AI-generated transcript of Medford Happenings Episode 41 Nick Giurleo

[John Petrella]: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Medford Happenings, a show for and about the city of Medford. And I am John Petrella. And the purpose of this program is to give Medford citizens facts and information to help you make informed choices and to discover city services or businesses you may not have been aware of. And our guest today is a very special guest, attorney Nick Gileo. And Nick has been following the Method High School Project, the City Zoning Initiative, and the Neighborhood Ambassador Program. And he will give us an update on that a little later on in the show. A lot to go over, Nick. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me back on, John. It's our pleasure. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. So why don't we begin, Nick, again, give us an introduction to our listeners about who Nick Gileo is.

[Nick Giurleo]: Sure. So just to be very brief, my name is Nick Giurleo. I'm a lifelong resident of West Medford. In the last election, I ran for city council. I did not win, but it was a great experience. I got to meet a lot of wonderful residents and really get a good understanding of what's going on politically in Medford. As John mentioned, I'm an attorney. I work for a firm in downtown Boston. And I've been following very closely various things that have been happening in the city politically, including the zoning, the high school, as well as I was recently appointed to be a neighborhood ambassador.

[John Petrella]: That's a great thing, yeah. We're going to talk about that later, Nick. We're going to get you on that. So, I know you're really involved with the, you know, the building process. So, with the high schools, can you tell us where we are in the building process? Give us a summary, Nick, if you can, of designs being considered. As of now.

[Nick Giurleo]: Sure, my pleasure. So I'll just begin with a disclaimer. I'm not on the building committee and I'm not many different things. I'm not an engineer, I'm not an economist, I'm not an educator, but I have been following closely what's been going on just as a citizen who's very interested in this. where it could potentially take our city. I am an attorney, so perhaps I have some legal expertise that could be of value. I've been following the project, and I'm happy to just give an explanation here of where we're at. The project is currently in the feasibility phase. The project team, the building committee, is considering different designs for what type of new high school we're going to have. So, the committee originally had a much larger number of designs, but then decided to narrow it down to six. So, I'll talk about each of those six designs. The information I'm getting is from various public documents that are out there, different slides that have been presented, as well as just what various members of the committee have said, as well as other elected leadership. So, happy to go through each of those designs with you today. Sounds great.

[John Petrella]: Yep, sounds good. And I just want to say one thing before you get into it. You said some disclaimers at the beginning. I understand all that, but I just want to let people know that you are very qualified. You're doing a great job. You're putting a lot of information out there various ways. We see it all the time. You're getting a lot of comments. And I just think it's a great thing what you're doing, really. And I thank you for that. And now you can continue. Thank you so much, John.

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, I'm glad to hear that positive feedback. So, like I mentioned, there are six designs. I'll go through each of them. Our very first design is a code upgrade. It's option A.1. And you can see on your screen here a basic layout of the current high school. Under this design, there wouldn't be any physical changes to the building. This would just be to bring the building up to code to essentially repair the existing high school. Part of that would be to meet what have been called accessibility requirements. But there would be some kind of ancillary renovations with this that have been mentioned. Renovations to the parking, to the fields, as well as the pool. Of all our six designs, this one is the least expensive. The last estimate we received was $437 million. And we received some information just about how long it would take. So it would be estimated to take about 54 months. How many modular units would be required? 56 units of modular units would be required. And there was also an assessment done as to whether or not this would support or hinder a document called the educational plan, which was developed earlier in the process, to determine what are the educational goals for the new high school that we're seeking to build here. Under the code upgrade, it was determined that that would not be consistent with the educational plan as developed as was ultimately approved by the school committee. So that's our code upgrade option in a nutshell. I'll move on to the next one, which is option B1.2. This is the first of our addition renovation options. And as you can see from this diagram, this would be a two-story addition to the central part of the high school. It would be about 150,000 new square feet. Regarding the fields and pools, there'd be light renovation to both of those. But parking, we'd see a significant difference. We'd see a two-and-a-half-story underground parking garage with just a small amount of parking above grade. It was discussed that there could be alternatives to this garage, such as taking away a field. That would allow us to place all the parking above grade. This second to the code upgrade is the next least expensive option. The last estimate we received was $825 million. And it would take about the same length as doing a code upgrade. It would take 54 months. And it would require just a little bit less modular units. The estimate for that was 46.

