[Zac Bears]: Medford City Council, Committee of the Whole, June 9th, 2026 is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly. Councilor Leming. Councilor Leming is absent. Councilor Millan. Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Tseng.
[Justin Tseng]: President.
[Rich Eliseo]: Vice President Lazzaro. And President Pierce.
[Zac Bears]: Present. Six present, one absent. The meeting is called to order. Action and discussion items 26-107 offered by President Bears. Resolution to receive a presentation from the Medford Arts Council and Arts Collaborative Medford regarding city support for arts and culture. Be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we invite the Medford Arts Council, Arts Collaborative Medford and the members of the arts and culture community in Medford to discuss their ongoing work and how the city can better support arts and culture in Medford. We do have representatives from the Arts Council here today with us and the Arts Collaborative in Medford. So we will get started with the presentation. But before we start, I do just want to see if any Councilors have any questions or comments before we begin. Seeing none, if you'd like to come up and we'll see if we can get the presentation shared.
[Laura Jasinski]: Am I able to advance it from here, or is it a?
[Zac Bears]: No, you're not, unless you brought a computer with you.
[Laura Jasinski]: No.
[Zac Bears]: OK, then I'll try to advance it over here. Sure. Give me one second. Great. If you want to share your introduction with us. Sure.
[Laura Jasinski]: So thank you, President Bears, and to the council members. My name is Laura Jasinski. I live on Burgett Ave in Medford, and I have the pleasure of serving as one of the volunteer co-chairs of the Medford Arts Council. I joined in 2020 and come to this work through public park management professionally, and therefore a lot of public art management. So it was a really great opportunity to get involved locally in Medford and bring some of that expertise. We are here today to share a little bit about arts and culture happening in Medford. We're looking forward to a productive discussion and questions. We thought it would be helpful to kind of share a little bit about what the Arts Council does and what Arts Collaborative Medford does. We think it's a really important moment overall. I think it's probably fair to say or an understatement to think about all the change and everything happening in Medford and just what an opportunity arts and culture really is as a unifier, you know, can make you think, can make you talk to your neighbor about something different, right? We just saw that with PorchFest, the incredible kind of community building that we had. That's an example of a program funded by the Arts Council, which we'll talk about. But just, you know, seeing things in different light, really bringing community together to talk about maybe different topics they hadn't seen before and just what an incredible opportunity it is to think about how we advance arts and culture as a community while we're also going through so much other change. So we thought that this would be a really opportune time to talk about where we are, what we're doing, and then opportunities for growth sustainably over time. So we can go to the next slide. Into the mic? Yeah. Is the mic on in here? Tall people problems? Is that better for everybody? Great. I hear myself more. Great, well we can still go on to the next slide whenever that works. Great, so to just give a little bit of an overview of the Medford Arts Council, we have been around since 1980. We are all volunteer run, and we serve as the local cultural council to Medford, so that is a program that is funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council in part. About $30,000 in the last several years comes from the state's cultural council. And then we get about, the last several years have gotten about $60,000 from the city. That makes up kind of our grant pool annually that we work to develop priorities and really try to get funding out to artists in Medford or artists serving Medford across a variety of areas and specialties. Next slide. So to give a snapshot of what that's looked like in the last couple of years in terms of demand, we've really seen this increase given kind of three years of data here about the time that I've been on the council. Last year alone we saw 90 applications for that $90,000 or so. And we actually think that that is kind of an underrepresentation because as volunteers we do our best to get the word out, but we still hear from a lot of different creatives that they are unaware of this as an opportunity for funding. So we actually think the demand is much higher than that 90 applications representing. We've been able to fund about 60% of those projects in the last several years. About 40, 50% of the funding asks. We don't necessarily provide full funding for all of the requests. But you can see how that's kind of really grown in the last couple of years or been at a pretty significant level. We do sometimes often reserve some funding. We work very closely with the mayor's office. We're grateful for Lisa Coliani's help and support. But we do a lot of the administration kind of as a council and work on the financial reporting. So we do often reserve some funding for other projects that come up outside of the typical cycle, which happens in September and is dictated by the Mass Cultural Council's kind of rules and regulations. We also are an important source of funding for city programs, which we'll talk a little bit about. You can see some significant investments in that in the last couple of years. And then also just noting that we've also, our typical grant size is about 500 to a couple projects at 5,000. We do get requests for significantly more than that, especially when it comes to public art programming or public art installations. very hard to do something like that for $5,000. So we've been a bit limited in our, we have been limited in our budget in terms of what we've been able to do in scale of project. And so to talk a little bit more about kind of what those programs and projects have looked like, I'm going to introduce Kyler Tostin, who is our grants manager, also volunteer with the Arts Council.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you all. I have been the Grants Manager for about two years with the Arts Council, and I come to this role after 15 years of being an Executive Artistic Director of a touring theater company. I bring up my past because I worked with 18 different local cultural councils across Massachusetts, as well as 45 different communities across five states during my tenure with Brown Box Theater Project. And that's important because I was able to get a real understanding of the background and the process of the grant giving process from that side of the table. And when I moved to Medford, I wanted to be on the other side to really try to figure out how to make Medford, my now hometown, as culturally vibrant as possible. And one of the first things that we did and I led through that process was a survey of, surveying both nonprofits, the community at large, and individual artists to understand what our priorities are as a council and as a community when it comes to arts and arts funding. That's important because grantees, like I was for all of those years, really need to understand what the town, what the city sees as the priority and the value of the arts, what we then can apply for and why we can fulfill that purpose and that need. So you can see here on this slide the priorities that we came up with based off of the feedback from the community as well as the Arts Council itself. And so we do have 10. They do make up the rubric of how we quantify and adjudicate each of the grantees and the applications. And I want to bring your attention to the top three because they are the most heavily weighted and they are the ones that the community and the council itself sees as the highest of value. Community impact, the number of people that we get art in front of. how wide and or deep of an impact we can have with the arts programming that we are funding. Economic impact, that is really one of the big ones that I actually worked with many of the towns that I went to, speaking before councils just like yourselves, to be able to acknowledge how the arts have an economic impact and a drive to building community and bringing and acknowledging the return on the investment of the arts. So we look at each one of these programs and we acknowledge how are they going to bring an economic impact to Medford. Where does the program take place? How many people are going to be coming in? When we bring in people to high quality arts and culture programming into the city, they then stick around and they spend their money at the local restaurants or breweries or stores. That is a major component as to picking some of these programs as we go forward. And then, of course, activating public space. We have beautiful parks. We have Medford Square. We have all of our different squares. We have public spaces. They sit vacant, and so we need to figure out how we're going to be a part of activating them and making them more beautiful. We believe that both for Medford residents as well as for Medford visitors and tourism and bringing people to our community, having lively, activated, culturally vibrant space are the things that are going to help and prove, again, really serving each one of these other local priorities. So I'll send you off to the next slide where we can look at specific programs that we have funded. So we do have a variety of different disciplines that people can choose from when they apply. I think there are over 20 of them. They range everything from what you would expect to arts, fine arts, to music, to theater, to historical cultural events, events that are deep, small, educational skill-building programs, all the way up to large community-wide things, as you can see, like Portrest, historical things like the Sarah Bradley Fulton Day, and then also programs in schools and for school communities in terms of the Robert's Art Night. But as Laura mentioned, we are a pool for individual artists. We are a pool of funding for individual nonprofits. But we are also a pool for city departments. And that is something, if we go to the next slide, we can really have to acknowledge that this pool isn't specifically only for the public. The Parks and Rec Department for partial funding of the Condon Shell Concert Series comes from us. We fund a variety of different programs. I think it's usually 8 to 10 different programs at the Council on Aging. We are also serving from youth all the way to seniors at the public library. Without this pool of funding and it growing, we will not be able to, they will not be able to fully fund all of the different types of programs that they are hoping to achieve in their spaces. So in order to fulfill our priorities, in order for us to continue to serve each of these disciplines, we appreciate your continued support, and Laura will get to a little bit more of that in the future. But in the meantime, I want to pass along to ACM with Regina, their executive director, who is one of our collaborators, one of our grantees, and someone that I think is a leader here and can help to further identify all the value the arts can bring to Medford. Thank you.
