AI-generated transcript of Medford City Council Committee Meetings RSPEC, 6/16/26

[Unidentified]: Blah, blah, blah.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee, June 16th. Clerk, can you please call the roll?

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

[George Scarpelli]: Present.

[Rich Eliseo]: And Councilor Tseng? Council is saying is absent at the moment and chair Moline.

[Liz Mullane]: I'm present. Three present, two absent. We can get started. Thank you everyone. First we're going to start with the newsletter. Again the resolution to publish the City Council newsletter 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. If you have further resolve, this paper be referred to the resident services and public engagement committee as a standing agenda item. So with that, let me share my screen. All right, so this is the May newsletter and basically the first part of it up here just kind of talking about what a busy month that it's been and really focusing on the budget. Just a couple of things that I changed around a little bit here. Because of all the Committee of the Whole meetings had the budget information, it was such a long list. I decided to move it towards the end and be able to highlight all of the different conversations we had for each of the different budgets. Again, I did the same thing where I gave what the fiscal year 26 budget was, and then for fiscal year, excuse me, I gave what the fiscal year 27 budget was. and then highlighted if it was an increase or decrease from fiscal year 26. And some of the pieces on it too, I know we had some adjustments and this is a question to the Councilors. I didn't, I went and stayed with the budget numbers that were presented within the meeting even though we knew some may come back to us and be changed. For example, we knew there was an error within the library budget. So I did make a note of it in here saying that the library budget would be updated because there was a calculation error in one of the pieces of it. But if there's a big thought that I should go and try to find the new library budget and put it in there, I was just trying to be honest to the meetings that we had. The other piece I did, I found it confusing to the way that the budgets came to us between the departments and the committee and commissions. So I separated those out as well, so it doesn't follow exactly from the agendas as you were looking at the different budget lines. But I thought it was helpful just to be able to see which were committee commission lines and which were actual departments funding for the city. And then the last thing I'll say, you know, please, and if people have some suggestions or edits to it as you're going through it, the only other thing I did do is I had a nice conversation today with Steve and the communications team from the mayor. You know, one of the things for resident services I thought might be helpful moving forward is as we know that there are certain new streets that have been paved or things that are specific to be of interest to residents, to put it maybe at the end and just do a quick hits of highlights just so that people can see some of the other things that are happening. I've gotten some comments in the past about wanting to know where we might be on some of those projects. Certainly, I know that the city is communicating in a bunch of different ways and I thought it would just be helpful to add it on here as well. So that's the pieces to the newsletter. I don't know if anything stands out. So you'll see right here, I put the library department as presented. However, it was inaccurate at the time and it needed to be updated and final was produced at a later date. So if you think it's important, I can go back in and change it to whatever the real, the new numbers were that were emailed to us. But again, I just wanted to be consistent to the actual agendas that we had. Any thoughts, suggestions? Thank you. Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thanks. I would just say, overall, it's great, incredibly detailed. I'm totally fine with leaving it as it was. That's an accurate description. But I do like that you added in budget needed to be updated, final, produced at a later date. That says that there will be a change. So as far as that's concerned, I'm perfectly happy with that. Great. Great.

[Liz Mullane]: Terrific. Unless there are any other thoughts, suggestions, edits, or if people want to send me a message afterwards, just let me know. Otherwise, should we vote to approve it? Clerk, do you mind calling the roll?

[Anna Callahan]: Oh, right. I would move to approve and keep the paper in committee.

[Liz Mullane]: Is there a second? Second. Great. Clerk, do you mind calling the roll? Absolutely.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly. Councilor Scott Felder. Yes. And Chair Mullane.

[Liz Mullane]: Yes. That's three affirmative, two out. We will move forward. Great, thank you. All right. We've been talking about the ward meetings and the resolution to schedule neighborhood ward meetings that's 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 hearing what everyone said at the last meeting, I went ahead and reached out to Rob O'Leary at the schools to talk through, A, to describe what we were looking to do, but then to also tried to start scheduling some of this so we could have it in advance. He was already saying that things at the schools have already started booking up into the winter. So given the suggestions for some of the ward meetings to be held at the schools, I scheduled out or sent over dates to Mr. O'Leary for September, October, and November, December for each of the different schools. The dates that I have on hold that are highlighted here are open. I've sent them over to him. He has said those are fine. And what I did was I compared, I looked for dates that were, since the city council dates for the fall had already been posted, I made sure they didn't fall on those. I double checked any of the Any dates that would have been against any holidays, anything else that looked like it might be closed for the schools. So these dates seemed to be ones that would work. I was basically holding the time from anywhere from 6.30 to 8.30, not saying that we were going to use that whole time, but just so that we had it booked. And these dates I ran by Mr. O'Leary. He said these work. I just have to get back to him and confirm. So I just started with the, you know, through the end of the calendar year and hoping that it might work for Councilors to take a look now so we can at least hold them so we don't lose any of these dates. And we can then talk about how best to publicize these different meetings. So I know Councilor Tseng isn't on right now. I check these dates all work for me. So I'll run them by him and see if there's any dates in particular that work. And yes hold Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thanks. I apologize. I don't think, I don't know if I have this in my email. It's not in this packet. Oh, beautiful. So for the, I'm on the miss it took when I'm word five and I would say Tuesday or Wednesday is fine, but Thursday is a little tougher. I could do it. It's not impossible. And then if you don't mind scrolling so I can see, I know I was going to do word six. That's not booked yet, Grace?

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah, no, I didn't go any further into the next calendar year. I started with these and then would go further after that. Good. Thanks. Great. Oh, great. And Councilor Scarpelli, it would be you and I as a dynamic duo for Ward 2. I did November and December, because November was so tough with holidays and trying to make sure it might work. Any dates in particular that would work or would not work for you?

[George Scarpelli]: So both months for me are perfect. So whatever day works for you, I'm in.

[Liz Mullane]: Awesome. Terrific. Great. And then, Councilor Tseng, all of these dates, so sorry to give you kind of a recap. I reached out to the schools and confirmed that these dates were open and available. And on hold, we just have to get back and let them know which one we want. This is booked from 6.30 to 8.30 where we hold the ward meeting. I've been told that there's hybrid ability as well. And I checked them against the city council as well as any other potential holidays during those dates. So if there's any date that sticks out to you that does or doesn't work for September, for Ward 1, the Andrews, let me know.

[Justin Tseng]: And so we should just go with whatever works out.

[Liz Mullane]: He's very low. I'm sorry, I couldn't really hear that, but I can follow up with you afterwards.

[Justin Tseng]: Sorry, my AirPods are not working. What I was saying was, I'm looking to design my schedule for the fall around these commitments. And so these dates all would work for me thus far. And I'm just looking to schedule around these.

[Liz Mullane]: Great. Okay, so I'll go ahead and send over, I'll send each one of you an email, just have the final dates confirmed, and then I will send it over so that we have it booked, and then at our next meetings we can kind of start talking about how best to start getting the word out, and then I will finish scheduling out for 2027. I just wanted to get us through the fall.

[Justin Tseng]: Perfect.

[Liz Mullane]: Great. That is all I had for the meeting today for those two, unless there's anything else people have or want to discuss at this time. No? All right. Is there a motion?

[George Scarpelli]: Motion to adjourn.

[Liz Mullane]: Is there a second? Great. Clerk, do you mind calling the roll?

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly. Councilor Leming is still absent. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. And Chair Maloney.

[Liz Mullane]: Yes. Four in the affirmative, one absent. We are good to go. We are adjourned. Thanks, everyone.