[John Petrella]: Can I just, modular units, can you explain exactly what that is?

[Nick Giurleo]: So my understanding of a modular unit is similar to a trailer. It would be an outside structure to temporarily place students while the construction was ongoing. So obviously if you're building inside a building, you know, there are places the students can't be, so you need to put them somewhere else to keep the continuity of learning.

[John Petrella]: So that's obviously part of the cost of

[Nick Giurleo]: Yes, I believe that is factored into the cost. I remember hearing at one of the meetings that the MSBA, which is the state authority that grants us money to fund the project, would not cover the cost of those modular units. So that takes us to the next option, which would be C2.2. This is an addition renovation option, so the second addition renovation option. And you can see from this diagram that the central premise of the project here would be to demolish most of the existing building and replace it with what looks like a scissor-shaped structure. You can see it on the left side of that diagram. It would be about 500,000 new square feet. Regarding parking, we learned that this one would have a one-story underground parking garage. There would be a little bit of parking above grade. And like with the other option that I discussed, the other addition renovation, you could reduce that size of the field. So with the other project, it was get rid of a field. This would be just take away a portion of the field and you could put some of the parking above grade, so above ground. This one is estimated at 833 million, the last estimate that we received. And it would take about 51 months. It's important to note that the project designs were recently changed at a Monday meeting of the school building committee. And some of the changes that were made were looking at ways to get rid of the modular classroom units. So this design originally had modular classroom units required. That was modified to allow no mods required. So currently C2.2 would not require any sort of modular classrooms. which many residents who have spoken at these building committee meetings have expressed their displeasure for modular learning. They don't want their students learning what would essentially be trailers. They don't want their students to be in a normal kind of classroom environment. So I think that's something very positive that we're seeing is trying to get rid of the need for these mods.

[John Petrella]: It doesn't seem like a good environment.

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, I would agree. I can't imagine you'd be learning very well in what's effectively a trailer.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, no.

[Nick Giurleo]: So that takes us to the next addition renovation option, which would be C3.4. This option is to demolish most of the existing building and replace it with a triangular shaped new structure. That structure, and you can see it right now on the diagram, that structure would be about 600,000 new square feet. Regarding the parking, that would have us with a one-story underground parking garage. Again, there would be a small amount of surface parking. Again, we learned at the last meeting, there's been this discussion going, well, we could tamper with the size of fields and reduce the size of the field and put some of the parking above ground. And, you know, there's different reasons why I think a person might prefer a parking garage to above-ground parking. I think aesthetically, I mean, in a lot of ways, it's nice not to have an above-ground parking garage. But at the same time, I think there can be safety concerns with parking garages as well.

[John Petrella]: Underground, yeah.

[Nick Giurleo]: you know, would worry about. And, you know, you're always looking at cost, too. Maybe it would, I would imagine it would take more to build an underground parking garage than an above ground one or above ground parking.

[John Petrella]: I would guess so, yeah, Nick.

[Nick Giurleo]: You know, it would involve some blasting, I would suspect.

[John Petrella]: Oh, yeah. I would guess so. A lot more digging, too.

[Nick Giurleo]: So, just a few more things about this design. So, Edgar Lee Field and two of the practice fields, they would be renovated. And this design was also, it was mentioned at the Monday meeting, this was the first I heard of this, was they would potentially construct a new stadium. You can see at one end of the diagram, and that's where it would go. So it'd be a new stadium with the multi-purpose fields and not just for one sport. And this project, we have a cost at about 833 million. And like that previous renovation addition, about 51 months to do this.

[John Petrella]: So they're all in the same time frame. I'm just curious, what about the field we have now up there? What about the field of dreams?

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, so it looks like with that design, that would be kept.

[John Petrella]: It is going to be kept.

[Nick Giurleo]: But it looks like they want to add more field space. All of these designs, I think, are more or less contemplating adding more field space. And with that design, the last thing to say is they were able to modify it, so there would be no modular classroom units needed.

[John Petrella]: Oh, that's nice. OK. Yep.