[XXXXXX00103_SPEAKER_01]: Hi, everyone. I just want to take a moment to thank the city council members for allowing time for both of our groups to speak tonight. Also, a big thank you to our partners and advocates on the Medford Arts Council. Thank you, Laura and Kyler, for bringing this conversation to the attention of the mayor and the council and compiling all the important points we just saw. My name is Regina Parkinson, and I am here to tell you tonight about Arts Collaborative Medford. Arts Collaborative Medford is Medford's gathering place for creativity and community. But even beyond a gathering place, ACM is a force that is happening in our city. We are the culmination of grassroots efforts, volunteer labor, and pure creativity. Next slide. I am the proud inaugural director of this force and this nonprofit. Arts Collaborative Medford is a community arts center that provides space for making connections and experiencing creativity. ACM opened its doors in January of 2024 after nearly three years of work behind the scenes from our board members and former members of this city council. Also on the heels of decades of work from creatives in our city. And we were finally able to open the first permanent arts center in Medford. The building at ACM encompasses 10,000 square feet of space, and it's a result of community benefits required in the licensing of Theory Wellness, the cannabis dispensary that we share a building with. With this space, we envision a Medford where art is a fundamental part of civic life and driving connection, belonging, and community well-being. We are the actual real-life outcome of business and government prioritizing community needs. Next slide. Now, we've heard some really important information this evening on how arts and culture contributes to our city, and I'm also here to tell you what running a space like this is really like. The numbers on this slide are meant to sound big and impressive, and that's because they are. But behind these numbers are real people with real stories on how art has changed their lives, transformed their lives, and saved their lives. Every day in our building, I see children for after-school programs. I see children and adults getting music lessons. I see poets trying out their latest works. Every day, I see volunteers from every generation that come to help us run our gift shop. our gift shop that boasts over 30 Medford-based artists. I see adults come in after work to journal, collage, draw, and weave. I see our studio artists coming in to create art. And all of this is with a backdrop of rotating exhibits that capture the voices of artists provoking conversation about the real-world issues we face. Next slide. So for the past two years, we have provided the students at Medford High School with their first opportunity to show their work to the public. It's one of our strongest exhibitions of the year and includes work from AP student portfolios and spans each grade level. This past May, the MHS exhibition was aptly titled Origins to represent that first seed of inspiration that could spark one's life path. I think all of us here in this room have felt that spark before. We are talking about young kids that have just been admitted to art schools across the country, having a night dedicated to them, to allow their friends and families see what makes them tick. It's part of what we do here at ACM, to give space to the creative voices of our youth and to provide our public schools with the opportunity to empower the young people of the city. In fact, the turnout at this opening reception was so large that I had to stop people from coming in. We hit capacity. I was stopping people in the parking lot. It was wild. It's one of the most commented shows that we get in our gallery, and I intend to host it every year as long as I can. Next slide. It's important to note that ACM is not reinventing the wheel for the arts community in Medford. It has been here. It is here. For 25 years, West Medford Open Studios brought together community in the historic neighborhood of our city to celebrate the art and the artists that make Medford feel like home. We are honored that WMOS passed the torch to us and that ACM has the opportunity to bring that gathering citywide this year, June 20th. Everyone come. What happens at events like this, like Medford Open Studios, is a chance for people who might not otherwise meet to learn about each other. It brings together residents from different neighborhoods, generations, and backgrounds. As we've said, our mission is to create shared experiences because those experiences strengthen community identity and belonging. I bet y'all would be surprised how many people, how many of your neighbors have kilns that are burning at night in their basements. But at this event, you get to find out, and then you get to buy that pitcher that they love and learn why they love it, and then you get to love it, and you look at it and you're reminded every day why you love it here. And that's where change happens. It sounds really trivial, but it starts with moments like this. It starts at events like this. We are driving the creative economy in our city through Medford Open Studios and other public events that have been mentioned tonight that are created by organizations and individuals in Medford. It is the output of these people that help our city feel united. Next slide. And what a better way to embody who we are than through this mural that is created by Andre Duarte on the side of ACM. He put it up in November of 2025. Many people see many things when they look at this mural, but if you look a little closer, I'll guide you to take a look at the geese and the fish and the rabbit that's on the young warrior's shoulder. None of these are shared species. They are animals that migrate from different places to comprise our environment. And that's what we're like in Medford. People who can reach across divides and different opinions to come together and create a shared future. And yes, it is wonderful to beautify our city with sculptures and murals, to make it a place where people want to come, whether they want to look at. But what matters is that our citizens are seen in the environment around them, and that they can feel held by the community identity that's built by the arts. That's what we do, and we can't keep doing it without more support. The behind the scenes of this mural are similar to the message of the mural. This mural was possible because of the Mystic River Watershed Association and their commitment to an artist residency program that provided Andre the opportunity to paint our wall. We value the environmental advocacy of MIRA and see this as a prime example of how ICM sits at the intersection of arts and civic engagement. One reason that arts and culture deserve support is because they advance many of the same priorities that you sitting here, our city government, are already working towards. Arts and culture, it's not a niche issue. It's a community priority. Sustaining and growing our existing momentum will require intentional support from our city government. Next slide. The question is not whether Medford has a creative community. The question is how we support it. Before this November's election, we polled each of the candidates running for city council on what the arts means to them and how they plan to advocate and support it. Each of you, sitting here in front of me, shared personal experiences of the arts strengthening your relationship to Medford and to your own loved ones. Across all of our responses, candidates consistently recognized arts and culture as drivers of community connection, economic activity, and civic identity. Medford, it already has artists. We have organizations. We have community participation. We have public support. What we're discussing tonight is building the infrastructure necessary to sustain and grow that success. Last slide. So thank you for your time this evening. I speak for everyone sitting behind me, everyone joining us on Zoom tonight, and saying that we feel that this is our moment. We're so happy to be talking to you. This is also your moment, council members, to meet the momentum and use the arts to make our city even greater. The creative community is ready to be a partner in building Medford's future, and we're looking forward to continuing that work together. And with that, I will pass it back to Laura.
