AI-generated transcript of City Council Committee of the Whole 05-06-26

[Zac Bears]: Medford City Council Committee of the Whole. May 6, 2026 is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan. Councilor Callahan is absent. Councilor Leming. Present. Councilor Malayne. Present. Councilor Scarpelli. Present. Councilor Tseng. Present. Vice President Lazzaro. Vice President Lazzaro is absent. And President Pierce.

[Zac Bears]: present, five present, two absent, the meeting is called to order. Vice President Lazzaro and Councilor Callahan send their apologies. They are at the curriculum night at the middle schools, so they won't be able to be here at least for a while, and hopefully will be done before then. We have four departments tonight in front of us, and I'll just read the paper. 26, action and discussion items 26-061, annual budget process for fiscal 27, preliminary budget meeting number three. This will be the third preliminary budget meeting of the fiscal 27 budget process. Mayor has communicated that the following departments will be present, building, clerk, electrical, veterans. Note preliminary budget meetings will continue after May 15th and the council president will be working with the mayor and city administration to develop a schedule of further meetings to be shared at the May 12th committee of the whole preliminary budget meeting. So we're going to go a bit past the time range here in our budget ordinance. So we will probably be having meetings at least the week after next, maybe even a week after that. And we'll coordinate to make sure that folks know when those are happening. We're going to go in order, a little bit of a different order tonight. We're going to take the electrical and then veterans and then clerk and then building. So, we're building and clerk. We'll figure that one out when we get there. But we'll start with Superintendent of Wires Randazzo talking about our electrical department. And I'll just quickly go through. If you could describe the changes in your budget and then tell us what you've been up to this past year, your plans for next year. And things you'd like to see funded in the future that weren't funded this year.

[Steve Randazzo]: My good evening council first of all. Yes so I'm trying to continue on just improving the lighting throughout the city. That's my main objective. Some of my increases have been because of it like the national grid has increased changes their rates. So we've gone up a little bit with that. And my traffic signal materials and stuff, some of the traffic signals are starting to approach their age expectancy. So we're trying to update things as we can. And those are the major changes I have.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Could you let us know what your department's, some highlights from this past year and some plans for the upcoming year?

[Steve Randazzo]: Really we're trying to update the traffic equipment, making things more ADA compliant is basically what we've been doing and again trying to improve lighting wherever we can.

[Zac Bears]: And that's the plan for next year too?

[Steve Randazzo]: Correct.

[Zac Bears]: Awesome. Is there anything that wasn't able to be funded this year that you are hoping will maybe be able to come in a future year?

[Steve Randazzo]: There is some things that I'm trying to work on, trying to repair some of the existing lighting that's in place that, you know, I'll probably be asking for funding at some point.

[Zac Bears]: Okay. All right. Do we have any questions from members of the Council for the Superintendent of Wires? Oh, Councilor Maloney.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. Thank you so much for coming in and putting all this together. I just had a couple of just kind of quick questions. I know you mentioned about the streetlights and needing more being able to address some of those things are kind of wear and tear. How like how how often are you seeing that like are you seeing this is it are we coming up and we're going to see more of this happening increasingly given the time frames that the last time.

[Steve Randazzo]: I would suspect yes an increase in things because the typical age expectancy of some of the stuff is starting to age and sometimes you have more failures because of it. OK.

[Liz Mullane]: And you're seeing more of that kind of happening, or? I do. Okay. And I guess from the budget itself to, I know we're at 268 for that, to the 360, is it just, or 350, do you just see that more of that will be happening in the next couple of months to kind of catch up to that, or is that going to be left over to move to the next budget?

[Steve Randazzo]: It's probably going to go over into the next budget.

[Liz Mullane]: Okay. Okay, good, thank you.

[Zac Bears]: All right, do we have any further questions for Superintendent Juarez Randazzo? All right, well, thank you for everything you're doing to keep the city well lit and people from blowing through intersections. We really appreciate it.

[Steve Randazzo]: Thank you, council. Have a good evening.

[Zac Bears]: All right, we'll move next to the Veterans Services Department. We have Director Shaw with us. And same questions, if you want to let us know what the differences are between this current year and the upcoming year, kind of an update on what you've been able to do this past year, some plans for next year, and then things you'd like to see funded in the future that weren't able to be funded for the upcoming year.

[Veronica Shaw]: All right, so we did have, we had a lot of changes. I don't know that our dollar amount, you won't see a huge change, but our line items changed. The most significant, that first one under personnel would be my pay because of the study that was done, the city did agree to bring me up to a level along with my peers in other cities. That was definitely the largest increase. And then we did have some decreases. We had some minor increases in things like repair and for our printer because our contract went up and then we're now paying like $70 more a month for it. So that is the only other major increase. We did go down in several things, including our cash aid, which is what we use to pay our Chapter 115 veterans and any emergencies that we have. Because we have seen year after year the number of veterans on our Chapter 115 rolls go down, There hasn't been as much of a need, so we were able to give back to the city. And I suspect that we will see that year after year as those numbers continue to fall. And that's pretty much across the state, is that we're seeing those numbers come down. So I was able to give back $20,000 from last year for that line item. Office supplies stayed the same. We came down on travel and conferences. This year and next year, I won't be attending the Veterans Largest Conference. This year, my daughter's graduating from high school. And then she leaves for the Army, so I had to prioritize my family over this conference. And rather than keep that money, we just, we went down on that line item as well. And I think those are the major changes that you see in our budget. Like I said, I think the dollar amounts are pretty much lined up because we did give so much back out of cash aid. Do you have any questions about the budget itself?