[Nick Giurleo]: So that takes us through the addition renovation options, and now we move on to the new construction. There are two new construction options under consideration. It's important to say that the MSBA requires a code upgrade option, which we have. But from there, you know, it's very much to the discretion of the committee as to the number of renovation addition and new construction options that they want. So we have now two new construction considerations. Okay.

[John Petrella]: The committee, by the way, is aware of what the MSBA will pay and what they won't pay. There are certain things I, from what I understand, I don't have a lot of knowledge, but I do have some.

[Nick Giurleo]: The math is pretty complicated, but it's all spelled out how they calculate that reimbursement rate in the MSBA regulations. So there's state laws that talk about how they make that calculations. The committee is nowhere near making that, getting that calculated number yet. But eventually we will have that number. So just talking about D1.1 here, our new construction option, So this new structure would be about 600,000 square feet, 600,000 square feet of a new building. And you can see it's placed where the main parking lot is today. So you come up to the high school from Winthrop Street, where you pull in to park, that would be where the new school is. And we would build a new field where the existing high school is. And we'd be keeping, but with some renovations, Edgerly Field and the practice fields. So this one would also have an underground parking garage and some small amount of surface parking. One of the things a lot of people were talking about, residents were concerned about the pool, you know, what's going to happen to the pool? It's such a valuable community resource.

[John Petrella]: Correct. It certainly is.

[Nick Giurleo]: With this design, the proposal is not to renovate the pool. The other designs talked about renovating the pool. This is to build a new pool, and it would be a standalone structure. It would be separate from the main building. You can see that little orangish box in the corner there, that's where the pool would be. You can see it's not connected directly to the building. So this option here, unfortunately, this one's the most expensive. Of course. That's been estimated so far. We're at $893 million. Right. And that would make it one of the most expensive projects in probably state history.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, that's an extremely high number. I mean, let's be honest, that's a lot of money. It is quite a bit of money.

[Nick Giurleo]: Of course, there's a lot of things to think about, such as, you know, where we're at in the process right now.

[John Petrella]: Yes.

[Nick Giurleo]: And how much the MSBA will ultimately reimburse, as well as.

[John Petrella]: Right.

[Nick Giurleo]: space reductions. This Monday meeting, there was talk about reducing some of the space to try to bring the cost down, and the committee did vote on some cuts for that. This project, again, they were able to modify it so the modular learning classrooms would not be required, so that's another benefit.

[John Petrella]: I think that's a big benefit.

[Nick Giurleo]: And then finally here we have D2.1, new construction. This is the second new construction option. You can see it's kind of flipped from where that other new construction design placed the school. The other design placed it coming up from Winthrop Street, pulling into the school where the main parking lot is. This design would build the new high school essentially where Edgar Lee Field is currently.

[John Petrella]: In the back.

[Nick Giurleo]: In the back. Exactly. And again, this would be over 600,000 square feet. This one would have garage space underground. Again, considering do we want to take away some of that field space and put some of the parking above ground. And you can also see there'd be a standalone pool as well. The diagram shows that again, that orange box structure that's kind of separated from the rest of it. That's more or less where the pool would be. So that's a proposal with this as well. This project is a little cheaper than the other new construction. It was estimated to be about $860 million. But of course it would still be the next most expensive.

[John Petrella]: I don't mean to interrupt you, and I'm not, I mean, this is serious stuff, but when you're talking, I mean, in my view, you know, you're gonna spend 900 million, but wait, we're gonna save you 23 million dollars.

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, you know, I was thinking about this at the Monday meeting, where they cut, you know, a million here and a million there, and I was thinking to myself, that sounds like a lot. A million dollars used to be a lot of money. But now it's really not, it's kind of peanuts. So you'd have to make significant cuts to really see a difference in these huge numbers. So that more or less takes me through the designs. I think it's important to say that the designs are changing, and the designs will continue to change. They'll also assess, do they want to reduce space? We have a space planning document that says essentially, ideally, how much space they want to dedicate to everything in the project. And the committee will be making decisions, do we cut things to reduce the cost to make this a little more economically feasible? So there'll be discussions about that. Overall, I would just encourage residents strongly to follow these meetings. Go to them. advertise them on my social media page, but just follow them, go, make a public comment, and keep up to date because the decision of what we do with this high school, it's really gonna impact the community in a lot of different ways. Quality of education, our ability to financially do well in the city, and a lot of other things as well. So really, I encourage everybody to keep up to date.