[Laura Jasinski]: It's great to learn more about that mural. Can everybody hear me OK? OK. So thank you. Hopefully it's helpful to kind of see both what's happening on the funding side of the table and also the recipient side and the impact that we're able to have in the community. And really we feel like there is so much more opportunity and see the opportunities for growth and support in kind of two categories. The first being really increasing efficiency and coordination working with the city really completing the kind of strengthening the three legged stool if you will. This is something we've also talked to the mayor about and gotten support from and understand that there may be a great first step in this year's budget in a partial staff person to help support arts and culture in Medford. As we talked about with a lot of the programming in parks, it really involves a ton of different departments when you're trying to do different, you know, citywide exhibits or even just working at the Condon Shell, working with parks or working with DPW. really takes a lot of coordination. We're really, again, grateful for the support through Lisa Coliani and the management that we do have of our commission, but really looking to have kind of an expert level staff person integrated into the planning department and economic development so that we can really realize the return on arts investment. find more efficiency. So that's really the goal is to really strengthen implementation. We see that first step as a partial FTE moving forward to help with the coordination of a volunteer-run arts council and also Arts Collaborative Medford and other groups working. But also in kind of the longer term, we'd love to work with the council on thinking about how we develop the right cultural plan for Medford. What does that look like in terms of a long-term staffing structure? What does that look like in terms of priorities? And we can talk a little bit about some of those resources at the very end. But this is something that, you know, both of our organizations, ACM and MAC, are very aligned on. And I think that's also kind of a really special thing in terms of momentum is when there is alignment among lots of the groups working in this field. The second, if you advance, is of course thinking about increasing the financial investment. We need that, the people, but we also need the funds. So again, a first step of that is thinking about increasing the city budget. Again, hopefully you've heard a bit about how that really creates a return on that investment for the city when we do invest in arts and culture. So have asked both the mayor and ask the council to think about increasing that line item in the budget this year and moving forward. But long term thinking about how we can build more incentives right and build more. policies and ordinances that really help think about whether it's a percent for arts program, how to think about cultural districts, and really these two kind of opportunities or requests for support are interlinked, right? You need that staff person, you need that expertise working within city government and being a partner to to nonprofits and to groups like ours to help really lead that planning effort and doing that community engagement. So and what an opportunity we have right now thinking about the different zoning and rezoning efforts that we're having in the city. This is really. where the arts and culture I think moment we have here is really meeting a need in a moment of the city as well. So we'd love to work with the council to think about how we can do that planning and put that infrastructure in place so we create sustainable funding streams for arts and culture beyond the city budget as well. And so kind of last slide, some of the opportunities we see for resources, and again, there are lots of incredible artists, people connected to arts administration in the city that I think are willing and eager to help support and create these connections. You know, locally we have groups like the Tufts Urban Environmental Policy and Planning Program. that could be well-equipped to think about doing a field project. I know that's a program the planning department works with to take that first step in studying what other cities and towns like Medford are doing on arts and culture. How do we get started? There's also regional programs through the Metropolitan Area Planning Council that are specifically focused on building technical and capacity for municipalities to really build their toolkits. and again, learn from peers in the area. And then there's also statewide opportunities through the Mass Cultural Council and groups like Mass Development, but again, really need that kind of leadership and staff position and commitment from the city to be able to leverage these technical assistance programs, but also funding streams to add more resources to arts and culture. So those would be our ask for both early support from the council on what we understand have been put into this year's budget to kind of take that first step, which I think will be really critical, but also to work with the Arts Council, Arts Collaborative Medford and others and be a partner in these planning programs and think about how they intersect with so much of the other work that you are all doing. Thank you.
[eX6vSG1G9V4_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much.
[Zac Bears]: I think it goes without saying that we are really grateful for you for being here, both the Arts Council, Arts Collaborative Medford, all the folks who support the arts. We know how much you put in every day and every week to literally hundreds, maybe even more over 1,000 events a year in the city, arts and culture events going on. And we also know that the city could be providing more support and, you know, our role as a city council is to review and approve budgets and we'll be starting that process tonight. The mayor has submitted a budget. We did in our budget requests. recommend to the mayor that the mayor increase the funding for the Arts Council and Provide kind of a timeline or a plan for restoring what we had asked for was the full-time arts and culture Liaison position that used to exist in the city budget. So that was a recommendation to the mayor and we received the budget back tonight and You know there seems to be that there's some There are ongoing discussions about what the final figures for the Arts Council and an arts liaison will be. And that's something that we're gonna continue to advocate for. I know a number of Councilors have some comments. If you want to stay at the podium, any of you guys who spoke or anyone else from the Arts Council or Arts Collaborative Medford to either answer questions or provide context, that would be great, but I'll start with Vice President Lazzaro.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you, President Bears. Thank you very much for the presentation. There were a couple of things I wanted to highlight about what you talked about. The first was I attended, I think it was a ribbon cutting for the mural that was painted on the outside of the ACM. It's incredibly beautiful. The artist was there. There was an interactive sort of spray painting activity with the fish. But something that I wanted to talk about is that that mural encompasses so much and Look at what I look like on the camera. It's so crazy. The light is being insane. The mural encompasses a lot about what we do that crosses the boundaries in the city of arts, environment, all kinds of municipal work that happens and it's all happening at the same time together. And when the arts can pull it into one thing that is beautiful and exciting for people, it can really tie things up in a really nice way. So the way that mural not only integrates the idea of being people that are migrating around, but also the local animals that are coming through. I believe that the herring, he, Andre, is his name? He painted, I think, all over the city on pathways through parks and in parking lots and also on the building. I think it was over 800 herring, and they are equal to—each herring equals 1,000 real herring that swim in the Mystic River and in the lakes. It was incredible to me. And I wanted to tell you something that it made me think of, which is that I also worked with Myra that year and DCR to build a crosswalk across the Mystic Valley Parkway because we had a pedestrian death. Somebody was killed in that crosswalk, Dan Dill, and he was walking to go to the lower Mystic Lake to walk his dog. And I do that all the time now because I moved over there recently. And every time I do, I think about him and I think about all of these small government things that you have to do and how many different people you have to collaborate with and how much work it all takes and how... It can be slow and frustrating, but also there can be really beautiful connections made, and there can be still really wonderful things that you do. It's so beautiful doing that. And one time, very recently, I was doing that, and the herring were spawning. And when herrings swim up and they spawn in the lake, they are jumping out of the lake. and there are things you can do, I think it's through Myra, where you count the herring, like you'd use like a ticker and you try to count as many herring as you can see because you can see them jumping. It's crazy. There are so many different ways that Medford has opportunities for people to integrate the arts into the way we preserve nature, we are embracing the things that are unique to Medford and I really appreciated that about the mural, but also I think that there are even more opportunities. We never would have had that without the Arts Collaborative. We never would have attracted an artist like Andre to come and do something as innovative as that. Of course, we always had people here, you know, desperate to do that kind of work, but I think it's so exciting to have a home for it and to have the Arts Council here hoping to do more of that sort of thing and the arts have a great place. present a great opportunity to bring more attention to programs like that, even the herring, just counting the herring that are spawning. And just one thing I wanted to mention, since the gentleman that's doing the grants has a theatre background, I have a theatre background also, and this spring, my daughter likes to do Spotlight, which is not associated with you guys, but Spotlight is a big theater program in Medford for kids. And they got so much interest the prior season that they had to not even do a play this season. They were, they had to like regroup and stop. And I think that there is an opportunity for more like theater integration, maybe with the city, because Spotlight's just its own little side thing. But maybe more, we have the Chevalier, we have potentially if the high school has a nice theater once a new high school is built. Spotlight uses the high school right now. But there are just so many kids that want to be doing theater. I think we have many, many opportunities for more. And I would 100% I'm excited about the future and ways that we can integrate more of these things into the fabric of Medford. So thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Vice President Lazzaro. Councilor Malate.
[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. Thank you guys so much for the presentation and walking us through. It was really helpful to kind of see the wide breadth of work that you do. I was curious, just one of the things as we look at funding and need and trying to grow different programs. One of the things I always like to kind of get a better sense of is kind of the capacity and what you guys are really looking for when you look at some of these grants. So I know that you started showing us the funding overview and trends with some of the grant applications that came in. You said 90 applications in 2026. Have you seen that increase in the past three years? Is that going up exponentially? How many people are applying year over year? Are they the same people? Are you getting more new people? What does that look like in terms of growth and how we might be able to help address that moving forward? Sure.
[Laura Jasinski]: So there are certainly within that, so that was 90 applications, I would say, and, you know, we have seen that in the time that I've been on the council, we have certainly seen that increase. And I would say there are, you know, about a third of those, I think, tend to be kind of repeat. It's an estimation, of course. grant applications. We also try as a council to really think about who are the new applications coming from so that we can support new artists as well. I would say as a volunteer-run council that's really been rebuilding over the last few years, one of the areas we're looking to increase is through communication so that we're reaching more audiences. We were kind of taking a look at where are we not seeing applications in certain kind of specialties or subject matter areas so we can try to do more targeted outreach to those groups. So that's certainly an area, an opportunity for support is just helping to get the word out. More grant applications is always, you know, is always a challenge, but like I think it's just great to see the breadth that we see in Medford.
