconded by Councilor Callahan. Is there any further discussion by members of the council? Seeing none, any further discussion by members of the public, either in person or on Zoom. See our former facilities director, Paul Riggi. Paul, name and address for the record, please.

[Paul Righi]: Paul Riggi, former director of facilities for the city of Medford. I just have a couple of questions. For clarification, this was the version of this draft ordinance that was redlined during the Committee of the Whole meeting. Is that correct?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Paul Righi]: Was this version of the ordinance reviewed by city legal counsel or legal counsel representative for the city of Medford?

[Zac Bears]: It was submitted to council. We haven't received a reply for several weeks.

[Paul Righi]: This version?

[Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Paul Righi]: Okay. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right. Seeing no further discussion on the motion to approve for first reading, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malayne? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng?

[George Scarpelli]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. President Pierce?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Assembly affirmative, none of the negative, the motion passes. 26-077 offered by President Bears, Councilor Scarpelli, and Councilor Tseng, resolution to file a public records request for comprehensive litigation report due to the administration's failure to respond to Resolution 26-043, whereas on February 24th, 2026, the Medford City Council unanimously voted to approve Council Resolution 26-043 to request that the mayoral administration produce a comprehensive litigation report on all legal matters since 2019. And whereas in spite of the council's resolution and over 60 days having passed for the administration to reply, the administration has not responded. And whereas President Obama said, quote, the Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption. In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. And, whereas the residents of Medford who fund our city government through taxes and fees deserve to know how money is being spent and whether the administration's strategic and procedural approach to litigation is prudent and effective, now, therefore, be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we, as a body, make a request for public records to the City of Medford under the provisions of the Massachusetts Public Records Act, General Law, Chapter 66, Section 10, asking that the city produce records pertaining to all lawsuits, claims, administrative proceedings, arbitration proceedings, and or other legal actions in which the city of Medford and or Breanna Lungo-Koehn in her capacity as mayor of the city of Medford is or was a named party. Be it further resolved that we respectfully request that our colleagues on the council support this resolution and the draft public records request attached. There's attached public records request. I encourage folks to read it. It's about four pages long. It's also available as part of the agenda on the website, but I'm just going to read the resolution for now. And this is a response to our resolution February 24th where we requested a comprehensive litigation report. The council did receive an email today at 3 something p.m., 3.13 p.m. I'm writing on the above resolution. As you know, this is an especially busy period with the budget season, MSBA zoning, Medford Square, and trying to keep pace with the council. We wanted to let you know that we have begun reviewing the council's resolution as part of comprehensive litigation review. The attached document was prepared in connection with the process. Of course, the council may proceed as it sees fit with the new resolution, but I wanted to make you aware. that we've been working on this and they attached a document that is essentially just a summary of the resolution we sent them two months ago and not necessarily an accurate summary of that resolution. So they turned our resolution back into bullet points and we found that out today at 3-15, two months after our resolution. I have some issues with the idea that they're, this is a good faith and timely response to our resolution. With that, I'll turn it over to my colleagues, Councilor Scarpelli and then Councilor Tseng.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I felt like my frustration earlier played a big part of what we're dealing with this and, you know, the communication we're getting with the Chief of Staff. I want the public to realize that this doesn't normally happen in other communities. You have an administration that actually works hand-in-hand with your city council and your school committee to to support the best course of action for your community and the way we're spending our money especially. I felt this is important that we move this forward to the FOIA request for the fact that I couldn't vote for the budget in the coming weeks and months that if we don't know the true picture of where our money is being spent, I've been on the soapbox for many years now asking about and pleading for a breakdown and unfortunately it's taken us to this point right now. when you're seeing over 500% increase in lawsuits dealing with our own labor force, and you're seeing processes where the administration brings this to arbitration or bring this to court and they lose, but then follow up with an appeal knowing that it won't win. And as we're seeing more and more information, as we're going to more and more executive meetings and looking at the money that we're being spent, we're not seeing the true picture. And what is the true picture? Let's say we settle on a lawsuit of $50,000. What we're not seeing is the cost of the legal fees for our attorney, but then the legal fees for the opposing attorneys. And then we're hearing facts that our part of these discussions or situations are being investigated by private investigators. And in many years, I haven't seen a line for private investigators fees. And these are the things that are now popping up and becoming prevalent in the fact that We want to know where our money is going. And we've been asking, and we've been asking politely, we've been asking the process, and it just doesn't come out. And to my frustration today, we've always, with the former finance director, Aleesha Nunley, she used to give us a report that our finance director has now, it's the same system. And she would give us a breakdown on a monthly basis of what our actuals were that month. So we at least knew what we were paying out. And we would at least have the opportunity to ask questions where we're spending our money, the city's money, our residents' money, right? We don't even see that. The fact then to get this email today at 315 saying that we're working on it because we're working so hard. Here's a hint to the administration. Hire a city solicitor and our chief of staff wouldn't have to worry about doing this. It's not your job. But again, these are the issues that we're having. Think of the hours that have to go through to do this for us now from a person that's really not qualified to do it. The city solicitor does this. This is their job. And it's a shame that we have to go to these lengths to get information so we can answer to the constituents that voted us into this position to say, yes, this is where the money's going, and we have proof of this, and let's move on. That's all it is. Because I've said this 1,000 times. I'm not saying anybody's doing anything illegal. What I'm saying is, over and over again, we're seeing mismanagement of the city's finances. Now, this just isn't KP law, so what we got back today was just, it was, like Council President said, it was a list of what we asked for, but it wasn't just that. What we're asking in this request goes deeper. It's asking for the what, the where, the how, and the why. so we can answer the questions or end the discussion. But right now, the proof that we've seen, what we've sat through in executive sessions, what we sat through for head of unions coming in front of us, the phone calls we've received from fire, from police, from DPW, the battles that are going on hurting good people that are working hard for this community, and the fear tactics, and the low morale that's now in this