[John Petrella]: That's good advice, Nick, I got to say. And I got to be honest, I go on the internet, I go here, Facebook, YouTube, whatever, and there is a lot more out there, and it's good to see. And I don't see the usual name calling or, you know, all the, it seems like people are working together on this to really try and get something done. I don't know what's going to happen, but it's interesting. It's an interesting thing to follow. And, I mean, if you live in Method, you're a homeowner, you pay rent, whatever, I would advise people to get involved. You're right. That's the key. Know what's going on in the city. So I want to thank you for all that. That was good to hear. I think you answered a lot of questions. So now, as we're all aware, most people, we'll move on to the next topic we brought you here for. Topic number two, which is the city zoning. We know in January 2026, the city council restarted zoning initiative, and I know you're following that. Following it really good. You know what you're talking about. Where are we, Nick? Let's start with Medford Square.

[Nick Giurleo]: Sure. So happy to talk about zoning and I'll do also what I did at the beginning of the last segment here.

[John Petrella]: Okay.

[Nick Giurleo]: Just a little disclaimer. So I am an attorney. I have spent some time studying various aspects of the legal issues here, so land use and and zoning and municipal law that would be related to a discussion on zoning. So I do have a little bit on that. Of course, you know, you always say to yourself, you know, I'm not this and I'm not that. So I'm not an engineer or an economist. So giving you my kind of legal take on things so far is also just as an informed citizen. who's interested in these politics. So as you mentioned, zoning resumed in January, very much a result of the election outcome, I would say, in terms of the pacing and the process, but also due to just the logistics of getting more funding to pay our zoning consultant to get it going again. So that was done and the City Council and Community Development Board decided that they would start with Medford Square. So there's kind of two aspects to the Medford Square zoning. I'll start with the first aspect here, which is what was created on Tuesday night by vote of the City Council, and that is a new Medford Square zoning district. So I'll give you just a few highlights of what this zoning amendment contains. So you can see the map on your screen here. That is the new district mapped out. The black dotted line encompasses the borders of the district and you'll see divisions into different colors within that odd shape. Those are called sub-districts. So there's the district and then there's the sub-districts. And the sub-districts have different requirements as to things like uses and dimensional requirements as well as other aspects of the zoning law that was passed. So this process was done fairly quickly. January 2 now is a pretty short period of time to draft a law that's gonna have such a tremendous impact on the way our square looks. But there were several meetings and the Community Development Board was very invested in trying to get this right. And I think they did their due diligence very, very well. So you'll see with the four sub-districts, they allow between four to eight stories as of right. and that additional incentive based stories can be added as well. There's different incentives such as affordability that can be utilized by the developers to get these extra floors essentially to build higher. In terms of density, you'll see that the highest density is the uh part kind of close to where city hall is the senior center right those city-owned lots yep and part of that has to do with helping the developer transom build its project i'll talk a little bit about the details of that in a bit but um the higher density areas will be in that part of the square.

[John Petrella]: Would it be possible, Nick, just for the people watching at home and looking at the chart, could you call out the colors?

[Nick Giurleo]: Sure, so you'll see there's a key to the left-hand side. That actually will help you coordinate which sub-district is which.

[John Petrella]: Awesome, I'm sorry, I didn't even see that.

[Nick Giurleo]: So I would refer people to that if you're trying to understand where the particular number of stories is allowed in which sub-district. So, the stated purpose of this zoning is to promote more housing, more density in the square, more mixed-use structures. The zoning ordinance contains uses that allow for mixed-use. I believe the previous zoning did not even mention mixed-use structures, so there was really an intent here to implement mixed-use structures into the zoning ordinance. law that was created here. Walkability was another stated purpose as well, let's make a square a little more walkable, a little more easier to navigate on your feet. In the table of uses, so the uses are what is allowed in the square, we see various changes that I think reflect aesthetic desires for the square, reflect what we want our square to look like. One that was discussed was banks. Some have argued that there are way too many banks in Medford Square. I actually totally agree with that.

[John Petrella]: There are a lot of banks, yeah.

[Nick Giurleo]: Nothing on the banking industry.