[Liz Mullane]: No, that's helpful. I mean, so we do the newsletter that goes out. And one of the things that we're trying to do is, you know, aid and obviously try to get in front of more people, but then also, you know, potentially highlight different areas. So this would be a good way to kind of collaborate to figure out if there's ways that we could send out more information about some of the work or opportunities for people to engage. And I guess my last question to you about the grants, I know this is typically capped at 5,000. What would you say is kind of like the average grant that you're able to give out?
[Laura Jasinski]: I would say it's more around, and you know, feel free to tell me if I'm 2,000, around 2,000. And again, we do see some applications for grants that are more in like the 10 and 10,000 and above. And one other area in terms of kind of communication, getting the word out, is not only about the opportunity, but about some of the guidelines to help applicants be successful, right? What we can come to the table with, what we're looking for, what we're there to support. So, if there are larger grant applications, we also look to try to make sure that we're not the only funder to try to inspire other giving and other supports of the arts as well. So, we do put that information on our website, and there's also trainings available through the Mass Cultural Council that we try to share. There's a lot of great resources there, so helping to get the word out about those as well so that the applicants can be successful.
[Liz Mullane]: Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you for all of your work.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Millan. Councilor Tseng.
[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. Thank you for an excellent presentation to everyone who presented. Sorry I was late. I was stuck on the bus, but I did catch the presentation. I just wanted to start off by saying I had the you know, accidental kind of fortune of actually being at Arts Collaborative Medford today, just for a quick stop in to see a friend. And I don't think it's hyperbole to say how much each visit is different from each one before. The art pieces that are displayed, the gift shop that's now like, you know, all very lively and there's tons of stuff there. It's really impressive to see all of that come into existence. I think on another kind of like, from another angle, When I think about what makes a community unique, there's history, there's the people, of course. I think what actually, something that really captures all of these different aspects of what makes a community unique is art, because every piece of art is different from each other. And I think that growing our culture is something that isn't only kind of, I think there are real economic benefits, of course, but I think that's not the whole, that's not the end of the deal, right? I think it's really about growing, cultivating us as a community, as people, and ultimately I think that's what, now I'm getting philosophical, but I think that's what we're here on earth for. I'm very like happy to see the council provided support. I remember during the budget recommendation meeting, me and I think some other Councilors too brought up the candidate survey that folks sent out. And in that was really helpful information to guide our thinking about what we were pushing for in this budget, especially with regards to the liaison position and the numbers with regards to how much you guys are giving out in grants versus how much you guys are getting in requests for grants, those numbers were enlightening. I think we wouldn't have known that there was that much of a gap had we not received that. So thank you for that. Liz was asking questions about capacity and that's really where my brain was right now. I'm curious about something that was said early in the presentation about activating public spaces and these kind of bigger per se like pieces of art and how $5,000 usually doesn't get you to what we need for that. I'm curious At what amount of grant money would projects like that start to become feasible for you guys to fund?
[Laura Jasinski]: I'm trying to think of maybe giving some examples of larger public art installations that might resonate or that can help to kind of right-size that. I will also say, I'm thinking of one example that the Arts Council helped kind of co-lead was the Go Outdoors. This was a couple of years ago where there was the, in Duggar Park, there was the installation of several doors that different artists had created pieces on. I believe that was more in the range of $30,000 to $40,000 to do a project like that. That was probably also in 2021 dollars, so let's be sure to think about that multiplier. But to give a sense of that scale of project. And I think it's important to recognize that when we're talking about public art and talking about supporting artists, there are a lot of... Things that you might not automatically associate with that, talking about insurance, right? They have insurance requirements. There's training that's needed. If you're doing a mural, you often need a lift. There's equipment. So it gets quite expensive quite quickly. I also think it's important to note that In terms of kind of longevity and diversity of spaces, you know, we certainly have parks. One of the things that I think we see on the council as well is we're trying to look at, like, where are the new places you can activate or what are the other spaces? So as we're thinking about how the city grows and changes, it's not just about, like, the condon shell and the program in the park, which are so important, or the mural. It's also about where do you have the theater program? I think as you were saying, you know, Councilor Lazzaro, where are those spaces where we can do concerts, right, indoors. We have some great resources, but there's certainly a need for more of those as well to really leverage the creativity in the city. So I think that's an equal part of it. You can certainly spend lots and lots of money on public art projects, but just recognizing, you know, how many costs are really associated with all of that work. So I don't know if you have other data points that are helpful to share in the mural
[XXXXXX00103_SPEAKER_01]: You guys helped to fund our lift for that mural, so it wasn't possible without you. And I think just to the point of coming into ACM and seeing it change every time, and not having space for spotlight, and I mean, if we had, you can see how quickly we're growing. In two years, I'm like busting at the seams with very important, cool art. And so I do think it is, I think you're right about the price point for something like that, and I think that we're just seeing that we could use all that space. I would love to have a theater. You know, I would love to be able to run a concert series and not move things out of my gallery to do so, which I have to do right now. So it's been two short years, and the response has just been incredible, and we're booming. So, I mean, literally having to turn people away at a door for an opening reception is not where I expected to be this quickly.
[Justin Tseng]: It's really impressive, truly. Really, really impressive to see how much kind of community support there is for the new programming for the high school students. That's amazing. And I think any chance that we get to think of more ways to bridge these open kind of opportunities with a chance to spotlight an artist or a few, you know, a team of artists, I think would be incredible. You mentioned rezoning. I think some other things have come to mind for me with regards to, like, some communities, they do things with, like, sewer caps and, like, with just public infrastructure that already exists that we take for granted in everyday life, kind of like how, you know, a decade ago we did the light boxes here. And just the kind of, It'll be helpful to have a liaison to talk about how we could make those opportunities happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: One other interesting creative space use thing, because I did theater in non-traditional space throughout my entire career. Theaters can happen anywhere. Anything can become a theater. Empty spaces in Medford Square can become a theater. Empty space in Medford Square can become a place for a concert venue or an art gallery or things like that. There is an opportunity. Creativity does not have to only be inside of the art itself, but in the way we present it. we can find ways, whether it's through zoning, whether it is through use of empty, vacant space, in the meantime, for us to be working in a public-private partnerships to make art happen anywhere. And that's just something, whether it comes to a theater program, which also can get to these price points for a large program of that scale and size, or whether it is just trying to figure out how we can have a concert venue happen, pop up, that is a real value and, again, a draw for artists and outside people.
[Justin Tseng]: That's awesome. And since you brought up vacant buildings, something that's in the vacant building ordinance that we're proposing, that we're studying ahead of third reading, is an exemption that really pushes these landowners to enter into these public-private partnerships with art to basically incentivize collaborating with you guys when it comes to filling those vacant building spaces with pop-ups or activities or theater or, you know, public art displays. So hopefully we can get that off the ground and get something in the books.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because right now people come to us with grants with only being able to go to the library, ACM, the senior center. Those are three venues where they feel that they can go to do art, and we can't give them money until they have a confirmation of where they can do the event. That is a critical obstacle that a lot of these artists are facing. And so if we can figure out a way with the support of the liaison from the mayor's office or from the city hall, those are ways that we can really try to make it easier for people to get money, apply for grants, and easily be able to produce their project.
[Justin Tseng]: Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure talking to you guys.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Councilor Callahan.
[Anna Callahan]: As a former starving musician and the daughter of a professional stage actor, I just want to say how much I appreciate everything that you're doing, and I really want to emphasize how much art, especially when it is visible to people who don't know that it's going to be there, like in public spaces, art and music and theater can really change everyone's life. We live in a world that is so you know, cheapest possible ugliness because of the way that, you know, capitalism functions in our society, that being able to bring beauty into the public sphere is incredibly important. So just want to be supportive. That's all. Thank you.