workforce. This is why we need this information. Because I've heard it over and over again, I'm sure you all have too. When the mayor presents the fact that she's here to save the city from the bad employees that were brought in from the prior administration, That's getting old. That's getting old. We're here, we're in this position right now where we're hurting financially because our mayor didn't do anything but fight developers on projects that are happening now, three, four years ago, that she fought in court, lost in court, appealed, lost, but got to a point where those developers just couldn't wait anymore, they moved on. They're growing communities like Watertown and Waltham and Malden. So, Mr. President, I will not, I will stick with the original plan. I will ask my colleagues to sign this document tonight, hand this to the clerk and move this on for a full request for Freedom of Information Act for what we've requested and what we've been asking for, again, because I cannot I cannot vote on this year's budget until we see all of the why, the how, and the where. So thank you, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, Mr. President. Look, I think a lot has been said about this online and in the press. Lots of accusations being thrown. But at its core, I think this is a pretty straightforward request, and I hope we can treat it that way. I don't see this as being about personalities or politics. I think it's about oversight and good governance. I think it's the type of work that we all came here to do. When we see these legal disputes accumulate, when we see labor conflicts drag on, when we see costs mount without clear public accounting, that has real consequences. It has real consequences for taxpayers, for government, and for the people who do the work of the city every day, for the people working at City Hall and the DPW and our police stations and fire stations and our schools. And I think it's reasonable, and I'd say it's our job, for the council to ask for a clearer picture of that and to get a response. This isn't really about assigning blame, it's about understanding where we are. identifying whether there are lessons that we can draw from this, and making sure that we're managing public resources thoughtfully. Because every dollar that's spent on an avoidable conflict is a dollar that's not going to our schools, our streets, our city services. And every dispute that we can resolve more effectively strengthens City Hall as a whole as well. I also want to say I'm not signing on to something like this lightly. I value the working relationships we have across the hall, across city government, including with this administration. But I signed on to this precisely because I think this is a request that's measured. I think it's reasonable. I think it's consistent with the basic principles of what government is supposed to be doing and how we run a good government that's accountable and transparent to the people. We're not asking for privileged information. We're not trying to relitigate old disputes. We're just asking for information that helps all of us plan. We've heard it said a lot in this chamber that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Transparency shouldn't be something that we fear. It should be something that helps this council, helps the administration, helps our employees and the public do a better job running the city together. This is constructive, it's not adversarial, and I hope we can receive it in that spirit. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. And I don't intend to undercut your message with mine, but I think when something is presented like this, requesting pretty simple question, how much money have we spent on lawyers and lawsuits and litigation and settlements when we lose most of the time? And what is the prudent and effective strategy or lack thereof that we're following as a city when it comes to those questions? And is it worth it for our community to be in a constant battle where the people who work for the city and the people who run the city are just constantly fighting and can't work together as a team and are afraid to speak out or afraid to speak up or afraid to speak their mind. That I think is a question of judgment and a question of leadership and I think if we can't even get the answer to the question how much money did we spend on this, how often are we winning, how often are we losing, how many of these things could have been avoided if we'd taken a different approach. I think that's a question that a lot of people have. It's a question that I have and it's something that needs to be answered. So I agree that I think those should be pretty simple questions to answer. And I think we should, if we are doing a good job, we should be able to have that discussion right here in the room. And I especially think that when the response to a resolution like this is to talk about elections and talk about who, which Councilor is working with which other Councilor to take me down, or the fact that there's been more things filed since we filed this resolution, and that there are more issues now than there were two months ago. And there's no job posting on the city website for a city solicitor. It's not even posted to find someone, at least it wasn't when I looked last week. And I hope it goes up and I hope we find someone, but it seems like the continued approach that is not working for most people, that is creating strife and conflict, and until we see otherwise is costing the city money, is the path that we're gonna continue to go on. And to be frank, I think there's news today that underlines this more than anything about how selective this approach is. There were residents who filed today in federal court to defend the ordinances of the city of Medford. Every single elected official in this city takes an oath to defend the ordinances of the city of Medford. And it's literally an open question right now whether the mayor and the city are going to defend the ordinances of the city of Medford. to the point that residents had to file in court to defend the ordinances, because they don't know if the city's gonna do it. So when there's something that the mayor agrees with, and she wants to pursue something to the end, like suing affordable housing developers for 40B projects, that goes for years in court and delays affordable housing and housing projects that would help the city revenue by years. But when there's something the mayor doesn't agree with, like an ordinance that says we don't think we should invest a part of the city's cash reserves in weapons manufacturers, we think about just not defending the ordinances of the city of Medford in federal court and letting someone who sues define what the laws of this city are by their opinion and not the democratically elected opinion of this city government by our charter and by the laws and constitution of the commonwealth. That is not a prudent and effective litigation strategy. That is not good government. And if we can't even answer the question, how much have we spent in the last five years on outside lawyers and settlements? You know, I don't care, you know, when a vehicle hits another vehicle, if someone crashes into or a fire truck bumps another vehicle and that costs the city $3,000, that's a normal thing. When there are... dozens of employment settlements for tens of thousands of dollars. And when there are other issues where you just have workers of this city basically saying, my rights have not been respected, that's a different story. I just don't think the strategy is prudent and effective. I don't think it's serving the residents. And I think we need to be able to answer some of the very simple questions included in this ordinance if we're gonna continue to justify the approach that's being taken on legal and contract matters in this city. So that's my tune here on this. And it maybe is a little different than what some of my fellow colleagues said, but I'm pretty much at my wits end here. I just don't think this is working for the city. Thank you. Any further discussion by members of the council? On the motion to approve by Councilor Tseng, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli, is there any discussion by members of the public? Please raise your hand on Zoom or approach the podium in person. Start at the podium, name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.