[John Petrella]: No, nothing against them, I hear you.

[Nick Giurleo]: But yeah, there's quite a lot of banks in Medford Square. We could maybe have different types of businesses in their spots. I think of what happened to Salvatore's, which is very sad.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, I think everyone was hoping for a restaurant over there.

[Nick Giurleo]: So under the new zoning, you need a special permit to get a bank. It's not allowed outright. You have to go to the Community Development Board and they have to give you a special permit if you want to open a bank. Another use that was added was neighborhood medical offices. So if you remember with the Salem Street zoning, there was a big controversy over whether or not the zoning allowed for a methadone clinic on Salem Street. And this all had to do with this term, neighborhood medical office, which was a use defined for that zoning district. So there was a lot of back and forth with that, but ultimately with this zoning district, it's allowed as of right. I think a lot of people might have missed that, that you can build a neighborhood medical office as of right under the new Medford Square zoning. Whether or not that would lead to a developer coming in and possibly wanting to open a methadone clinic, I mean, that remains to be seen. I mean, there's probably practical and political reasons that might motivate them not to do that. But ultimately, if you look at just legally, yes, they could do it under this new zoning. And there really wasn't any discussion or debate on whether or not that was a good thing. I recommended a special permit required for it. So in other words, discretionary. Give the Community Development Board discretion whether or not to grant that type of permit. And then just some other things I'll quickly run through. Neighborhood cafes is a use that was mentioned, maker spaces, breweries and tap rooms. Another that was interesting is no funeral homes in the new district. Can't build a funeral home.

[John Petrella]: Can't put a funeral home.

[Nick Giurleo]: Not even with a special permit.

[John Petrella]: Wow.

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah. And there wasn't really any discussion about that either, what the motive for that was. And I think part of this has to do with, you know, in the end of the day, practically, who writes our zoning? It's really the consultant and the planning office of our city.

[John Petrella]: Okay.

[Nick Giurleo]: Director Alicia Hunt's office. In a lot of ways, I think the city councilors are very, like, disconnected from, like, what exactly is happening. with the zoning and they're relying quite a bit on others to tell them, you know, this is the type of zoning we want or desire. And I think we have to be wary about that because ultimately we need leaders who are lawmakers. You think about it, what is a lawmaker? A person who makes laws. Absolutely. If you don't know how to make a law, should you be a lawmaker? In my opinion, no.

[John Petrella]: No, absolutely no. Yeah.

[Nick Giurleo]: So that's just kind of some highlights of that and I'll move on to the transom project, because I know that's another aspect of this that I think bears mentioning.

[John Petrella]: I just want to mention, you brought up a lot of things that I don't think, I'm going to say a large part of the population in Method is not aware of.

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, you know, one of my kind of things that I really harp on a lot is it's important to get into the details. There's some people who are satisfied with these kind of surface level analyses of things, like for example affordable housing. There are people who say we need more affordable housing and there'll be people who say, you know, will argue the contrary essentially. And then we kind of have these surface-level discussions back and forth on that. But let's get into details and talk about why specific proposals cause certain changes, and whether or not our decision-making, just as a pragmatic matter, makes sense. And that's really been my focus. I like to go into the details and try to understand what exactly is happening.

[John Petrella]: I think that's important. So anyhow, thank you for that, because I wasn't aware of the, you know, a methadone clinic being allowed up the square. That's a surprise for me. And I think it's going to be a surprise for a lot of people.

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, and again, at the end of the day, it will depend on what the developers decide to do, right? Just because the zoning allows something doesn't mean a developer is going to come in and file their application with the building department for their permit.

[John Petrella]: All right. OK, I understand. So you mentioned the transcom, transom project. That was going to be my next question. Where do we stand on that, Nick?

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, so the city announced last year that the developer, Transom Intents, was awarded a bid to build this very large housing project in Medford Square that's really fundamentally going to change aesthetically what our square looks like. Okay. The city believes and elected leadership believes this will be consistent with its affordable housing goals. But ultimately, you know, you have to look at the facts in terms of what is being proposed. to determine whether or not it will achieve any sort of policy goal. So I'll just give you some numbers on that. 283 new apartments, that's the plan. About 56% of them would be intended to be affordable. You can see in this diagram here a map from the developer. You'll notice, I find this amusing, and the developer is aware of it. Notice Lakeview Avenue on that map. doesn't exist. No, there is no Lakeview.