[Laura Jasinski]: If I can actually just one comment on that, that we would like to promote more and certainly personally is a lot of the applications that we do see come in, not all of them include fees for the artists themselves doing the work. A lot of that is coming pro bono, right? So I think it's important to recognize that it's also about how we can help support artists living and working in Medford earn a living wage as well as part of the kind of bigger economic picture. So that's really, really important when we look at those budgets.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan. Thank you, Laura. I guess a couple, one specific thing, Tyler, what you were talking about, the logistical element of securing space before you can get a grant. Could you talk a little bit more about what would help just like on a logistical level to address that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right. So right now what the applicants are required to do when they submit is to get a letter of approval or a letter of support from a venue in order to prove to us that the venue can even take place as they are presenting it. So they have to go to any of these venues that I just mentioned or somewhere else or the town, which is where the real obstacle comes for many of them. If they want to do something at the con and shell, the city won't give them a letter of support for the condon shell until after the deadline. So that is an obstacle for them to even get that. So we have to wait before they can officially get their funding and get, till they get that support letter from the park's department. So these are all obstacles along the way that they have to fulfill as part of the application, get that letter of support, confirmation of date, time, and approval to use the space prior to being able to apply.
[XXXXXX00103_SPEAKER_01]: I write dozens of them. Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Could you say it into the microphone? Sorry, Regina.
[XXXXXX00103_SPEAKER_01]: I write dozens of letters of support.
[SPEAKER_03]: as does the senior center and the library. So each of those, that's also the burden on these venues is that all these artists are coming to them saying, please, please, please, can I use your space? They are open and wanting to support the arts. There is a finite number of dates. There is a finite number of space and there's a finite amount of capacity by these executive directors and programs people at these individual, I mean, the senior center person is part-time. I know the library, it's someone, in each different department who's doing it depending on who the audience is intended by the library. So it is a lot of burden on the venue, on the artist, and all of that has to happen along with the application.
[Laura Jasinski]: We do a lot of follow-up in the grant process and try to, if people have submitted in advance without that information, we do the best that we can as volunteers to follow up with them to have that, because it's really important in the planning process that when we're giving out funds, we also know that these programs can come to fruition. And that's because we do a direct grant program. So we don't ask artists to spend their own money and then get reimbursed. We want to give them the funds up front. So it helps to kind of show a certain amount of planning. So we try to be flexible on that, but it is really important that we have kind of the connection and coordination with different venues.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. Thank you. My one other question, you know, I appreciate the goals for this year and presenting those and I know that we had made a recommendation to the mayor and it's looking like from some recent communications it's possible that like Mac will see maybe a $5,000 increase in the budget and potentially a 15-hour week position in City Hall and I'm kind of wondering, you know, 15-hour part-time kind of role. I'm wondering what you see being able to get done with those additional resources. You know, what does a $5,000 increase do? What could that liaison do? And then what would you see more as like a longer term? What would you like to see in the longer term to really be the infrastructure piece of the cycle that you put in your presentation?
[Laura Jasinski]: So I think, you know, $5,000 is certainly appreciated. That would probably allow us to do a handful more grants, right, direct based on kind of what you see from the amount of our typical grant. I think the 15-hour week person would be a great first step because I think some of the priorities of that person could be applying for additional grants. There is additional grant funding out there, but really need that city leadership to be able to access those. So I think I would list that as a priority as well as thinking about let's create kind of the plan, right? How do we leverage other tools from some of the resources that we showed? to map out, you know, certainly a full-time person, I think, ultimately would be the goal, if not an office, right? We'd love to see more of that, but I think with 15 hours a week, we can start to see more resources come in to build up that capacity. It would also be really critical and welcome from our standpoint just to have somebody in City Hall, right, that can walk down the hall and ask the question, did this grantee reach out about a permit at the park, right? Also, you know, All of us are volunteers and have jobs from 9 to 5, so it's really hard to kind of, you know, get in that meeting in the middle of the day. So having that point person to help organize us and I think use the volunteer capacity more efficiently would really be critical.
[Zac Bears]: Great.
[XXXXXX00103_SPEAKER_01]: I would add that we've talked a little bit about a cultural district designation that I think would be really helpful to getting a little more state funding to places like ACM. Medforge Community Makerspace that is in the process of opening could use something like that, so I think that would be a great focus. for the beginning of that 15-hour position. When we think about something as large as Medford Open Studios, we're talking exactly about what Laura said about the kind of ease of being able to communicate between departments. It was one of the reasons that the WMOS board cited and sort of hitting a wall and not being able to continue was, you know, the parks department and all of these different things that had to be organized when it was outside. So I think that we would have a lot more ease in getting these big events that would bring tourism, dollars, and creative economy into our city with a position like that.
[Zac Bears]: Great. And I do want to give you a chance to pitch Medford Open Studios a little bit more before we go to public comment. Okay, everybody.
[XXXXXX00103_SPEAKER_01]: So on Saturday, June 20th, it's the day before Father's Day, bring your dad. We will have public transportation that will take people around 11 different main host sites in the city. These city chambers will be one of them. There'll be 14 artists in this chamber. And the library has it, Arts Collaborative Medford has it, Great American Beer Hall, Breed Hall and Tufts. I could go on and on. There are also 11 house sites. Some of them are in West Medford, kind of honoring that tradition of what it's been, but they spread out throughout the city. We will have some really fun businesses and organizations that aren't normally open to the public, like Outside the Lines, which is an adult disability program for artists. and like Burnham and LaRoche, which makes stained glass in Medford and has for hundreds of years, and they're going to show you how to do it. So I recommend going on to Arts Collaborative Medford's website and planning your route for the day and coming out to see hundreds of artists that are getting ready for this date.
[Zac Bears]: Great, and it's June 20th? June 20th, 12 to 6 p.m. And you can find out more information at?
[XXXXXX00103_SPEAKER_01]: Artscoveredmedford.org.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Regina. Do we have any further questions from members of the council? Seeing none, if there are any members of the public who'd like to speak at this time, you can speak for three minutes. If you're in person, you could come stand up and line up at the podium. And if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand on Zoom, and we'll alternate between in-person and Zoom. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Regina. Thank you, Kyler.
[May Marquebreuck]: Hi May. As you know I've been involved with the arts community for about 35 years and it's been a pleasure and I want to thank everybody here and everybody on Zoom for all they have done for this community in the arts, culture, history and so on. There's an awful lot to this conversation, and I think it's been very, very helpful. However, the bottom line is we volunteers need help from the city. I'm just going to give you a small example of something that I have been doing, not that I want to take the necessary credit for it, but this is where the city could start. We're talking about the grants being given by the Medford Council. And every year, they do not have an adequate amount of money. And a good place maybe to start with the city getting involved is to provide that money that these artists and musicians All kinds of wonderful, talented people that we have in this city need to complete their program. Now, 10 years ago, I founded Arts Alive Medford Foundation, a private foundation that I'm funding. And what I have done over the 10 years is I have founded some of those people who could not get the entire amount of money that they needed. And thus far, I have contributed $100,000. Now, I don't usually talk this way, but I just want you to know that there are a lot of caring and talented people in this community and they need your help. And quite honestly, you know, it wouldn't be a bad idea either if some of the people on the council would attend some of the activities that are going on in the city. So thank you very, very much.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll go to Stephanie. Stephanie on Zoom. Stephanie, if you could just provide your name and you'll have three minutes.