[Micah Kesselman]: Sure, Micah Kesselman, 499 Main Street. Like Council President Bears alluded to, many of you may have heard that this morning there's an announcement that a cohort of residents of the city intend to intervene and enter into the defense of the city with regards to the Chairtook v. City of Medford lawsuit raised against it. Well, the good news is that lawsuit or that intervention has indeed been filed. And it's interesting that you talk a little bit about this issue of having an absence of city solicitor and city representation. and legal counsel. What you may not know is that when a lawsuit is filed or a motion is filed or really any sort of pleading is put into a case, it has to go through, usually it's filed through an electronic court docket system. It's called CMECF. It automates a lot of the core components of performing the filings of a case, like providing service of motions and pleadings to parties in a dispute. It turns out that in cases where one of the parties has not had their counsel make an appearance, it actually becomes impossible to have that automatically provide service to the council or to that party in the dispute, which is really unfortunate. And that's really because the city doesn't have an active city solicitor and it doesn't seem to have assigned an attorney out of that case, which is too bad. It doesn't seem right to me. I'm not the city's attorney. I'm not the city's council. However, I am co-council for the cohort of Medford residents that filed this litigation this afternoon. And I am co-counsel with the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee that is representing on the case, as well as a pro bono attorney from New York who's very accomplished and has done many intervention cases similar to this one. And one of the things I would like to present to the council is, Councilors, if you could please hand this to and that should constitute actually service on the city of our motion to intervene in this litigation. Thank you, council.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm going to go to Zoom. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes. Yeah, we can hear you.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you. I don't know what I'm going to say, but I'll make it brief. In the name of common sense, it seems to me that the taxpayers are paying these lawsuits. So what more should I say? It should have been disclosed and transparent all around for many decades. Good night.