[Zac Bears]: I do have one. Yes, sir. And then we can go through the. general more narrative stuff, which is more fun. On that cash aid question, I noticed the budget versus actuals, you know, we're at an actuals of around 116K with the budget of 300. Is that, you know, is more of that coming to be spent out in the rest of the year?

[Veronica Shaw]: Yes. So we will actually, this year, this fiscal year, we will give back some of that. We still have three months to account for that is not included in with this dollar amount of our Chapter 115 payments. We're right around $10,000 a month coming out for that. I did just add another veteran this past week, so that will go up by another $1,800 a month. And then what else comes out of that is I just had a widow this morning that needed help with her rent. So that is what comes out of that. I need to make sure that my widows, my veterans have their necessary needs and that comes out of that. So that's part of why we do have a buffer. We can count on like I have exact dollar amounts for 115. But then when there's an emergency, the spouse of one of my veterans passed away this past week. And so out of 115, we also help with funeral benefits. So that's going to be an additional 4,000 that comes out of that. We had an unclaimed veteran pass away two months ago. And that line item will be coming out soon. That was another $4,000. And so we have to keep a buffer for things like that. Otherwise, we could have given more. And at the end of the year, we do give back. The city takes back what we don't use. But I need to make sure that if I have an emergency with one of my veterans, I have that money to help them.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Of course that makes a lot of sense of having the buffer and you don't know, you can't expect the unexpected and obviously it's really important things that this money is going to help folks with. In terms of the Chapter 115, could you talk a little bit more about how that works so certain folks qualify for it, the city funds it or do we get state matching funds, how does that work?

[Veronica Shaw]: Excellent question. I love this topic. I may go on for a while. So Chapter 115 is a program by the state of Massachusetts. We're actually the only state in the entire country that has this program or anything like it. For our low-income veterans, and then we also include widows and widowers in that, or dependent children. So if there's any children of a deceased veteran who is unable to care for themselves or work, we can help in there as well. And then we help with a cash allowance. Every month they'll get a check. It will include cash aid to help cover their rent. We do fuel assistance, medication reimbursement. We have some veterans that may have a higher income, but they don't quite have their needs met. And so they bring us their receipts and we pay them, reimburse them for their medications. And that's huge when the cost of medications and doctor's appointments are going up. They know they have that safety net with Chapter 115. And it's just an amazing program. So how the payments work is we cut the check from the city every month. I try to have it out around the 15th of every month. And then we get reimbursed 75 percent of that from the state. So the city does eat 25 percent of it, but we do get 75 percent back. pretty awesome for helping our veterans.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, that's significant. And so, is this budgeting for the 25% basically or for the full 100%?

[Veronica Shaw]: This is budgeting for everything. It includes everything. It also, in that cash aid amount, it pays for our flags that we put out for Memorial Day. Huge plugs, the 16th, come out and help. We buy about 10,000 flags every year. This year, they charge us 3,000 more than in previous years. We do buy them from the Department of Corrections to help keep that cost low. They're the lowest, so we check everybody to make sure we're getting the best deal, and we get 75 percent reimbursed for that as well.

[Zac Bears]: All right, so when you're talking about the number of folks who are eligible for this going down, is that because there are fewer veterans in general, or veterans are moving away, or?

[Veronica Shaw]: No, the reason is because when this program was started, it was intended for veterans coming back from the World Wars, when they didn't have pensions, they didn't have retirement funds. And this was intended to help those veterans, but over time, as veterans are They're coming out financially better after retirement. They have the pensions, the retirement plans. There's just less of a need. So it's not that we don't have as many veterans, although in Medford we do. We did see a pretty significant drop from last year's census. But the veterans in need are just less. because they do have those other sources of income. We also did see people moving away. We did have several die last year that brought our generals. When I first started, we had about 15, and then after my first year, we went up to 21. And then now we're back down to 13. And so it's a combination of people passing away and then there's just not as big of a need. And that is something that we're seeing across the state as well.

[Zac Bears]: And my last kind of question along this line, given the kind of changing demographics and are we able to maybe, does that give you maybe some more space to try to find folks who might be eligible who aren't taking advantage of the program? Is that something that, I know you were working on that a couple years ago.

[Veronica Shaw]: That's actually part of my goal that I was going to talk about next. So how I got to the 21 was by doing outreach. I went to the churches and spoke to their senior groups. We encouraged people to come to our monthly senior group over at the senior center. And so it's a matter of getting my face in front of veterans. and doing outreach. There's still a lot of veterans that don't even know that we exist. I come across them all the time. They're like, what do you mean there's a veteran's office? And it's been here since like 1972, and people still don't know that we're here.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Is there any, does the VA offer any support to help you identify folks who may be residing in Medford?

[Veronica Shaw]: Nope. So, sort of. Sort of, sort of, sort of, kinda. But what I do get is a list from the VA for every service member that is leaving the service who has on their DD-214 their home of record as Medford. Or if they're leaving and they're coming to Medford, they will leave their forwarding address with the military. I get that list. This is the first year since I've been here that I have had anybody actually come back to Medford after the service. Of those, I think I had five, none of them are here anymore. I did have several move here, but coming out of the military, none of them stayed in the area. The other thing is I get a list from EOVS, the Executive Office of Veteran Services. Every year they send out a list. of all of the money that veterans bring in. I know people think that veterans, we're taking money from the city. We actually bring in millions of dollars in pensions, in VA disability, which is going to pay taxes. So, I get that list. I know how, I have a dollar amount of how much VA money is coming into the city.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Okay, great. And, but there's no list of like,

[Veronica Shaw]: Veterans don't like being on lists.

[Zac Bears]: I think that's fair. Yeah, I hear that.