[u1Dt2VrL-v4_SPEAKER_22]: Hello, can you hear me?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[u1Dt2VrL-v4_SPEAKER_22]: Hi, my name is Stephanie and I live on Riverside Ave. I grew up in Melrose and I live in Medford now, which I love. And yeah, I just wanted to come out and express my support for more arts funding. I run a video production company based out of Medford. I've been a creative professional for 10 years now. I went to MassArt and I also run a initiative called For Artists By Artists, which is like artist-led programming to strengthen our creative community and centering marginalized creatives, people of color, disabled people, queer people who make art. So I just want to uplift something. I work with mass creative a lot and something that is really important to me is just noting the creative economy in Massachusetts and therefore in Medford. There are so many working artists just like me. This is my full-time job. It's not a hobby. This is what I do for my livelihood and pay my bills with. And the arts accounts for 4% of the Commonwealth's economy. So when we look at Medford, that's gonna apply here because regionally Medford is a cultural district. We have the Chevrolet Theater. We have Deep Cuts, which is like an incredible venue that so many artists perform at. tons of photographers. Like if you just Google them, there's so many people doing what I do out of their homes. So there's a lot of us that work here and rely on grants for not only emerging artists need grants to kind of get their career going. But even myself, I still apply for grants to do programming to give back to my community. And I just want to note like grant funding can be anywhere. I've done grants anywhere between $3,000 and like $48,000. And I think full funding of a project is really critical for artists to be able to do their work because it's very hard to find funding. And we do need to be able to pay ourselves, which I think is a really important point that was made, because it's really expensive to live here. We live in like one of the most expensive places in the country. So I just want to uplift that and also just name that Art is not only a career and we are creative workers. We are a workforce, but also community members deserve to have access to the arts, whether or not they identify as artists. It contributes to well-being. It impacts health in a positive way. And it just makes our community a better place to be in. So, yeah, thank you for your time. And I really hope that we can get some more support for all the work that these volunteers are doing.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll go to the podium. Name and address record, please. You'll have three minutes.
[3aOalIsRmxU_SPEAKER_00]: Good evening. My name is Gary Roberts. I live on Sharon Street in Medford. From 2013 to 2019, I was a member of the Medford Arts Council and I was chair of the Medford Arts Council for five years. I'm also one of the founders of Arts Collaborative Medford. I just want to thank my friends and colleagues for their wonderful presentations. I just want to share a couple of things from my own experience over the years and helping with the arts in our city. First of all it's not widely known but in the. late 90s, the budget of the Medford Arts Council was over $100,000. And that was a result of the way that the state funded the cultural councils across the Commonwealth. So ever since then, we've never even approached that number. When I joined the council in 2013, our budget was around $23,000. The city was kicking in another 10. I worked with Mayor McGlynn to double that to 30. and then with Mayor Macini-Burke to double that to 60. And that was in 2018. And more or less the city contribution was flat during that time. The last that I looked, things have not gotten less expensive. So, you know, basically we have not been keeping up with inflation to say the least. The wonderful data that were shared regarding the deficit between, the gap between the requests in the community and what is actually available to give, It doesn't begin to paint the picture. I studied about 18 years worth of grant funding from the Medford Arts Council, and this goes back decades, this problem. Something that exacerbates the situation is that, in effect, this cultural commission is funding city programs. The money flows back to city departments like the library and the senior center schools etc. So you know unless those budgets are adjusted in order for them to pay for their own arts and culture programming. then there will always be a quite significant demand for that money that's not going to go to other grant requests. A benchmark is the Condon shell, repainting that. I think that was about $28,000. So if you're looking to, that was to do a space that was already sort of familiar to the community. So that just gives you a sense of what it costs to do something that's worth it. And I guess I would just end by saying that we often get asked, why can't we do things like surrounding communities like Arlington and Somerville? Well, the budget for arts and culture in Somerville is more than 10 times what it is in Medford, and that's the reason. One of the signature public art projects, beautification projects that I was a part of for Medford Square was the creation of some artist design banners. They were displayed for one season. They were taken down for the holidays. The brackets for the light poles in Medford Square were broken and needed to be replaced. And those banners were thrown away or lost and never displayed again. So, you know, without someone inside City Hall shepherding and coordinating and stewarding all of these things, it just feels like, you know, again and again things are wasted or opportunities missed. I can't tell you how many master plans I've read for Medford Square, Open Space and Recreation, the Mystic River Watershed, et cetera. They always talk about the arts and culture being a primary component of these plans, but volunteers are not going to get that done. So it really requires dedicated staff expertise. Thanks.
[eX6vSG1G9V4_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: I'm going to go back to Zoom. Elliott Jokelson, you have three minutes. Name and address for the record, please.
[SPEAKER_19]: Hey, can you hear me?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_19]: My name is Elliot Jogelson. I'm a Medford resident. I support the arts, local artists, public programming. I've spent my entire adult life working as an artist. But tonight, unfortunately, I oppose increasing public funding for arts collaborative Medford until this city council takes seriously the repeated concerns Jewish residents have raised about anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist programming and Medford's publicly supported arts ecosystem. Arts Collaborative Medford already received substantial public support. In 2025, their budget was $92,600, including $60,000 from the city. Now this organization is asking for more. When Jewish residents raised concerns about Arts Collaborative Medford platforming an artist publicly associated with globalizing intifada graffiti, we were told there was little the city could do because the organization was a private nonprofit. But the city cannot call an organization private when residents object and then treat it as public enough to fund year in and year out. It just doesn't make sense. A year after those concerns were raised, Arts Collaborative Medford hosted The Neighborhood Kids, a music group from Berkeley, California. Their performance, which took place in the space, included lyrics about a Molotov cocktail ending the IOF, ending the Zionist, and a TNT in Congress. And so that's not simply criticism of Israel policy. It's anti-Zionist targeting mixed with violent political imagery. And, you know, are you guys laughing back there? Zach? Sorry, I'll finish, but I'm just curious. Were you just laughing back there?
[Zac Bears]: I don't think anyone in the room is laughing.
[SPEAKER_19]: Okay, I can see you on the camera. All right, just listen up. I'm almost done. Just give me one more second. The ADL contacted the city over that event. And Jewish residents have raised concerns repeatedly, and those concerns have been brushed aside. So I ask, what message are we sending when we give this institution such a large share of its budget from public money? Please do not increase Arts Collaborative Medford's funding until there is accountability, transparency, and a serious process for addressing anti-Semitism in city-supported arts programming. Now I'm finished.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, we'll go to the podium.
[SPEAKER_19]: You have anything to say about that, please.
[Zac Bears]: You have three minutes.
[SPEAKER_21]: Thank you very much. My name is Dr. Trey winner. I am a proud resident of picket road and like many scientists that came to the area. I cannot afford to live in Cambridge and I moved to Medford. I constantly went to Cambridge, Somerville to enjoy the arts, the restaurants, scenes, until places like Deep Cuts, Medford Brewing Company, and Arts Collaborative Medford opened up. And all of a sudden, this was a place that I actually wanted to spend my time, not just to live. If we don't support the arts in Medford, people will go to the places where the arts are supported. It is more than just a nice have. It is not something that just looks pretty. It is part of human life that makes life worth living. I represent a group called Medforge Community Makerspace. I'm currently the executive director, and we are working to make another creative third space here in Medford that are more the dirty industrial arts, like welding, pottery, extreme electronics, you know, things that go boom. We have lots of lasers already. What we just recruited our 86th member today, who donated to our cause, and wrote the letter, I am a current Lowell Makes member living in Medford, here to say, and I want this on the record, hell yes, to have a space like this in Medford would be life changing. Reading for you with all of my heart. We have Medford residents that are going to other places. like Lowell in order to meet the needs of artistic creation. Lowell is a great model for Medford. The city of Lowell worked with their local creative community to win a mass development underdeveloped properties program grant to create a space for the arts where all artists and creators could work together. If we had a person working with the arts community to do that, I believe that my proposal this year to the same program would have been much stronger than it is today. I appreciate all the support I got from the Department of Development, Planning, and Sustainability. But we actually need more support than that to bring things to here to Medford. And just to make another case that this is not a nice have. This is a must have. I am a scientist and I believe in numbers. And there's a great report about the impact of the arts and maker space. It's called the Copin report. I can share it with you if you want. But they did a study of open works in Lowell, and Lowell shows over $10 million in revenue that it brings into the local area. That's not just by the people they train and the jobs that they create, but the people who come there then spend money in other places in that area. In the apparel industry alone, classes to teach people how to sew made more than 63 jobs in a year at a rate of $696,000 in income to that place. Arts, learning these skills, especially in an age where jobs, especially white collar jobs, are about to be disrupted by the twin forces of AI and income inequality. These jobs are critical. They're not just a nice have. They're not just making pretty things. They're making the things that we need to live. And I thank you very much for your time.