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

[Sam Goldstein]: Hi, Sam Goldstein, 29 Martin Street. I guess I support what the council is doing in trying to get answers on this. I guess I find myself wondering if, you know, why it's taken so long. If I'm not mistaken, this, you know, was first requested. you know, weeks, if not months ago. And I guess I just find myself wondering, like, does the city not have this information, like, in a sort of easily accessible source? You know, like, is this politically motivated, this apparent, like, foot-dragging? But I mean, in all seriousness, like, genuine question, like, how is this, like, sort of, you know, kept and understood? But yeah, I mean, I'm deeply, deeply concerned that the mayor has been starting to weaponize the legal department or the legal faculties of the city, since we don't seem to have an actual department in the city that handles law at this point, to advance her own political agenda or even personal She's done quite a lot to broadcast her attitudes and disposition, you know, towards members of the council and other people in the city publicly online lately. And I guess I just find myself, you know, I think, you know, James Comey, I'm not the biggest fan of James Comey, but necessarily, but was just indicted today over an Instagram post. And I think we kind of see at the federal level, a sort of weaponized Department of Justice that's doing things to suit the executive that aren't necessarily a prudent use of legal resources. It troubles me to see parallels here with the mayor refusing or apparently declining to not defend an ordinance that the city passed. It feels like there's some sort of like second veto that's being exercised here that the mayor's attempting to exercise, which I don't think she has a right to do. I think there's an obligation to defend the city's ordinances. And, you know, it really just troubles me to see that we're here doing this. But, yeah, I, you know, I hope this passes and, you know, the council gets some answers. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Any further public comment on this resolution? Seeing none, on the motion, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Maloney? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. And we will sign that and we will file that with public records request 26-078, offered by President Bears and Councilor Scarpelli, a resolution to update the council on the common victor license process in 2026. Be resolved by the city council that we request an update from the acting city clerk on any outstanding common victor license applications for 2026 that have not been submitted. Be it further resolved that we discuss methods to support the team in the city clerk's office to ensure all businesses comply with the city's licensing requirements. I will quickly just say that we've seen some incredible work in our clerk's office to bring us into digital licensing, and this is one of them. You know, we now have our common pictures license online, which is great, which also lets us find out how many applications have we received and how many are outstanding here now, four months into the year. And it seems that we have a number of applications outstanding. Before I turn it over to the clerk, I do just want to see if Councilor Scarpelli has anything to add. But in general, this request is to get an update from the clerk on how many applications are outstanding, what some of the issues are, and then how we can provide our support to the clerk's office to make sure that every business complies with their requirement to have a common victuals license. So I will go first to Councilor Scarpelli and then to Acting Clerk Alicio.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President, and through you to the clerk, I think that what we're seeing right now is the due diligence of a hardworking clerk that's making sure that he is doing his job to the best of his ability. The fact that we have a list of businesses that aren't complying and he's following up. I think it's important that we listen to his process and make sure that we are here to support the clerk in making sure that we bring the relevant departments together to see why we have some open situations and then find a way to resolve them. And to be honest with you, public safety is paramount for some of these violations. And I think it's important that, it's impressive that he's done his due diligence, he's brought them forward, and we're moving these in the direction where we're educating and protecting. So thank you, Mr. President, thank you to the clerk.

[Zac Bears]: Mr. Clark, you want to talk a little bit more about what's going on? How many applications we got? How many are still outstanding?

[Rich Eliseo]: Thank you all for presenting this tonight. Basically, just to give you a quick background, when I started here back in 2024, we had a lot of what I found was a packet of a lot of outstanding convicula licenses that were incomplete. around 40, I believe. So 40 businesses had incomplete common vicular licenses, and that was in October of 2024, which expired in December of 2024, which were never renewed. So my goal was to make sure that those businesses at that time came into compliance. Common viculars were a new process for me, coming from different communities, they didn't handle, clerk's office didn't handle a common vicular license, it was handled by another department. But here we handled it. So I met with now former building commissioner Van Der Waal to try to streamline the convicular process, which meant getting the application online to allow businesses to be held more responsible for paperwork. By doing that, it allowed us to track exactly which businesses followed the ordinances, and we're abiding by the policies, and which ones weren't. So recently, we've seen a downtrend in businesses becoming less compliant, but this year, we have noticed that there are still outstanding businesses that either A, haven't filed an application, or B, have safety issues that are stopping them from being able to comply with the convicula license. In front of you, you guys all have a list of those businesses. The ones that are highlighted are ones that have recently come into compliance within the last week that have a full convicula license. There is another two on there, the Ford and Ms. Murphy's. I am working with the manager. I've been in contact with them to try and get them situated. But the others, still we haven't had any contact in at least the last month. Haven't had any updates. Fire hasn't had any updates on a few field inspections. that are still outstanding, and as you can tell, some of these, and I have some updates on some of them. They've had failed inspections in March, then again, they failed inspection in April on ANSIL systems, which are safety systems, fire sprinkler systems, and stuff like that. Now, everybody knows, the council understands, that the convict your license is your license to operate. So all these businesses are basically operating for the last four months without an actual license to operate. And that puts us into a tough situation because if anything happens in those businesses, while they don't have this up-to-date license, technically we could be held liable for allowing them to operate. But we don't have anything right now in our ordinances that I can find that allows us to A, fine, or B, shut down. The only way we can do that is by issuing a cease and desist. The only person who technically can issue a cease and desist is the city solicitor. We do not have a city solicitor. I do have the health inspector, Josh Hunter, going out as he does his rounds, talking to the business owners telling them that they are in violation, there unfortunately is nothing we can do to enforce that they get these licenses in, other than constantly bombarding them with phone calls and letters and everything else. With that being said, I'm asking the council to try and support us in the fact of figuring out a way to hold these restaurants accountable in the future. Obviously, I wanna get them compliant within the next few months, but it doesn't look like that's gonna happen because we're not getting calls back, we're not getting responses to our emails, to our letters. So I'm just trying to reach out to you guys to branch out to find out the best way to do this, and in my opinion, It would be fee schedule, adding in fines for not having proper documentation. Maybe that's a first offense. Whatever that fine would be, we could figure that out. And then eventually, being able to enforce shutting them down if necessary. And I obviously take that lightly. I don't like shutting businesses down because you stop them from being able to do the basics, which is if they owe taxes or anything like that, obviously if they're shut down, they can't pay. something has to be done to get them into compliance, because I don't want to see us get into a situation where we're putting a tough spot if somebody gets sick at one of these restaurants, something physically happens to them at one of these restaurants, and we're allowing them to operate. My staff worked diligently on this, and don't get me wrong, it's not a lot of businesses. According to this list now, it's 11 out of 115, so it's 10%, but it's 10% we shouldn't have. Yeah, other than that, I'll turn it over to you guys for any questions or any ideas.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, and I want to thank you, A, it sounds like we've gotten this done from 40 to 11 in the last year, that the digital system's working, that we've made a lot of progress on it, and appreciate the work that you are doing, as well as all the other departments, Health, Treasury, Fire, and others, building in this process. And I'm glad to hear that some folks have started to get here and hopefully next year, I guess really this year for next year, they'll be done by the end of the year so they're in compliance for January. But I agree with your concern and I'm going to recognize Vice President Lazzaro so we can talk about what we can try to do to help.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you for bringing this forward. I find it kind of surprising that the restaurants are that the owners who, like, many of whom we see folks here. So all I would say about this is that I think this is something best discussed in a committee, probably administration and finance, because it looks like something that we would need to create an ordinance about with a fee schedule assign fees to people who are out of compliance, if that's something that we wanted to do, or just a list of penalties for being out of compliance, if that's something that we want. So I would make the motion to send this paper to the Administration and Finance Committee.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Vice President Lazzaro.