[Veronica Shaw]: I have been trying, and they're like, you're gonna send me stuff. Yes, I'm gonna send you stuff. So no, there is not. I have a list of the killed in action that we've had over the years. I have kind of little specific lists, but I have no comprehensive list of every veteran in the city. Probably the closest to that would be from the census, if veterans self-identify. then voter registration can give me a list. That's how I know that our numbers dropped last year.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, okay, great. Well, I will stop going on this tangent a little bit, even though- It's a subject I like talking about, it's all good. Yeah, great. All right, then yeah, what you've been doing for the past year, what's the plan for next year, and some items that weren't included that you'd like to see in the future.

[Veronica Shaw]: So things that, I actually had the list so I would make sure to tell you everything. So the list of things that the Veterans Office has done in the past year, we celebrated the Army's 250th birthday and the Army and Navy. or the Navy and Marine Corps. We celebrate or we participated in Wreaths Across America for the first time. We exceeded our goal and we have doubled that for this coming year. We've been invited back so we're going to participate again this year. We'll be kicking that off in July with a Christmas in July promotion. Our goal is 500, I would love to get up to 1,000. I think if we promote it a little bit more, that is a reasonable expectation. There was definitely a lot of really good feedback from last year. I'm excited to do that again. We began working with the American Legion and Suffolk Construction on the potential for a veteran's home here in Medford, converting the American Legion, their house portion, which is currently unoccupied, into a home for transitioning veterans. some long-term and short-term. So we're still in the feasibility study plan. We know that we can't reconstruct what is there. So now we're looking at the possibility of removing that building and building a brand new home for veterans. So we're very excited about that. That is a current goal and a long-term goal because we're looking at this being a multi-year program. to get up and running. But that did begin start the process this year. I was able to secure a CPA grant to fix the Angel of Victory and Peace in Oak Grove. We officially break ground the day after Memorial Day. And from Memorial Day to Labor Day from now on, the Angel will be fully functional and lit up at night. So we're very excited about that. Weston Sampson will be doing the construction on that. We are still working on digitizing all of our files. That is a ongoing thing. There's a lot of files that from years and years and years that we're looking to get digitized so that we can free up some space in the basement and in our office. And that way all of our files will be ready at our fingertips without having to go searching through boxes and boxes and boxes. We had two veteran street corner dedications this year. We'll be doing probably two a year as long as we can make it work with the mayor's office. Completed several outreach programs through the senior center. I try to pair a lot with them because so many of our veterans use their facility, and it's a great way of combining my resources with the senior center. This is the second year in a row we created all of the wreaths that you'll see throughout the city for Memorial Day. It was a great opportunity to bring the community together for our veterans. Second year in a row, I participated in the pit count that we did over the winter for the homeless count through HUD. And there was a lot. Oh, we did change how we did our recertifications for Chapter 115. This is probably going to seem small, but it made a huge impact in our office. Previously, there was no accountability for veterans doing the recertification process, so we did make it a requirement that I have to put eyes on every veteran or widow and just bring them into the office at least once a year. It made our recertification process that usually takes months. We had it all done within one month, which was huge for us. So we will continue doing that going forward. And then where we want to go. My number one goal that I turned into the mayor is to increase visibility within the community. I need to be out there. I need to see veterans. I need to meet them where they are. We do have homeless veterans in Medford, so I need to be out there getting to them. I need to be at the churches and the senior groups because they don't all know where we are. They don't know what benefits are available to them. And I'm only one person, so I need to be able to do as much as I can to get out to them. My second goal actually goes hand in hand with that one and also goes to your question about what funding I would want to see happen. And I do understand that it was not possible this year. I'm not, you know, unhappy about that. But it is a need in my offices to bring in a veteran service agent that would help with me being able to be out. Because right now, closing down the office is usually the only option for me being out there. Because my assistant, Darlene, she's only here part time. And she's amazing and wonderful. But when she's not there, the option is closing down the office, which is not great for walk-ins. or I put things off, and that's also not a great. So I would love in the future to be able to bring on a veteran service agent. For a city our size, it is recommended, but it is not a requirement. So that was actually my second goal that went with number one. My number three goal is I would love to have a food pantry here in Medford just for veterans and their families. There are some other communities within the Commonwealth that do a program like that. And we were, I would love to base it out of the American Legion. They have the space. It's more just a matter of who's going to fund it. making sure they have the space, but food insecurity is becoming a very, very real thing for a lot of veterans. The cost of food is going up. It's becoming an issue of are we going to be reactionary or are we going to be proactive? And I would rather make sure the food is there. versus having them come to my office and say, I can't feed my kids, can't feed my wife, and having to wait for a check. This way I can say, here we have the resources. So that is a goal that I have to have before the end of this year, is to have even just a small food pantry with some very basic staples to help offset that. Wreaths across America is, I told you, the increase. I would love to see that. Our current goal is 500. My personal goal is to get us up to 1,000. The creation of the homeless and transitioning veterans home at the American Legion. I did include that in addition to what I started this year because it is a goal. It's going to be a long-term thing. It's going to take several years and I want to make sure that stays kind of in my focus. I don't want to forget about it when, you know, we haven't heard anything from Suffolk. I want to make sure that stays on my goal list. The last thing that we will be pushing out to, actually not the last thing, I am partnering with the cemetery and with another member of the American Legion to clean up the veterans' graves. The way that the cemetery works is the families own the graves themselves, and so the cemetery doesn't have the manpower to go and clean up all of those graves. So we're gonna go lawn by lawn, and make sure that every veteran that does not already have a headstone or a footplate has one. We do have a lot of veterans, over 1,000, that have no recognition at all. And so the goal is to make sure that all of those veterans have something on their graves identifying them. And then to clean up the ones that are already there because when the families pass, then the graves, the cemetery does the absolute best that they can and they do a great job. But those graves need a little bit of extra love. And so over the course of probably the next year and a half, maybe two years, we're going to go lawn by lawn. and clean up those graves. And then to get the bronze plates, we will fill out the paperwork, the city will become the next of kin, and then the VA will create the bronze plaques to put in the ground. And that is free for the city. The city doesn't pay anything, but it does give that recognition to veterans. And then the last thing that I'm Everybody will be getting a notice about this in the coming days. Myself, the recovery coach, Chris, and public health, we have partnered to create a veterans and first responders recovery group that will be open to every veteran first responder within our city, neighboring cities. It's going to be held not on city property so every veteran and first responder feels comfortable. But it will be within our city. And it's going to be free for veterans. It's going to be free for everybody. And we're so proud of the work that we've put into this. And so you will be seeing large amounts of emails and Facebook posts to get it out to everybody. I think that's it.