[John Petrella]: That's Riverside Avenue. Yeah, Riverside. So maybe they're going to change it to Lakeview because, you know, or Riverview it should be, not Lakeview.

[Nick Giurleo]: Maybe, but I think it was just an error.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, obviously.

[Nick Giurleo]: Not to, yeah, it's not the most important thing.

[John Petrella]: No, I know.

[Nick Giurleo]: People do make mistakes, but pointing that out there in case people are confused. Yeah. But yeah, about 56% affordable, what does that mean? 80% median area income. My understanding of this median area income is it's a state calculation that determines, that's used to help to figure out what exactly is meant specifically by affordable. So often people will ask, affordable, what does that mean in terms of numbers? So there's this formula that can be applied to figure that out. 13,000 square feet of a grocery store. That's another aim of this project. So they want to build a small grocery store, community grocery store, to connect with this housing structure. You can see it labeled New Grocer on the map. There'd be a cafe as well across from that attached to that residential building. It's labeled New Cafe. The other thing is they would build a garage. You can see it labeled New Garage in the corner close by City Hall. There was some concern because obviously this project is very close to the senior center. you know, with senior parking. And I believe the developer mentioned at one of the meetings that we'll be parking close to the senior center for seniors to alleviate those concerns. But some were wondering, you know, well, if the seniors have to go to the garage, that's a long walk to get to the senior center. You can see where the garage is in relation to that senior center.

[John Petrella]: That's not going to work, Nick.

[Nick Giurleo]: Um, so connecting this back to zoning the zoning, um, in addition to passing this Medford Square district, uh, about a week before that, the city council passed is zoning Amendment to create a overlay district or special zoning district just for transom So this is zoning specifically for transom and a number of elected officials Admitted including director hunt that this is to you know Economically benefit the developer and to make sure that developers project gets through as easily as possible So they created this special zoning overlay district. I was personally concerned legally with spot zoning. Spot zoning, for anyone who isn't aware, it's when you zone basically for the economic development or benefit of a developer and not for the greater community purpose. So I had requested that the council solicit a legal opinion on spot zoning. Ultimately, they chose not to do that.

[John Petrella]: And of course, we don't have a city solicitor.

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, we could have got that opinion from the solicitor.

[John Petrella]: That's pretty sad.

[Nick Giurleo]: Instead it has to come from K.P.

[John Petrella]: Law.

[Nick Giurleo]: So the council didn't want to do that, unfortunately. But this zoning in a nutshell basically allows for Transcend to build more units and higher and also get that off-site parking garage into their plans. And the whole idea of zoning is essentially, do we allow things as of right or do we require some community discretion? So with this zoning ordinance, it's basically to try to eliminate that community discretion and make it so transom doesn't have to go to the community development board as much, if at all. or the council or the community as a whole for its plans.

[John Petrella]: Well, that's plain wrong. I'm just a host here. I just ask questions.

[Nick Giurleo]: There are pros and cons because you obviously want development to happen.

[John Petrella]: Absolutely.

[Nick Giurleo]: You don't want to put too many obstacles, but you also don't want it to be totally unregulated.

[John Petrella]: No, it has to be some regulations. It has to benefit the community, Nick. It has to.

[Nick Giurleo]: Absolutely. Everything does that we do.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, right. I mean, that's the bottom line. Very interesting. I think our audience is learning a lot. I know I am. So, you know, the other topic I absolutely positively wanted to touch on was the, you know, the Neighborhood Ambassador Program. Congratulations, Nick, to you. I know you were appointed as an ambassador. I think you're going to do a phenomenal job. I know Milva is running it, or she's in charge of it, or heading it up, whatever you wanna, whatever title she has. She's the chair. She's the chair, okay, thank you. So can you explain to us, what is a neighborhood ambassador? And what, I guess what a neighborhood ambassador is, what do you do? And, you know, I know you're from West Method, so I'm sure you're going to be helping out in West Method. So, you know, bottom line is what is it about? What do you do?