[Matt Leming]: I happily second that motion. A question for the clerk through the chair. Are there any communities, and apologies if you might have mentioned this during your presentation, are there any communities that you know of that have fairly good enforcement structure for this that could potentially be a template to base an ordinance on? Mr. Clerk.

[Rich Eliseo]: Yes. One of my former cities that I worked in, Everett, they had a policy in place that allowed the city clerk's office had the ability to enforce penalties, fines, fees, or even if they had to, shut somebody down. And that is in their ordinances. I'd have to go through them to get the exact wording and verbiage. They have a really good policy in place. I haven't looked into any others as of right now. I just remember ours and Everett.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you. Everett could be a good starting point to look at for templates.

[Zac Bears]: All right. One other request I have just if, you know, we didn't put this list out on the agenda, but we do all have it in front of us now. If you guys know anyone who hasn't been mentioned tonight who we might want to talk to, if you know a business owner, if there's maybe a communication breakdown. I mean, it sounds like you're sending out emails, you're doing some in-person, doing some phone calls. So, you know, that's a lot of outreach, but maybe we can try to, get in touch with the folks that we know at these various businesses as well, and at least make sure that we're talking to the right person. In most cases at this point with all this outreach with all these months, who knows what that'll get us, but maybe with a couple of these we can help with that as well. All right, on the motion of Vice President Lazzaro to refer to the Administration and Finance Committee, seconded by Councilor Leming. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes. 26082, submitted by Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Fiscal 27 Community Preservation Act Budget Reserve. Dear President Bears and City Councilors, on behalf of the Community Preservation Committee, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body approves on recommendation of the Community Preservation Committee, the Community Preservation Fund revenues in the amount of $2,383,387. In addition, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body approve on the recommendation of the Community Preservation Committee, the Community Preservation Fund expenditures in the amount of $2,383,387 as follows. Open space and recreation, $238,338.70. Community housing, $595,846.75. Historic preservation, $238,338.70. Administration, $100,000. $119,169.35, general remainder $1,191,693.50 for that total. CPA manager, Teresa Dupont will be in attendance to address the council. Thank you for your consideration. Respectfully submitted, Brianna Ligo-Kern, Mayor. And I will recognize Teresa Dupont. Teresa, if you wanna, we'll make you a co-host as well. And you should be good to go. Thanks, Teresa.