[Zac Bears]: All right. I appreciate comprehensive answers to our questions and also just appreciate the passion that you're putting into your work and the passion you show for our veteran community. I'm going to go to Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you very much, Veronica. I think I speak for the whole council when I say that you're doing a wonderful job. I do have one question, which is, has anybody taken up the rental assistance program yet?

[Veronica Shaw]: No, they have not. I am working with a veteran right now. who was looking for a private landlord, and she actually refused to let us use it with her veterans. She did not want her landlord to benefit from her service. So I have gone back to the drawing board to see if there is a different way to go about this. I'm not giving up on the program, but when I have spoken with the problem is multifold. One, the rents. here in Medford are a lot. And I haven't had a whole lot of veterans looking right now. I've had this past week, I've had three veterans looking to move to New Hampshire, which is awful. I want them to stay here. I think we have better benefits here. Actually, we know we did. I just turned in a thesis statement on all the awesome things that Massachusetts has to offer veterans. But realistically, lower income people can't afford the private landlords and the veterans I have. already have someplace.

[Matt Leming]: Right. Well, I would appreciate two things from you. One, a recommendation for how much it should be increased because $750 a year is not all that much of an incentive. The second is just reach out to Steve and Steve Smerdy and ask him to put a link to some kind of an application form. It could be a Google Doc.

[Veronica Shaw]: Absolutely.

[Matt Leming]: Even for the veterans web page just so that people can people can apply for it, because that should get at least a little bit of advertising for it.

[Veronica Shaw]: And I have two realtors that I have been working with, so they know about the program. One I work pretty consistently with when I have veterans looking to buy homes, so they are very well aware of the program. It's a matter of I haven't been able to find anybody to connect.

[Matt Leming]: Well, hopefully a slight increase in the amount, which I would be interested in hearing your recommendation on what you think would be helpful and just an application form. But, yeah, thank you. Thank you so much.

[Veronica Shaw]: I will get back to you within a month.

[Matt Leming]: Best of luck planning the Memorial Day celebration as well.

[Veronica Shaw]: Thank you.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you, Councilman Leming.

[Zac Bears]: Councilman Layton.

[Liz Mullane]: I also wanted to say thank you so much, especially for your passion and the work that you've been doing. My grandpa was a World War II veteran. He took many advantages of working with his group there locally, and it really made a huge difference for him. So thank you very much. I know you had talked about the veteran service agent and that position. And you have someone in there right now that's part-time. Is that person ever even considering to go full-time, or would you need someone completely different?

[Veronica Shaw]: I would need somebody completely different because Darlene is not a veteran, and to be a veteran service agent, you have to be a veteran. Got it. Okay. And honestly, she is so amazing at what she does. I don't want to change her job. I want her to stay exactly, she is my brain. She tells me where I need to go and what I need to do. I don't want to move her. What I need is a veterans agent that can help with the claims so that I can focus on the outreach, the working with the homeless veterans, finding resources, and I am doing it now. But it would be nice. It's not something that I'm going to go home and cry about. But it is definitely, as my cabinets are getting more full, because I have seen an increase, it has become more aware of, OK, I have to really tighten my schedule. I have to limit my time outside of the office so that I can do those claims.

[Liz Mullane]: Got it.

[Veronica Shaw]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Do we have any more questions for our veteran services director? All right. Seeing none. Thank you.

[Veronica Shaw]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Next we will go to the clerk's office budget. We do have our city clerk here. He reminded me that he was going to be here no matter what. So yes I will. I will ask you the same questions. Oh you can go. Yeah. Go ahead down. Fun. Yes. welcoming our acting city clerk Rich Alicio to present the clerk's office budget and generally share with us about the changes between last year and this year. Yeah. Changes between last year and this year, some work that's been going on, you know, what's your update for the year that's ending in June and then some of the work that your office is planning to get done. and the upcoming year, and then any items that weren't included this year that you're hoping will be included in future years.