[Nick Giurleo]: Sure. So I obviously can't speak for the mayor. The mayor was the one who created this program.

[John Petrella]: Correct.

[Nick Giurleo]: But my understanding of it is it's an attempt to solve an issue that's been affecting a lot of residents, which is communications with the city. Residents are very concerned that they have problems and they can't get it to the right people or they get it to the right people and there's no action. There's no follow-up. So my understanding of this program is we're trying to create an intermediary here to facilitate communications. So residents have problems, they go to their ambassadors, who are not elected officials, but then they take those issues and bring them to elected officials or to just the city administration, the various departments, the mayor herself, whoever it is. So basically their job is to do what ambassadors do on the international level, which is to represent somebody else and to facilitate communications between two groups. So that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to be open and available to the community. We all represent different parts of Medford. So I was appointed by the mayor to represent West Medford, but other residents have been appointed to represent North Medford and South Medford, Hillside. So I'd encourage you all to get in contact with your ambassador. I believe that the city will soon be publishing contact information for everybody.

[John Petrella]: Well, that'd be nice.

[Nick Giurleo]: There have been some concerns, well, how do I even reach these people? For me, I have social media, you can send me a DM, or you could email me. I have a website as well. I'm really all over the place, so it shouldn't be too hard.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, you are. You're easy to get in contact with.

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, and I'll try to respond as quickly as I can. And my goal here is to take action. It's to not just be a sounding board for your concern, but to actually do something and produce results. So I'm feeling good about this program. I think it's a positive thing. I hope it's successful, and I'm going to do everything I can personally to make it a success. Yeah.

[John Petrella]: I like it. I think it sounds great. I know you'll do a good job. I know Milva is the chairperson. Well, we hope to have her on the show in the near future. If you're listening or watching, Milva, you know, So, besides yourself, who else is a neighborhood ambassador? Can you give us some names?

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, so some names you probably have heard of.

[John Petrella]: Okay.

[Nick Giurleo]: A number of these people ran in the last election, so you mentioned Milva.

[John Petrella]: Oh, really?

[Nick Giurleo]: Okay. You can see on the screen here the full list, but some highlights would be Milva, Page Buldini, and Patrick Clerkin. of course myself, really everybody on this list. I don't know all of them well.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, I know a few of them. I know more than I thought I was gonna know.

[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah. We did have our first meeting earlier in the month and it was very positive. I think we were very productive and I liked our dynamic and I'm sure it's going to improve as we continue working together. So yeah, please, please, please reach out to your neighborhood ambassador, engage with this program and give us feedback too if you feel like it's not working or something could be adjusted.

[John Petrella]: Right. No, I think that's going to work out great. And you are going to publish information so people can get in contact and in touch with all ears?

[Nick Giurleo]: Yes, so we'll be publishing the contact information. One of the things I personally almost insisted upon was that we take minutes. Because this isn't a publicly noticed meeting, we're just meeting privately with the administration. So I'm the secretary of the group, so I'll be writing up the minutes myself and disseminating them on my personal website and hopefully the city will publish them as well. So we can go back and see what was discussed and accomplished at our meetings.

[John Petrella]: Sounds great, Nick. It's that time again. Really, I could talk to you for

[Nick Giurleo]: As you know, I could talk all night.

[John Petrella]: I know, me too. Anyhow, I want to thank our guest, Nick Gileo, attorney Nick Gileo, for joining us on Method Happenings. I also want to take a minute, I want to thank everyone who has been watching the show. Views are really up there. Thank you for your feedback. We're getting a lot of feedback. And I want to mention, if you'd like to appear on the show, and a lot of people are starting to contact us, you can reach us at methodhappenings02155 at gmail.com. I want to mention you can watch replays of this program on the Method Community Media Access Channel. And you can check out our website, methodhappenings.com. It's a great website. And you can now either view or listen to a podcast of this program as well. And you can find all of our shows on YouTube, just go to YouTube.com and search for Method Happenings. So please like and subscribe to our channel, our videos. You can also find us on Facebook. We just started a Facebook page that's doing very well. It's just Facebook at Method Happenings. And for the Method Happenings team, Paul, Marco, Bruce, James, And myself, I'm John Petrella. I just want to say, Method, remember, stay informed. Thank you all. Ta-da!