AI-generated transcript of City Council Resident Service and Public Engagement Committee 05-20-26

[Liz Mullane]: want to call to order the Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee. Clerk, do you mind please calling the roll?

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Councilor Leming? Present. Councilor Scarpelli? Present. Councilor Tseng? Present. And Chair Malayne?

[Liz Mullane]: Present. That has five present, zero absent. We will get started. So the first item on the agenda is the resolution to publish the city council newsletter. So quickly, be it resolved by the Medford City Council that the Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee shall have the authority to draft and approve a regular newsletter summarizing the activities of the city council and can vote to publish a newsletter by whatever mechanism is available without referring the draft newsletter to a regular council meeting for a vote. Be it further resolved this paper be referred to the Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee as a standing agenda item. So with that I will share the April version of the newsletter. So. another month, another time of busy meetings, and really kind of the kickoff to the budget. So basically what I wanted to put in here is not only just highlighting some of the different general business, and what I did copy is just a little bit from the last newsletter. We just had some mentions of the April 7th meeting and a little bit about the April 8th. So I added them here as well to make sure that we were just sticking with the entire month of April. What I did try to do as well when we are going through this is try to pull out some of the numbers that I thought would be important from some of the different meetings that we attended and went through, especially the city council. There was a presentation that was given by the school committee member, Jenny Graham, as well as Ken Lord, COO of Medford Public Schools. So they had shown different repair requests. So I just kind of labeled those all out by different schools so you could see how much They were and what was happening, but again, for more of the specifics, when this newsletter gets sent out and you have questions, please feel free to go and take a look directly to the agenda items where they'll have more information on it. So again I wanted to just pull out any of the different numbers around budgets talk about some of the different distributions that were made. You'll see from the Community Preservation Committee what their distribution and how that was going to look for the different areas. They must distribute their funds towards as well as any other appropriations or distributions or expenditures that were requested by the city council from the mayor's office as well. And here I put any of the different meetings that we had in terms of. planning and permitting, committee of the whole meetings. And then the other piece that I put in here is we're going through each of the different budget meetings. I wanted to pull out the different departments that we have already seen and just in totality what their fiscal year 27 budget was as well as what it was in fiscal year 26. And I noted whether it was an increase or not, stay the same, went down just so that you could see. And if anything jumped out at you that you were curious about, As people are reading it, again, you can go right into those different agendas and see the different breakdowns. But I thought it would be helpful just to kind of get an overview and a sense of what each one of these different departments were asking for and what those amounts were and what that was looking year over year. I also put in here any of the other CDBG allocated funds. So, there was 215,000 to nine different organizations. What was really great about that meeting was that each of the different organizations came and were able to speak about the funding and what it meant to them and what they're able to do with it, which was wonderful. And again, you can see all of this online and be able to take a look at each of these different budgets that we've seen so far. as well as any of these different numbers within the budget. So with that, I'll turn over if people had, if any council members had any questions, any comments, would prefer I highlighted things differently or not. I just wanted to try to be as concise but as transparent with information as I could be.

[Justin Tseng]: Councilor Tseng. I think you did an awesome job. Thank you so much for putting this together. I think something that would be nice to do is for the the preliminary budget requests to link it to the charts that we get. Sure. For the residents who want to engage a bit further and see exactly how, within the department, things are being spent, that would be helpful. Sure.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. Anything? Any other thoughts, suggestions, edits? Wow, silence. Councilor Leming. There's usually feedback from Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, you put in one of the planning and permitting committee meetings, I think I saw an April 20 8th when it should have been April 22nd. I'm just going through and trying to format it now to save time. But I like it that the specific budget items are and different appropriation items are listed out. That takes a lot of time and patience to do, and I think it I I've seen that residents, I think they like to kind of see the numbers right there in the newsletter, just because it does help to give them kind of in a way of engaging with with numbers and city budgets in in a way they. Normally wouldn't think to by like clicking on like several links down in our in our agendas, you know, just just having everything right here is kind of a good it's definitely good for residents. But yeah, yeah, good job. I would I would encourage I would encourage the tasking of other members of the committee for for the drafting of this in the future, in the future again. I think it's just remember it's okay to rotate the responsibilities, but yeah, no, I'd just like to say very, very good job, Chair Malayne. And yeah, if nobody else has anything to add, I would motion to approve.

[Liz Mullane]: Terrific. Second. Clerk, do you mind calling roll?