[Theresa Dupont]: Great, thank you. Everybody for those who don't know me, Teresa DuPont community preservation act manager. I'm here tonight to ask for this council support in our fiscal 20 establishing our fiscal 27 budget. I know there was a lot of numbers in there, but essentially how we got to those numbers. I do have a quick little. you know, just a visual aid just to follow along because we are talking about lots and lots of numbers. So we are here tonight asking for 2.38 for our fiscal 27. How we came to that number is based on our fiscal 27 projected revenue in the amount of $2,089,000. 293. So our budget is largely derived from our local revenue that we generate, which is a 1.5 surcharge on tax revenues collected by residential and our commercial base. So we take our projected fiscal 27 again that 2.089 and then there is state match money that we get every year. It is assessed to our previous fiscal year's revenue that we derived so that's why it makes this math a little bit wonky because we take fiscal 27 projected revenues and then that state match money which is based off of our fiscal 26 revenue so that's why I kind of have it mapped out here, where essentially state match is $294,094, which is 15.5% of our fiscal 26 revenue to get us to that 2.38. How that breaks down, we are required by Mass General Law to reserve a minimum of 10% to each of the three categories that we fund, which include open space and recreation, affordable housing, and historic preservation. You may see here in the affordable housing bucket that is slightly higher than the other two at the 10%. That is because for reasons twofold, our Community Preservation Committee, who reviews these numbers and reviews all applications to our program, So, again, reason number 1, it's something that they prioritize. We prioritize affordable housing generation in the city. And reason number 2 is that by I project or dedicating 25% of our budget to. For affordable housing apologies, my dog just really distracted me to affordable housing by dedicating a minimum of 25%. That actually gets the city of Medford as a designated status for our housing choice designation status that allows opens up doors for us to. get to exclusive other grant opportunities as well as points on when we're looking at like the one stop for growth grant programs. So by dedicating more of our budget to affordable housing it not only helps fund those opportunities but gets us some special status at the state level. So that's how we came to our 2.83 number that we're presenting to this council tonight and ask for your support. I'm happy to address any questions. I'll leave this up just in case the the visual is helpful for any questions.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you Manager Dupont. I'll recognize Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I appreciate you being here. Teresa, I feel like you always have to stay so late, and we always get to you at the very end, and it's not fair. But your presentation, as always, is beautiful, and I support all of it, and I move to approve.

[Zac Bears]: Do you have any other questions for Manager DuPont? and I remind my colleagues that they can move to suspend the rules to take any paper out of order at any time. Seeing no further questions, is there any comments by members of the public on the CPA Fiscal 27 Budget Reserve? Actually, I have one question. Sorry, Teresa. So this is the reserve and then you're going to go through your appropriations process and then we're going to look at proposals, recommendations probably sometime in January, is that generally?

[Theresa Dupont]: That is correct, yes. We are moving up our application cycle a little earlier this year, but it will still, as for your involvement with looking at the appropriations request, we're still anticipating a January 2027 series of meetings. Great.

[Zac Bears]: And when folks are looking for applications, what are you guys going to start considering those and when will you stop?

[Theresa Dupont]: Lovely question. We are opening up our round, like I said, about a month earlier, so it's going to be open June 15th. And we're going to close it on August 14th. So that gives people it moves it up a little bit in the calendar year as well as extends that application period. I will say that we do accept off-cycle applications on a rolling basis throughout the year if they meet certain criteria, which is basically urgency, grant deadlines, what have you. So we always want to talk about CPA with anybody who has projects in mind. So just because there is an annual funding cycle application window doesn't mean that we don't want to talk with folks at any point in the year for a project.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Great. Thank you, Teresa. On the motion of Vice President Lazzaro to approve, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Malayne. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malayne? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. President Pierce?

[Zac Bears]: Yes, 70 affirmative, none negative, the motion passes. 26083, fiscal 26, CPA appropriation request, Tufts Park Garden Expansion, request the appropriation of $4,000 from the CPA General Reserve to the Community Garden Commission to fund the expansion of the Tufts Park Community Garden. Manager DuPont.

[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, hello again. So I'm here tonight to ask for your support and a funding request in the amount of $4,000. This would take the pre-existing community garden at Tufts Park and expand it. You may recall that a couple years ago, CPA funded a basketball court resurfacing project at Tufts Park. It was completed last summer. And wonderful park I invite I encourage everybody to come check it out. However, this, this project, it end up creating a little bit of a strip of land. It's not very wide, maybe like, for 4, 4, 4 and a half feet or so that, you know, since the courts kind of slightly shifted to the left. So, the garden. was previously butted right up against it so now there's this little strip and it's just going to become a maintenance nightmare I'm sure over time. So the garden is looking to adopt that space and then just basically rework the fencing lines and add additional beds to add 10 more garden beds to the pre-existing garden and they're looking for funding for that and I ask for your support. Happy to answer any questions.

[George Scarpelli]: Great. Councilor Scarpelli. Thank you, Mr. DuPont. I appreciate it. Thanks to the President. I know that when you say patch of grass, working in recreation, sometimes it just needs a little clarity. If we're putting, is that close to the, are you saying it's close to the basketball court that we're putting flower beds?

[Theresa Dupont]: So yes, if the basketball, I'm sorry, the basketball court as it was a couple of years ago before the restoration, the rehabilitation of it, essentially the gardens kind of did butt up against the fully fenced basketball court. It had, I want to say like a 10 or 12 foot high fence around the basketball court and a little four foot fence around the garden space. So with the rehab, it did generate a little bit of a dead space between the two. um so they're looking to incorporate that back in it would be very similar to what was already pre-existing there like i said two years ago before the the renovation project i i uh thank you mr president i i appreciate that i just i'm a little concerned that we're proving uh

[George Scarpelli]: where we'll have people running and jumping and we're putting a flower bed, and we'll assume it's the planters, made of wood, plastic, whatever they may be. We're putting this into a situation where someone's going to get hurt. That's the only thing. I'm putting my recreation hat on. That's my only concern. I think it's, if there's a way to do something where it's safe and not put, you know, kids that are, participating and running hard and, you know, and running into a flower bed. I think it, you know, I'm a little leery of approving something that might cause some harm. And don't get me wrong, I appreciate the area for that, but is there a way to erect a fence that separates the two where, or maybe there is, maybe I didn't understand it, but I just, I think having an open recreational space, then erecting a flower bed that's adjacent to it might lead to some sort of liability issues moving forward. So that's my only concern. Thank you. Thanks.