[eX6vSG1G9V4_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: I'm gonna go to Zoom really quick, Laura. We have Alyssa on Zoom. Alyssa, name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Name is Laura Duggan.
[Zac Bears]: No, Laura, one second. We're gonna go to Zoom first. Sorry.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hi, can everybody hear me?
[Zac Bears]: Yes, we can hear you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so my name's Alyssa. I am a member of Medforge. My fiance, who's also on this call, We live on Vista Ave in Medford. So we just kind of want to show our support for Trey and Medforge. Obviously, we agree with everything he said. And I think this would be a really great opportunity for lawmakers like my fiance and I to get ahead in Medford to bring in some revenue. And I don't have a prepared statement, but both my fiancé and I are Jewish, and we fully support getting funding for the arts, and we recognize that sometimes art is going to be controversial, and that's okay. That's the point of art. That's all.
[eX6vSG1G9V4_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll go to the podium. Yes. Laura, name and address for the record, please. You'll have three minutes.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: I'm Laura Duggan, and I reside at 31 Hickory Ave. in Fulton Heights. I want to say right out that I think art adds to the quality of living in a community. Anyone who has attended any of the many art projects or events in Medford, that's what they remember. That's what they remember doing. And also, the arts drive the economy here in Medford. Before the Chevalier Theater got active with all its events, we had very few restaurants here in Medford. And now we have quite a few, a lot, many to go to. What drives that? Theater are performances at the Chevalier Theater, doesn't it? And art also can add to the beauty of a community and also remind people of their historical heritage and perhaps inspire them to get involved in the community, as our statue, our beautiful new statue of Sarah Bradley Fulton does right here. We had over 300 people attending that dedication. It was covered by NPR, and I was interviewed by them, Channel 5, Channel 10. A lot of outside people also got very interested, finally, in what Medford has to offer. Medford has to learn it has a rich historical heritage, and there are many artists here. Now, I believe what the city council should do, or the city should do, is think seriously of putting in a full-time art coordinator. that could not only coordinate what's going on in the city, because we have many new art organizations coming in and doing various events, and there's a lack of coordination. It's very difficult when you want to set something up. Is something happening on that date? You know, you would like to court. And also there is a need for more collaboration among these various organizations. I know my organization is a non-profit looking back at Method History, Inc. We look to coordinate. We have coordinated with the ICCM for Patriots Day on a number of years. And one of their members, one of their trustees has been on our board. We know collaboration is important, but I think if we had a coordinator here, full time, 15 hours is not enough. I know there's people out here saying, oh wow, I'd love to have 15 hours. It's not, it's just a pittance. If somebody comes in, needs to have an answer to a question, something they're organizing, they may have a deadline. I'm sorry, they won't be here until next week. That's not gonna work. And if you had a coordinator advocating, coordinating, and assisting artists, you're gonna see the economy of this city go up. they're going to have more tax dollars coming in. So it's money speaking here for you, too. But most importantly, at least for me, I think the arts add to the quality and the richness of the community you live in. So thank you for listening to me.
[eX6vSG1G9V4_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Laura.
[Zac Bears]: There's no hands on Zoom. Pete, the floor is yours. Name, address, record. You'll have three minutes.
[SPEAKER_20]: Hi there. I'm Pete Nersestian. I live at 47 Alston Street. I am on the Medford PorchFest committee. I'm one of the founders of Medford PorchFest. I hope lots of you, I know I saw lots of you out there on Saturday. I hope lots more of you were out there. PorchFest, I think, for me is one of the great examples of what arts can do for our community and how arts can create tangible results. Now, it may seem like PorchFest on one hand is just a bunch of people playing music in their yards or in their driveways, having barbecues, whatever, but what PorchFest is is an example of something that took some public grant money distributed by the Medford Arts Council and was used to create the infrastructure to put together an event that happened at 130 different locations across Medford, involved 230 different performers, and thousands upon thousands of Medford residents out. taking part. Why does this matter? Because when Medford residents are out there taking part, they're meeting one another. When they're meeting one another, they're getting a chance to engage with one another, with the arts as the vehicle for them to do so. At the after party right out back here, right in the parking lot in Medford Square on Saturday, I turned to some of the folks here in this room and I said, remember when we didn't have this? We didn't have ways to spend time engaging with one another in the public sphere like this, well, the arts creates those opportunities. And why does that matter? Well, I've seen people in this room, I've seen Trey and his folks, for example, meet one another and get to talking and start talking about Medforge. I've seen, there are people in this room that I was able to meet because we had public opportunities for engagement through the arts and otherwise that have come together to make Medford PorchFest. Now these are all great ways, there's a synergy here, there's a feedback loop, a positive feedback loop that makes Medford a better place businesses start, organizations begin, more public events. It's a rising tide. Now to the piece of this about having a full-time person who can coordinate arts in Medford. I will tell you that we started this in 2022, and we were flying blind. And there wasn't anybody to tell us, to give us a roadmap to show us how to start something like Medford Portraits. We went to other cities and towns. We talked to their arts organizations, because there were so many pieces in Medford that we didn't know how they interconnected. The Arts Council, they did one thing, and other people did other things. To our great benefit, Arts Collaborative Medford was able to come in and act as a fiscal sponsor, which took a huge load off of us. It enabled us to receive and spend money, and it also enabled us to then finally spend our time on just growing our event. We wasted so much time trying to find our way through the bureaucracy, trying to build the basic building blocks. We shouldn't have those obstacles to arts initiatives in Medford. We should have a person who can guide people, who can facilitate people. We lost two years wandering around, and fortunately we're way ahead now. We hope everybody had a great time on Saturday and we're just gonna keep getting better now that we have, you know, people to help us do it. So, more of that.
[eX6vSG1G9V4_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, my name's Timothy Lambert. I live on Malden Street in Medford. I'm really just up here to advocate for the arts in Medford. I've lived in Medford now longer than I lived in England. My kids grew up here. I've been involved with youth soccer in many different ways. Everything I've done here is on a voluntary level. I'm here just trying to advocate for getting more city involvement in a lot of these things. Right now I've got the soccer system and I'm actually on the board for the Porchfest 2. so I echo everything that Pete's just said, but I'm also involved with this Bruise Bites and Beats thing in this pop-up park, which I will say is an excellent spot, and it's underutilized, and I'm happy to be part of that. My position in that is to organize the musicians and the PA system and everything involved with that, but that's every Saturday, we're gonna do that. Now, it would be great to see somebody in the city to help manage a lot of these things with permits and stuff, but I'm going to keep volunteering my time to the Medford system, whether it be the arts or whatever it is, and I fully support ACM and what their needs are and how we can improve on all this stuff. So, thank you.