[Rich Eliseo]: Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Nice to see you all. Yeah, so with the budget, we didn't really cut much out of the budget. We did take $500 out of our printing, which basically was bindings, book bindings and most of that stuff. And then obviously what gets paid out of that too is, you know, the printing of the paper, you know, using the paper and the machine and all that. But we had a little room there, so we took $500 out of that. We took $500 out of our office supplies, which $4,000 should be good for us for the year. We should be able to manage that for the fiscal year. And then the only other line that we really took much out of was the subscriptions and publications. That basically covered our citizen serve licensing. Lisa, I was made aware that Lisa's license is actually in buildings budget. And apparently that's where all the licenses are going to be paid out of. So for right now, we only removed one license out. The second license we're hoping to get, that'll be the other full-time staff member's license, Cassandra. And then $500 is going to be for, which will be, which I'll talk about in the goals, but is getting City Hall systems online instead of GoGov. And I'll explain that in the goals as to why we're thinking about doing that, sorry. As far as accomplishments we've had this year, our main goal last year was to get the applications and licensing online onto CitizenServe platform. I worked with Scott VanderWaal, the former building commissioner, and we were able to do that. We accomplished getting the common vehicular licenses online, which helped us decrease the number of missing applications or incomplete applications for businesses, down from 40 to 50, as we talked about, down to about 10 and 11, which is where we're at right now. We also have the Auto licensing on there now. We have gas and garage on there now. So basically our four major licenses are on the CitizenServe platform for people to go in. That was one of our main goals. Second goal was to get the staff trained, get them going to the conferences and stuff to get training, the necessary training, and for me to give them the necessary training to help the office move forward into a positive direction. We somewhat accomplished that. We've had a lot of staffing questions, so we haven't really had a chance to get the staff to these classes when they become available. I haven't been able to attend the classes as the assistant, nor as the acting. We have been short-staffed in the office. So that's why if you notice that line item where it says dues and conferences, no money has been used out of that budget. So that's why that is the way it is. Are there any questions on the budget items?

[Zac Bears]: Any questions on budget items or what's been going on in the past year? Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: This could be a really basic one. Where does the city messenger fall under?

[Rich Eliseo]: The city messenger is actually going to fall under the legislative side of the budget. So they will fall into the legislative budget, not into the clerk's budget. Okay. All right. Gotcha. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Do we have any further questions for the acting city clerk right now? All right. What are we up to the next year, and what are some things that maybe weren't included this year that you'd like to see in the future?

[Rich Eliseo]: So basically as you guys know the clerk's office you know we serve as the record keeping department and the legislative support for the city council. Basically what I would like to see going forward is we're working on. trying to get a countertop computer in the office to help with residents who come in or business owners who come in who need to file applications instead of having to send them right now to the building department, which is the only access they have to CitizenServe. We'd like to get that online, hopefully get a swipe system with that so we can start accepting credit card payments for the applications right in the office. because right now we have a lot of residents that come in that don't have cash or don't have checks and they have to go to the bank to get money, so on and so forth. That's another reason why we put a lot of the applications online so people can use the online payment system. Other things I would like to see would be, I would like to present to the council and Administration, the vault in our office is very heavily overused and overstuffed. We have no room to keep our vital records. Half of our vital records, maybe a third, is downstairs in the basement, which we don't have continuous access to. So I would like, I had somebody come out and do a presentation to me, give me a quote and stuff like that, to redo the vault racking system, change everything in there to double the amount of space storage-wise in our vault in our office. So basically I'd be able to bring everything up that's downstairs and still have room for at least another 20 or 30 years worth of stuff, which would be ideal because the vital records that are in the basement need to be up here in the office because we need to have direct access to them, and right now we don't. So that's creating a little headache when we have to go research older records. Other than that, I'd like to still be able to keep the legislative tracking going. I noticed we've made strides in getting the tracking updated, getting it online, an Excel application for you guys to be able to track your resolutions, the ordinances, you know, the way they should be tracked. And I'd like to continue processing that, getting that moving forward, adding some stuff to it. It's now shareable, so you guys can actually view it live. You can go into the link and see every time something's added in. And then training. Training is a big thing in the office, and my staff is doing great. They are doing what they need to do. They're working with the now part-timer we have in the office to help get her trained. I'm helping them train as much as I possibly can, but we are still very short-staffed in the office. Without having a clerk technically on the acting, we don't have an assistant, and we're down to two and a half employees in the office. So the workload is there, and it's affecting our ability to train the proper way. So I would like to get our training up to snuff this coming year, which hopefully will happen. But everybody, we're doing a great job. We're moving forward, we're keeping the office focused on what needs to be done, and the morale is up, it's good, it's great, and that's all you can ask for. So if there's any other questions, anybody has any questions about

[Zac Bears]: Do we have any questions for our clerk Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah. And I apologize for you said this. What was what was the cost estimate for the vault project.

[Rich Eliseo]: So the vault project is approximately, so there's two different, it's not really a big difference, but they sent me the first plan, which was a full vault redo with a full racking system, which is roughly about $109,000. And then a $9,500 separate bill, which would be to take everything out of the rack, take everything out of the vault now, separate it, secure it where we can get to it. The company would go in, take all the racking out, throw it all away, go in, reinstall all the new racking, and then take all the stuff that they took out, reorganize it in the racks, and then get it all organized so we can take the stuff from downstairs and bring it up. That came to about 9,500 bucks. The only thing we would be responsible for is the dumpster to throw the old racking into when they took it out of there. Other than that, the second option was one less rack system. So one less rolling rack, which was like a $6,000 difference, which wouldn't significantly impact the storage. They said it would probably take maybe five to 10 years worth of storage off, which may not be a big deal. I prefer to stay with the whole unit system, which is $109,000 and then $9,500 for the taking everything out and then resetting everything afterwards, which would take the burden off of us having to do it. So about $120,000. Thank you. All right.

[Zac Bears]: Do we have any further questions from members of the council? I just had one, Rich, you know, I know the other big change in this budget is moving from three full-time clerks plus the assistant plus the city clerk to two and a half. And I'm wondering generally with the workload what the impact of that is going to be and the capacity in the office.