[Theresa Dupont]: I may address that. I appreciate your concern on it. And I perhaps didn't explain it well enough inside that the basketball courts are totally encased with a perimeter fence, so there's there's no risk of somebody going for an errant ball and then crushing somebody's zinnias you know there there is a safety fence around the basketball court and there will also be a fence around the garden as well so no i probably didn't it's what it's like almost 10 30 so i may not have explained it well so thank you for your for your uh question on the motion to approve by councillor scarpelli seconded by seconded by councillor mullane mr clerk please call the roll

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malayne? Yes. Councilor Scott Felly?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. President Bears?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have an affirmative and a negative. The motion passes. Thank you, Manager DuPont.

[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you, Councilors. Have a good evening.

[Zac Bears]: All right. 26084, submitted by Mayor Brianne Alingo-Kern. Amendments to the Personnel Ordinance, Director of Elections, Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Director of Veterans Services. Dear President Bears and city councilors, I respectfully request and recommend the city council approve following amendments to the revised ordinances chapter 66 entitled personnel, article 2 entitled reserve, city's classification and compensation plan formally included as article 2 section 6631 to 6640 by adopting the following changes effective July 1, 2026. As the council is aware, as part of the city's recent compensation and classification study, we have identified several direct level positions that appear to be misaligned with appropriate salary classifications when compared to similarly structured communities. Specifically, this review indicates that a certain department head roles are currently placed below market average for positions. with comparable scope, responsibility, and organizational impact. Because these positions function as department heads, they would typically be aligned with that salary levels above the current classification. The market analysis confirmed that. In peer communities, the roles are consistently classified and compensated at a higher level than is currently reflected in the city's salary structure. To promote internal equity, market competitiveness, and appropriate recognition of departmental leadership, we're recommending adjustments to their classifications and corresponding salary ranges. Amendment A, language of CAF 12, shall be amended to remove elections manager. and the language of CAF 14 shall be amended to include the following position, Director of Elections. Amendment B, the language of CAF 13 shall be amended to remove the following positions, and the language of CAF 15 shall be amended to include the following positions, Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Director of Veteran Services, HR Director Lisa Crowley will be available to speak to these requests, respectfully submitted. Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Mayor. We did receive over the weekend a copy of the classification and compensation job descriptions and kind of an explanation of how that study proceeded. I think it'd be really good if we scheduled a meeting to really go over the results of the classification and compensation study. We did also receive a message from the Chair of the Board of Election Commissioners regarding the elections commission, sorry, elections director, elections manager proposed to be director of elections to modify that that should be at CAF 15 instead of CAF 14. So it's treated the same as all of the other departments here, the veterans services officer and director of DEI. So that's something I think we'd need to discuss further whether we have the authority to do that. I think maybe only the mayor has the authority to do that. And I'm gonna editorialize for one second. which is that in 2022, when we voted to create a separate Department of Elections, I recommended that we have a Director of Elections position at a Director of Elections pay. And I think that's a really good thing for us to do now in 2026. We've had turnover in that role. I think we have a great person in that role. I think that has been a department head since day one. It should have been treated as a department head since day one. I personally am not surprised that the study showed that this department head job should be a department head job. So with that, I will go to Councilor Scarpelli and then Vice President Lazzaro.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President, and I don't know if you stole my notes, but that's not fair. Again, when we're talking about compensation and retaining great leaders, and that's something that we're seeing difficulties here in the city of Medford in keeping, I think that we have a big turnover when you talk about department heads. And we've seen our share in the elections department. I think you hit the nail on the head. I don't know if it's our place, but I would strongly recommend that we ask our HR director and the mayor to sit down and align all three positions to CAP 15. I think that will go a long way in showing all three of our leaders, department leaders, We support what they're doing and they should be compensated as such. I will, on a personal level, I was a negotiating team in a neighboring community that also did a wage analysis study and one consensus was when we got, when we had positions at this level, that we look to align everybody at that same level for the fact that it really showed the fairness and the worth of every single leader that they'd be compensated at that level. So as one Councilor, I've sat through those meetings and I understand and celebrate the fact that we've done this here in Medford. But again, I don't know our authority that we could ask to change that and make the motion to do that. If that's the case, I would make that motion. But maybe it might be before the vote. Maybe we take this to a meeting if we don't get, we might get clarity through the HR director. Maybe there's a way we can do this. But I would make the motion that we align all three positions to CAF 15. Thank you, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I was just gonna say a motion to approve. So I don't know if we wanna address Councilor Scarpelli's option.