[Simon Alcindor]: Okay, Simon Elsendorf, 44 Tainter Street. And so today I come in support of greater arts funding in the city of Medford from two perspectives. The first is as a university student. As a current rising sophomore at Suffolk University, I've made friends with many different creative arts and especially theater majors at my university. One of the greatest issues with that is that over the summer, there just isn't really much that you could do. whether it's because you don't have the venue to go to. And a lot of times it's between not having the venue, not being able to find funding. And it means that over the summer, even these folks who are really invested in this just don't have the place to really be able to hone their craft and really be able to put on some amazing productions. And really, being able to especially be able to support those types of investments into helping young people and students get into the arts over the summer really does help. It not only does it give them the ability to hone their craft, but also creates really accessible places of entertainment through the shows that they create. And that can also, which supports the broader community. And the second perspective that I come from is somebody who's against authoritarianism, which I presume most of the people in this room are. Because, as perhaps one of the people on Zoom was indirectly noting earlier, art often tends to go against authoritarianism. And as was also mentioned earlier, it will often go against, well, things that are seen as oppressive. That's because art is naturally a source of rebellion. So I would say that if you would also like to go against authoritarianism, I would hope you would support greater funding to the ACM and MAC. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: We have one person on Zoom. I'm going to go to Ross K on Zoom. Ross, name and address. You'll have three minutes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, hope you can hear me. I'm Ross Catlin. I'm on Vista Av. I'm Alyssa's fiance from before. I've been a resident of Medford for over a decade and a homeowner here for six years. And I just want to keep it simple and say, you know, art and creativity matters a lot to me. I love making things, seeing what others make, and connecting with shared experiences. Art is important for the community. It brings us together. It attracts others to the city. And it brings joy. And I strongly support funding for the arts. And I'm extremely appreciative for groups like Art Collective Medford, as well as the Medforge Makerspace Group. Both groups are working hard to make the community a better place. And both of them brought me here to my first city council meeting, which is great. I hope to be at more.
[eX6vSG1G9V4_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[nMlCJNUIswQ_SPEAKER_18]: Hi. Short people. I'm Susan Altman. I live at 201 Winthrop Street. I'm the president of Arts Collaborative Medford. And I wanted to just say one thing about how much work volunteers put in and how incredibly stacked it is against us to have so little support on a city level. Virtually everybody who spoke here before me is a volunteer and did all the work that they're doing pretty much as a volunteer. The $5,000 at most that they got from Medford Arts Council for one project doesn't begin to cover their expenses over the course of a year. I alone put in almost 200 hours in the first half of this year just on working with Arts Collaborative Medford, not to mention all the other things that I do with my time. And people like Laura, who have a family with small children, I don't even know how they manage to do this much volunteering. It's amazing. And it shouldn't be so stacked against the community. It's wonderful that we are able to do it, but it shouldn't be our responsibility to take all the load. And so anything that you as a city council can do to help us, we would appreciate it. Thank you.
[eX6vSG1G9V4_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[Sheila Ehrens]: Hi, my name is Sheila Ahrens. I live on 19 Sagamore Park in Medford. I volunteer with the Arts Council. I just wanted to echo what a lot of people have said, how important art is in the community, that it brings so much joy to people, and I think it really is the glue that brings the community together. It's just so wonderful to go to PorchFest. and any of the outdoor events, and you talk to people that you might not have talked to before, and you make connections, and especially in the world that we live in, with social media on our phones, and just the general feeling of what's going on in the world, I think it's even more important nowadays than it ever was. The other thing I want to say is there's many communities, I know Boston, Newton, who require developers to put a certain amount of money into their arts, and they donated as part of the agreement once they're starting to build a project. I think it's amazing that Transom that's doing that project in Medford Square, they've donated $250,000 and they're going to do a big mural and hired a great organization from Lynn, Beyond Walls, and that's really exciting. My understanding, though I'm not absolutely sure, is that he is doing this on his own without any ask. I don't know. But I think it's going to be really amazing. And I think that's I know it's a lot of work to put that in place. But I honestly think that would be something that would be really incredible that we could have some money flowing in beside what the city can possibly give us to just enlarge what the art community does here. And I think that's why people want to go to Somerville is because there's just this energy and there's constantly something going on. And not that I want to compare us to Somerville, but I think that's a really important thing that makes Somerville such an exciting community to live in. Thank you.
[eX6vSG1G9V4_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: I wanna thank everyone for speaking. And now it comes to the wet blanket part of the night, which is my role after such an exciting meeting. Something that I wanna share with all of you is that the city council can't fund, we do not have the power to fund anything. All we can do is we can approve, cut or reject the requests that we receive from the mayor. So that is the legal role of the city council under our city charter. So we are advocates, but in many ways we are advocates alongside you. We can add our voices and we did this year with budget recommendations to the voices of our arts and culture community to encourage the mayor and the executive administration of the city to provide more city support to the arts. But at the end of the day, we're considering the budget tonight. We don't have the legal authority to give a dollar more to the arts as the city council. The only person in our city government who has that power is the mayor. So we are here to hear from you. We appreciate the showing of support and you know I'm a huge fan of the arts. I'm at Arts Collaborative Medford and I met Regina I think on one of her first days and we've become really wonderful friends and I know so many of you in the audience tonight from everything you do for arts and culture and other things in our community. It really is interconnected with The efforts that we're trying to make on zoning both ideas like percent for art and how can we get more community benefits from developers and also how can we raise more revenue for our community through growth so that we can provide more funding to things like Medford Arts Council and the other community events, you know, I think it's really important. There are so many times that folks come before this body and they talk about, well, the Medford Arts Council got 60,000, but we're putting $20,000 back into the city, you know, to fund city projects. And it's because that happens with our CPA. It happens with many of our resources, you know, we are, a city that is underfunded and under-resourced and there are not, there are really only two main ways to raise more money if you're a city. And it's you can raise taxes on the people who are here right now or you can bring in new growth and new taxpayers to the city. And that is something that I think this council has been really focused on being honest about that. trying to make the case for raising revenue so that the city can do more to support arts and culture. We are encouraged to see the communications that we've got from the mayor over the past week over some, I think what we could all describe as modest improvements to city support for the arts. And I think the city council will continue to advocate for arts and culture in our community using all the powers that we have at our disposal. And the thing that will help us in our advocacy the most is for everyone else who's an advocate for arts and culture to continue advocating directly to the mayor. who holds the power of the purse and the funding strings in our community and is the one who writes the budget. So I really appreciate the presentation, all the supports we see for arts and culture. So excited, Regina and everyone else for Medford Open Studios in 11 days and for the hundreds of events that will come in the six months after that. to close out our wonderful 2026. So, thank you so much. I'm gonna go to Vice President Lazzaro.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I originally meant to say exactly what President Bears said, which is the thing about the funding and what we're capable of doing. But I did also want to say something that I forgot to say the first time I spoke, which is that most of my focus on city council is about making sure that the most vulnerable people in Medford have their immediate needs met, like their basic, basic needs. But there is... In the hierarchy of needs, I actually think the arts are... pretty primary as a need that when I work with unhoused people and they manage sometimes if they're in an emergency shelter and they have a place to sleep at night, the first thing they want to do once they've eaten a meal and they're dry and clean, they want to color something or read a book or like art therapy is very effective. There are so many really important things about the arts that are very fundamental to people's basic human needs. So I just wanted to say that so that everybody understands how prominent this is as a passion of this council and also how we we still can't right now. But it doesn't mean that it's not something that we that we are as President Bears said advocating for all the time and that it's still part of our concern even as we move forward trying to make sure that like basic needs are met in all of the departments in the city.
[eX6vSG1G9V4_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: All right. Thank you all for coming tonight. We're going to wrap up the Committee of the Whole. Is there a motion on the floor? Vice President Lazzaro.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Motion to approve. Should I keep the paper in committee? No. Motion to approve and adjourn.
[Zac Bears]: On the motion of Vice President Lazzaro to approve and adjourn, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malayne? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. President Pierce?
[Zac Bears]: Yes. 16 affirmative, 1 absent. The motion passes. The meeting is adjourned. We'll be continuing for our regular meeting in a few minutes. It is the presentation, our first presentation of the comprehensive city budget, which is the most important thing we do every year. So if you do want to stick around, please do.
[Rich Eliseo]: I'm kind of selling myself.
|
total time: 9.65 minutes total words: 760 |
total time: 4.44 minutes total words: 213 |
total time: 7.31 minutes total words: 288 |
total time: 1.4 minutes total words: 175 |
|
total time: 0.81 minutes total words: 67 |
|||