[Rich Eliseo]: Yeah. I'm trying to streamline the process, processes in the office. I'm trying to make things more organized and more easily accessible. But the girls are taking on a lot of excess work from not having that third full-time person in the office that would normally be able to separate the duties. Kathy, who is the current part-time staff member in the office, she is doing a dual role in the building department. And you guys know building has a lot of responsibility. She has a lot of responsibility in that office. So I can't bombard her with the kind of workload I would even as part time that I would give to the other staff members. Right now she's handling the citizen serve platform issues and stuff like that that we have with applications because she's familiar with the citizen serve over in building. She works with it all the time. So that's basically her job. She does help out in the office with extra stuff as she's needed. And then she does help at the counter when she can. But the brunt of the workload is falling onto the two full-time staff, and they are very overworked. But again, I'm working with them, trying to help as much as I possibly can when it's needed. Not having that third full-time person in the office affects the scheduling as well, too, If they're out and I'm out, that leaves one full timer in the office on days that Kathy's not available. So we're trying to work out stuff like that too. Vacations and everything coming up now. So I mean, there's a burden, but we're making it work. And it would definitely be nice to have a full-time person in the office. But I understand with the budget constraints and everything going on, it was tough to do that. So they made this position to kind of like help two offices at once. But yeah, it would be nice to have a full-time individual in the office for staff.

[Zac Bears]: Any further questions for the acting city clerk on the clerk's budget? All right. Seeing none, thank you, Rich. And we will move to our last budget, which is the building department. I believe the chief of staff is on to present the building department budget. We have the same questions as always. If you could describe the change between fiscal 26 and fiscal 27 budgets, update on what the office has been up to for the past year, plans for the upcoming year, You know, and I don't know if on either of those or on this last one, if the commissioner was able to provide any sort of notes or prep documents on things that they were hoping to do in the future that weren't able to be funded this year. And I'll recognize the chief of staff.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you, President Bears, members of the council. As the council knows, our former building commissioner, Scott Vandewall has transitioned to another community. We're fortunate to have Mr. Vandal Wall supporting the city on an interim basis. He's actually in the building now, supporting the department and working through things that need to be done in the office. He and I had connected before this evening's meeting on who should present the budget and at his request, he wanted to focus his attention and time, the limited resources on the office and the things that need to happen in the office, and I felt comfortable enough with the budget. He and I had worked together on the budget to be able to present it. Obviously, I work with every department head on all of their budgets with our budget manager. Um, as the council will see, uh, the department budget really has some, some. Changes as the, as has been discussed just a moment ago by acting city clerk. Uh, we have a. Part time staff member in the office now that's supporting the administrative work. Uh, the team seems to be working very well. Um, I think Commissioner van der Waal had fostered a very good system and working to streamline the efforts of the office. In particular, CitizenServe, which has been discussed this evening, the building commissioner serves as the main point of contact for CitizenServe throughout the organization and supports departments throughout the organization when launching or adding permits to different departments. Presently, the department is supporting the health department with some permits, obviously, as Acting Clerk Alicio mentioned, as well as, you know, transitioning in the clerk's office with continued support and work that's ongoing. So overall, one of the goals is to continue to maximize the opportunities and uses of CitizenServe throughout the organization. It started back in 2020. The building department was able to kind of on the, they were on the cusp of that, bringing that technology in and You know, we were one of the organizations that had limited to no downtime as far as building permitting, but now through the support of all of our departments and all of our department heads and all the staff in their departments, it pretty much touches every department at this point that does any type of permitting or external application process. Or at least certainly does with most, if not perhaps, you know, most of our regulatory departments, which is wonderful. Um, the going down further on the budget, um, everything is just. Sized based on, you know, both. Actuals and, um, contracts, uh, heading down into the ordinary expenses section. Um, by and large, everything that was presented as adjustments by the building commissioner, uh, if I'm not mistaken with potentially minor. Differences are presented here. The other thing that didn't originally come up in the original submission of the budget was an increase to the citizen serve licenses per seat. We are going to contact citizen serve to see if that can be reduced because it is a significant increase to the licensure, but that number is reflected here. As you can see, it's about, I think it's, It's not exactly 28, because I think it's a license number difference, but 28% that's shown here, but it's roughly in that vicinity. So we're going to try to see if there's any way CitizenServe would be agreeable to potentially phasing that increase in or potentially increasing at a different time. It's always worth the ask, that's for sure. And beyond that, I don't believe that there's anything else that really needs to be materially highlighted other than to say that Commissioner van der Waal had throughout the year in terms of you know what took place over 2026 and what is anticipated for 2027 as we work to recruit a new building commissioner. Commissioner van der Waal made it a point to hold tabletop trainings and discussions with the staff in the department. I hope to see that continue with a new building commissioner. I believe that they were very positive, and I believe they were positively received by the inspectors in the department. Obviously, the inspectors continue to perform and attend trainings at the professional level in their associations, which is instrumental in staying up to date with code and changes within their profession. So that's generally all I have. I've touched on everything other than to say the only other major high level piece that would be something that's obvious and near and dear to all of our hearts in terms of work that we have going on that is a critical component to the building commissioner's position would be us continuing to support the zoning process.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam Chief of Staff. Do we have any questions for the Chief of Staff on the building department budget? I'll go to Councilor Malauulu and then Councilor Leming.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you, Chief Staff for running through this with us. I just had a question when it came to the salary piece of it at the bottom. I may have missed this when you were going through some of the explanations, but it looks like the principal clerk was budgeted one at 55 and then we're down to a half at 58. And I was just curious if I was missing something to those numbers.

[Nina Nazarian]: That's an excellent question. I will look into that one. I don't have the answer in front of me because it doesn't look right at the moment, but I will look into that and get back to the council.

[Liz Mullane]: Okay. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Looks like the numbers are swapped.

[Liz Mullane]: Are they swapped? Oh, from above? Yeah, it looks like. Okay, that was the other question.

[Nina Nazarian]: Yeah, thank you. That's a great catch. Yep. The head clerk and the principal clerk's numbers for FY27 are in the wrong spots. That's most likely. Yep.