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

[Liz Mullane]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, zero against. Thank you everyone. And I will definitely, Councilor, let me double check on those dates to make sure I have those correct. So thank you everyone for taking a look at that. All right so moving right along then to the resolution to schedule neighborhood ward meetings hosted by the City Council be it resolved by the Medford City Council that the Council's Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee discuss a plan to schedule neighborhood ward meetings hosted by the City Council in 2026 and 2027. So we've had a couple of different conversations about this with this committee here and I appreciate those residents who have emailed me and had some suggestions as well. One of the things that as I was putting this together and recognizing between all of the budget meetings as well as all of the meetings around the high school, the city council, the zoning in these past two months, seemed like there was just so much going on. I just wanted to make sure that we didn't overwhelm people by putting on yet another meeting. So what I thought made the most sense was to start this right in September and just kind of doing from September through May to try to do each one of these different ward meetings. One of the things that we talked about quite a bit in the past couple of ones and I know that we want to make sure that this is as accessible to people as possible each of these ward meetings. So trying to find places that have more hybrid options. I will definitely keep looking to see if there are places that are able to do it specifically within each of the different wards. But on the off chance that that's not the case, I will try to find places that are as close to the wards because I just want to make sure we have the technology and that people are able to participate if they're more comfortable doing it over Zoom than doing it in person. So I'm throwing those two major changes kind of assumptions that I started to make prior to this meeting that I welcome any feedback. And then the last piece of it, what I put into this chart and why I'm just focusing on this chart right now on the screen, is that we asked for each of the different Councilors to sign up for different ward meetings. These Councilors would help to host. I will go ahead and once these are kind of confirmed in these locations, I will call through and be able to kind of identify what dates work given some of the scheduling, but I'll confirm with the Councilors as well. But just get these scheduled for the year so that we have them on the books and we can start advertising as soon as possible. So I appreciate all the Councilors who have signed up for it. I may need one or two people to do more than two meetings. I myself, I signed up for three. But if there's another ward in here, you can see that Ward 5, we still have another opening there, and Ward 4, another opening. So if people are able to and willing, that would be great. All right. Councilor Callahan. Why am I not getting this to... I don't know why I keep hitting it.

[Anna Callahan]: There we go. Thank you. So I'm happy to do Ward 4 is a second person on Ward 4. And then for Ward 5 I just thought I'd throw in some ideas. You probably already looked at the 0 Main Street or whatever it's the fire station that has a community center. next to it, so that would be one place that you may already have looked into. But the other question I had was, if we can use the high school, could we use any of the elementary, so Missitook Elementary is in Ward 5, and that would be a good location. I do hope we can get a location that's in Ward 5 rather than, I think the library is pretty far outside of Ward 5. So I would hope that we could have something that's a little bit closer.

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah. And I'm I'm happy to if people have contacts of who I can reach out to you I would welcome that as well. But I will certainly look into it and see if they're both have options to do that as well. Thank you. Thank you. How's it saying.

[Justin Tseng]: It seems like you need one for Ward 5. Happy to do that.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. All right, Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: I don't want to commit to Ward 5, but I like Ward 5. It's a lot of fun, so I might just pop in there. Fair enough. uh for for any of the element for any of the schools um i think robert o'leary is is the contact person for them at least he was at the mcglenn um he's he's uh I think he's the person that I reached out to when I was scheduling the Medford Square zoning community meetings at the McGlynn. So I could forward you his contact information. But any of the schools, if you find a date that they're available, should be good. But I also think the South Medford Fire Station would be absolutely fine and kind of a natural location for 5 as well.

[Liz Mullane]: Great. Perfect. Okay. Thank you very much. I will stop sharing. Any other questions on that for right now? So I'll go through and start putting together some of those lists or whatever and make sure we have everything kind of labeled out, if that makes sense. Yeah. Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Sorry my hand was still raised.

[Liz Mullane]: Very good. Other than that those were the two items that I had to discuss. Any other questions. Anything else you'd like to bring up talk about around the ward meetings or any other piece. No. All right. Do we have a motion.

[Matt Leming]: Motion to keep the paper in committee.

[Liz Mullane]: We have a motion from Councilor Tseng to adjourn, seconded by Councilor Callahan. And I'll keep the paper in committee. Yes, thank you. Clerk, do you mind calling the roll? Sorry, it's almost there.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly. Councilor Leming. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli.

[Matt Leming]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng.

[Liz Mullane]: Yes. 5 in the affirmative, 0 negative. Thank you, everyone. Meeting is adjourned.