[Zac Bears]: All right, so I will recognize our HR Director, Lisa Crowley, to share more about the paper and about our question about moving that to CAF 15 instead of CAF 14.

[Lisa Crowley]: Thank you, Mr. President. Through you to the council, we're hoping that you do support these changes. I hear your concern about the new elections director, I should say. Moving these positions through the comp and class showed that they're actually being moved to the comparable salary to which they fall under that classification. and readjusting at this time might. have some equity discrepancies as well. I think in the information I sent you a few days ago, we're going to be looking at the whole comp and class as we go through the summer and the fall to see if there's any other adjustments that have to be made. But with this adjustment here, it does fall in line with what the comparable communities have right now for us. But I'd be happy, you know, and I'm sure the mayor too would be happy to have a different discussion offline if I'm needed.

[Zac Bears]: All right, I'll go to Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: I think we're more likely to retain the elections manager if we move them up to CAF 15. I would be interested to see the numbers about what the comparable salaries are, but the fact is that we've had I mean, we've gone through two elections managers, at least in the last term. We're on our third, who I think is doing a fine job. And having that sort of turnover ends up costing us more money in the long run. Not to mince words here, but we had somebody who kind of botched some of the counting in the 2023 election and ended up getting somebody to trigger a recount, which cost the city, I mean, what, like $40,000, $50,000? Yeah, if we, sorry, colleagues are laughing over there. Continue Councilor Leming. What? The point is, if we keep going in this pattern where we try to underpay people and encourage them to start finding employment elsewhere, it ends up costing the city a lot more money in the long run. So I think we need to retain our current elections manager. I think it will ultimately be cheaper for the city to do so, and I'd support the motion to move it up to CAF 15.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Sounds like we have a motion to amend to have the Director of Elections also move to CAF 15 and a motion to approve as amended from Vice President Lazzaro. Director Crowley, I mean, so you mentioned maybe having another conversation. You know, if we were to amend this and approve it as amended, would that be an issue for you guys or is that something that we can or can't do? I mean, it is an ordinance, so. It does seem like that would be within our authority to amend and approve, but I wanna check with you. We could also, I mean, likely this will be approved tonight for first reading and then advertised. So you could check in with the administration and then come back before third reading to let us know what the administration's position is. But just wanted to lay the options out for you, Director Crowley. And I'll recognize you.

[Lisa Crowley]: Thank you again, President Piers. Yes, again, if we want to have that conversation, we can certainly do that. It would result in a low increase to the elections director, however, if we start moving things around right now. So I would appreciate us being able to have that conversation beforehand, if at all possible.

[Zac Bears]: All right, yeah, so it sounds like we're, this is first reading, so third reading would be in probably the May 26th meeting. So maybe we can get an update from you before then and you can let us know what the issue would be by then. Does that sound right? All right. So we have a motion to approve as amended by Vice President, as amended by Councilor Scarpelli. Motion from Vice President Lazzaro. to approve as amended by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Tseng for first reading. All right, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly, Councilor Leming, Councilor Malate, Councilor Scarpelli, Councilor Tseng, Vice President Lazzaro, President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. 7, the affirmative, none, the negative. This is approved for first reading. We'll take a third reading vote in the days to come. All right. Last item, 26085, submitted by Mayor Brand, I'll go current litigation settlement, Subro-IQ-Norfolk and Dedham, ASO Jadine Bernadine. Date of accident, October 25th, 2024. Date of settlement, March 23rd, 2026. The amount of request, $3,414.38. The claimant seeks reimbursement for damages for their insured motor vehicle as a result of a motor vehicle accident with a fire department employee at the intersection of Main Street and Charles Street. Clearly, I had read this. and it was what I was referring to earlier in the, I don't think this is a big deal account of settlements. But I will recognize Tom Lane if you want to share with us about this settlement before we move on, before we act on it.

[Tom Lane]: No, good evening, uh, Councilors. I guess there's another subrogation case similar to some of the other ones. It's a clear liability case. Uh, Norfolk and Denim is paid out to the individual $3,414.38. $2,000 of that was for a, uh, medical expenses, which are paid under PIP and then $1,414.38. was for property damage to the vehicle. Again, obviously it's above the $2,500. So we're seeking city council approval to settle this matter without incurring any additional legal costs.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Do you have any questions from members of the council? Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Motion to approve.

[Zac Bears]: On a motion to approve by Vice President Lazzaro, seconded by. Seconded by Councilor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan. Councilor Leming. Councilman Layne. Councilor Scapelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. Vice President Lazzaro. Yes. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have the affirmative, none the negative. The motion passes. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you, Councilor Layne.

[Tom Lane]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Public participation. Participate outside of Zoom, please email rolicio at medford-ma.gov. Do we have anyone who'd like to speak either in person or on Zoom in public participation? Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Motion to adjourn.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion to adjourn by Vice President Lazzaro, seconded by Councilor Callahan. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.