[Liz Mullane]: Great, and then just the other piece of it, I was looking of the permanent employees and the permanent part-time, those two numbers added up to 767 on the 758 that's proposed down. So I just wasn't sure where some of the other monies might've been put in there.

[Nina Nazarian]: So could you, through you President Bears to Councilor Mulane, could you please repeat the two numbers you were looking at that make the 738?

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah, no, I was looking at the top for the Fiscal Year 27 proposed, the permanent employees, the 738, and then the part-time at the 29. I think when I added that number up as compared to what the department totals were proposed for Fiscal Year 27, they were off by around like 9 or 10,000. I just wasn't sure if there was something else in there that we may have been missing.

[Nina Nazarian]: Okay, I will look into that one. We've solved the first question. We haven't solved the second question. I will look into that addition question.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Go to Councilor Leming. Are you good? Same question. All right, we'll go to Councilor Tsenglin.

[Justin Tseng]: Hi there, Nina. Thanks for doing the building department for us. I think one of the main things that we hear from residents is, you know, when they talk about noise, when they talk about all these different things, I think always ties back to code enforcement. and the need for more president, more just staffing to do code enforcement in the city. Has the administration looked at whether the need for code enforcement is kind of matches the staffing at that level right now? And if there's a gap, is there a plan to increase that over the next years?

[Nina Nazarian]: Um, so I know we've discussed the question. Thank you. Um, Councilor Tseng, and that through you, of course, president bears. Um, I know we've discussed the question in the past and past discussions. We've had, uh, deliberations on the matter. Um, I think generally speaking, the challenge that Medford continues to have, and I'm not going to be saying anything you don't know Councilor Tseng, or the council doesn't know, um, is, you know, it, We largely face very, very stark differences between ourselves and communities that are closer to Boston that have access to more dollars. And the resource levels that we have are I believe the staff do all that they can. And I don't think you're saying anything different, Councilor. I just find that we're in a situation where we often are, and this is not all that different in other local governments that I have had experiences in, but we are prioritizing and we are handling questions as they come in, inquiries as they come in. I have not seen a situation where we have had complaint that has been made that has gone unaddressed because we don't have the resources. So while I think that the city could always use more resources in various areas, including code enforcement throughout, I'm not aware of a tipping point that we have reached where complaints are not addressed or issues that are brought to the city's attention are not able to be addressed.

[Justin Tseng]: Just to kind of add a follow up question, I'm curious, I'm glad to hear that home complaints are being addressed. I think sometimes residents feel like it's not as timely as they would want it to be. And I think, you know, when you understand, I mean, I think everyone's just being stretched to what they can do. And there's only so many hours in a day for people to do the job. Um, so that I think I would just like that. Um, and I guess another question on top of that is, um, what I guess what kind of focus is there being put into the department when it comes to things that could generate new growth for the city like rezoning. I think we're all aware of the revenue challenges that we face and other cities like us face. But with more new growth, that could be a potential avenue for getting more staffing into this department as well.

[Nina Nazarian]: Yeah, I mean, I may be missing your point, maybe.

[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, sorry. That was a messy way to put it. I guess I was just asking, given that one of our challenges is revenue and being able to fund more code inspectors, more staffing across departments, What is the administration planning, at least with this budget, in terms of focusing on bringing in new growth? And what role does the building department play in?

[Nina Nazarian]: You know, I mean, largely, the building department is, I mean, the building department is kind of regulatory in the process. You know, I don't know as though the city's focus is generally in the economic development for new growth. Obviously, inspections have to occur. But the new growth really actually gets captured by our assessor's department. So again, I apologize, Councilor. I want to answer your question. It's not registering to me how the building department directly can help. Obviously, if the building department ever became aware or had any inclination that a matter was unpermitted or work was unpermitted, they would work with the property owner. They would work with the assessor's department to make sure that that, you know, fell into compliance and that it was captured with new growth, but that's really an assessor function and the economic development component being, you know, under planning development and sustainability. So again, I apologize if I'm missing your point. It's been a As with, I'm sure for all of you, it's been a long day. So I apologize.

[Justin Tseng]: No worries. It's been a, it's been a long day for me too. Um, uh, I guess what I was thinking is like in terms of speeding up permitting, um, speeding up those functions, making it easier for people to build a Medford to get their plans permitted. Has there been any focus on that?

[Nina Nazarian]: I think the, thank you. Um, I think the best and most obvious thing we can. We can say in that area is the significant change that has been created by streamlining permitting itself right and the building department has kind of spearheaded over the years and lean it leaned into heavily citizens serve as a platform and I believe, and I. Really. see benefits, significant benefits from the work and energy that's been put into it. And our outgoing commissioner, who we're fortunate to have supporting us in the interim, continues to focus on the importance of citizen serve, streamlining citizen serve. I know some time early in his tenure, he was looking at certain elements that were falling off of the sort of payment process. There was kind of a gap in the way that applications were completed, and he filled that gap in terms of the logistical order of approvals and also compelled prior permit applicants who had not paid certain applications to make payments on those. So he chased those down, closed those potential loopholes, and there's been a significant amount of energy placed into utilizing citizens served to its full capacity to streamline, you know, permitting and ensure that the city's moving as quickly as possible. There's always ongoing communication between our building department and our other regulatory departments, whether it's, you know, health department or the historical commission or you name it. Our departments are working very well together interdepartmentally, trying to solve large and small city streamlining overall.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. And could you give us a quick update as to the hiring timeline for a new building commissioner? Where are we in that process right now?

[Nina Nazarian]: Certainly, yes. We are currently going through interviews. I unfortunately, I wish I had a crystal ball. I don't, I'm not able to give timelines because I don't wanna, I'm never gonna wanna make a promise I can't keep. So I'm happy to say we're in the process of interviewing right now and hopefully more to come. Thanks.

[Zac Bears]: All right, thank you, Councilor Tseng. Do we have any further questions regarding the building department budget for members of the council? I just have one, Madam Chief of Staff. I think there's a pretty persistent, you know, and I understand capacity is a question here. I think we have persistent violations of the leaf blower ordinance ongoing. You know, number of residents, certainly one highly committed resident has been reporting instances. I think the building commissioner was doing his best to, you know, to get warnings and notices out, but it also seems like we haven't been able to implement kind of a cross-city departmental plan, specifically maybe trying to get addresses and contact information from various licenses and permits, or the assessing department for companies that may be operating or based in the city, and then getting all of the warnings. Basically, there was first notifying people of the change in the city ordinance, and then now, as we see, relatively persistent violations and repeat violators. escalating those cases to their first, second, third fines and then continuing that. I think that's really what's gonna be needed in some cases to make sure that people are following through. I know there's folks who have received warnings or even received fines who are continuing to violate the ordinance. And then I've also heard from some folks, some companies who said we made the investment to shift to electric systems and we feel like there's not a fair level of treatment if folks are just able to keep using the gas systems without any sort of with that being addressed in a consistent way. So I understand that there's been some capacity issues there. It seemed to me like it was mainly that Commissioner van der Waal was trying to handle that himself in addition to all the other work that he does. And I understand that that's difficult. And I do think some progress was made. I do know that warnings did go out. I do know that some fines were issued. I do know that several, you know, at least a dozen companies were contacted. So I do want to acknowledge that work as well. But it does seem to be pretty consistent. I saw two today in my travels. I don't think we're ever going to be able to catch everyone or get everyone into compliance, but I think the part of this that was really telling to me was hearing from a company, a landscaping company that said we worked to do the right thing and you know the folks who aren't doing the right thing are not really being held to account for that. So that's like one just one item I wanted to bring up I understand it in the larger context that has been discussed here on code enforcement and our resources for code enforcement. But it's a more recent example of I think larger questions and issues around code enforcement that we see where our limited capacity does lead to. folks who aren't doing the right thing, kind of just getting away with it. And I do think, you know, figuring out if there's ways that we can try to enhance our existing capacity or bring in information from other departments that might help us, or maybe even some less labor-intensive strategies than, I think right now, one of the main things is that we're responding to active complaints. Maybe there's a way to get ahead of it a little bit through some sort of communicating out to a regular list on a regular basis information. or updating the way that our web communications are talking about how to use leaf blowers in the city. I do wonder if there's some kind of lower things that don't require someone to respond to specific cases, because that can take even more time, I think, than a good information campaign sometimes. So that was a little bit rambly. I think you get my point. And that's really the only thing I wanted to bring up around our building and code enforcement. I'm happy to turn it over to you if there's any thoughts that you have on that.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you, President Bears. No, I hear you and I appreciate the thoughts on that. And I mean, obviously the city will continue to enforce the ordinance. It is something that maybe there are other ways we can look at how to do that and how to achieve those goals. As you mentioned, Commissioner VanderWaal had kind of utilized CitizenServe platform to be able to kind of track and automatically issue letters and warnings and fines through that platform, which is another example of maximizing the use of a software that is available and, you know, being adopted, you know, pretty widely by the city, which is excellent. So certainly something we can, we can think through and consider ways to enhance.

[Zac Bears]: I appreciate that. And thank you. Is there any other requests or questions on the building department budget for the Chief of Staff? All right, seeing none, Madam Chief of Staff, I just do have one further question. I know we're hoping, you know, maybe there's a couple, I think we're through many of the smaller departments, probably still a few to go. I know legislative, executive, law, probably a couple others, although who knows how long those discussions will take. We do have an hour next Tuesday. I don't know if there are a couple of budgets that we might want to try to plug in there.

[Nina Nazarian]: Yeah, it's possible that I'm, uh, thank you, president, but it's possible that I'm, uh, looking at maybe even potentially a longer list than would, uh, accommodate the time, but we can chat, um, offline and I can kind of give you the, what I'm looking at. I think it's, I mean, I can certainly mention it here too. Um, I think it's accomplishable because, uh, you know, Part of them are fixed things like pensions and bonds and interest, and they're just, they are what they are, especially for FY27. So perhaps it's possible that we can accomplish a few more than we... because they might be faster ones, but we can certainly chat. And I was also thinking we would be able to, because we have, you all have a regular city council meeting next week on Tuesday, focusing on getting papers to the council tomorrow, and then getting, you know, everything to you all first thing Friday morning in terms of the budgets.

[Zac Bears]: Okay, great. Yeah, that sounds fine. In terms of, yeah, I mean, bonds and interest, pensions, maybe insurance.

[Nina Nazarian]: Yeah, workers comp type of thing. You know, maybe facilities assessors is kind of what was on the on the horizon.

[Zac Bears]: Great. That sounds good. Okay, great. And then looking forward. and we can talk more about this offline, but looking like our next available time would be the following Tuesday at 6 p.m. on the 19th. And then we'll have to talk about the 20th. It looks like we're gonna have at least a couple of committee meetings that night. But yeah, great.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you for the heads up.

[Zac Bears]: You got it. Anything else for the chief of staff or anything else anyone wants to talk about for the fiscal 27 budget? All right, is there a motion? On the motion to keep the paper in committee and adjourned by Councilor Leming, seconded by Councilor Mullane. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro is absent. President Pierce?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, two absent. The motion passes and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.