Bicycling Advisory Commission: 2026 Mission Statement and Strategic Goals - 2026-06-24

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3-flash-preview from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The commission formally adopted a 2026 mission statement and strategic goals focused on infrastructure advocacy and public outreach. Key administrative actions included starting a search for new officers and requesting the mayor expand the body to 13 members.

1:05 Guest Introductions and Minutes — Introduced guests from the city planning office and local advocacy groups before approving the May 2026 meeting minutes.
6:21 Adoption of Mission Statement and 2026 Goals — Approved a formal mission statement and a list of strategic goals for the remainder of the calendar year after discussing the importance of time-bound targets.
24:16 Assignment of Goal Ownership — Commissioners assigned individual 'champions' to lead specific objectives, including safety ordinance research, bike rack installations, and rotary repainting projects.
43:33 Commission Membership and Officer Nominations — Approved a motion to request the mayor appoint additional members to reach a target of 13 and opened a nomination period for a new chair, vice chair, and secretary.
53:23 Farmer's Market Bike Fest and Summer Ride — Approved participation in the July 30 Farmer's Market Bike Fest and a group ride to the Northern Strand bike kitchen scheduled for July 9.
59:58 Event Recaps: Bike to Work Day and Bike Bash — Reviewed the successful turnout at the Medford Bike Bash and the youth bike swap, noting the importance of liability waivers and mechanical support from the BU bike kitchen.
1:16:41 Budget Update and Public Safety Supplies — Discussed a budget increase for training and supplies, and agreed to coordinate with the administration to secure funding for a bulk order of youth helmets.
1:23:02 Infrastructure Issues and Legislation — Addressed a hazardous parking meter placement in a Medford Square bike lane and reviewed pending state e-bike regulations.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: With that, I call the June 2026 Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission meeting to order. Secretary, will you please call the roll?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Noam Reveni, he has resigned, so not present. Mary-Kate Gustafson, not present. Leah Grodstein, not present. Adam Shire, not present. And Chris Stivers, not present. Okay, we have five people out of the nine members. We have a quorum and we can proceed.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right, normally we also go through and do quick, oh, there's Chris. So let it be noted that Chris has joined the meeting. Let's see, we normally go through quickly and do guest introductions. So I am just going to go down my screen really quickly and do them in the order that the people are listed. So Amanda, would you like to give a quick intro?

[Amanda Centrella]: Sure thing, thank you. Amanda Centrella, she, her pronouns. I work in the city's Planning, Development and Sustainability Office, and I work as like a Parks and Open Space Planner. Happy to be here. Thanks for joining us.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Welcome. Is there any particular reason you're joining us tonight? I'm just curious.

[Amanda Centrella]: Oh, well, I had been shared, I think by Dennis. He saw my name and the bike bash on the agenda and just thought I'd hop on.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah. I was here last week, but I'm just here in this capacity because I am an intern working with Amanda. So I'm just joining for a little bit with her.

[CAS00002535_SPEAKER_05]: Hi, I'm Zachary or Zia. I live in Western Somerville. I've been actually meaning to make it to one of these meetings for quite a long time. I'm very heavily involved in pushing for better bike infrastructure in Somerville, Cambridge, Boston, Brookline, and Belmont and Watertown especially. But given I live so close to the Medford border, I've really been meaning to get more involved in the biking community there as well and seeing how things are there politically and how things can be better. Because I really feel that when I get to the town line and all of the infrastructure seems to disappear. And I'd like to help or see where things are.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Well, we're glad that you can join us. So it's nice to have people from the other, like, nearby towns. It is something that we are intending to do is, like, try and coordinate more with the other towns in order to try and improve the overall bicycle network. So nice to have you. Zachary, just a real quick question for you, Zachary. This is Chris. Are you involved in any sort of official capacity with Somerville or other groups?

[CAS00002535_SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I'm here as myself. I'm involved with Cambridge Bicycle Safety, the Boston Cyclist Union, and the Davis Square Neighborhood Council, especially. But I'm not here on behalf of any of those groups.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Awesome. Yeah. Well, very much appreciate you being here and helping forge some connections among our different groups. So thanks for joining. Awesome. Um, great. Uh, let's see with that, I'll open the floor to announcements, but I also want to note that, uh, we do want to go through our 2026 goals and mission statement. Um, so that's something that's been sort of bumped a bit. Uh, so, uh, do I hear a motion to, uh, move that onto the agenda?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Aye. All opposed. Okay. Hearing none, the ayes have it. I will move that.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I'm sorry, who seconded that? I'm typing and I lost track. Great. Thank you. Yeah.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: uh okay um so i'm going to move that into the spot of the announcements we can have announcements immediately after that um oh sorry i should actually say i i should move that directly after the um approval of the minutes for may 2026 since that is sort of a procedural item so i'll move that there um then we will uh talk about mission statement and if there are any additional announcements we can try and run through those afterwards. Okay, so with that, do I hear a motion to approve the minutes from May 2026?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right, all opposed? And hearing none, the ayes have it. All right, so minutes are approved. Oh, it's funny, meeting minutes from May. That's where it says draft minutes from March. Okay.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: No, all good, all good. Chris, would you, since you're here, would you like to lead this discussion or would you like me to lead this discussion? If you don't mind leading it, I'll just say here and chime in with anything. I'm stepping out of my conference for a call, so it's a little bit tough to be as in a position to lead it. So if you don't mind, and I'll just jump in with anything else. Okay, sounds good. So I'd like to give everyone an opportunity to read through the proposed, hold on. uh, read through the proposed goals and mission statement. I'm placing that in the chat right now. Um, Bruce, you should be able to grab that. Um, so this is the current proposal. I'd like to give everyone a few minutes to read through, um, and then we will probably just discuss like adopting them. So everyone is welcome to do that. If you, if you don't have access, let me know.

I guess this is actually probably Chris's. Would it make sense, Daniel, just to share, pull up in your computer and share as well?

[Unidentified]: Good thinking. I can find my goals. There it is. Too many of these.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: And can you check to make sure you're on the right tab? Oh. Am I on? Go on the left-hand side. Oh, sorry. The top, the very top one. Oh, I'm sorry. I was not on. Thanks. No, no, thank you. I didn't realize I was curious about that.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Actually, this would be a good... Sorry, guys. It's probably on a previous tab. Yeah, that was probably my... Yeah, do you want to just copy that onto the front tab and see all of it? Thanks.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, I'll give everyone another minute. Okay, with that, for any of the, I guess, I believe it does go to members of NBAC, does anyone have any recommendations on changes or edits that they would like to see before we bring this to a vote. Specifically, the mission statement will vote on the mission statement and then the goals, but if there are any outstanding edits that you feel need to be made, I'd say we should probably discuss that now.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah. Daniel, I'm not sure if we're supposed to reference the mayor's office. We advise the city of Medford through the mayor's office because that's how we're organized. Should we note that just for information to the public?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Sure. I'd probably be in favor of keeping it simple and that's implied. But if you feel strong, Arnie, we can see what the group thinks.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I mean, I do talk to the mayor on occasion when dealing with budget items.

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, but I mean, like we work directly with who is that someone in the traffic office, right?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: We work with the executive branch, which is effectively the mayor. And that's also what the city of Medford implies as opposed to city council or school.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I'm not adverse to adding to the mayor's office, but, um, I don't think it's necessary.

[Ernie Meunier]: Okay. Okay. I mean, Adam, she can't fire us, so, you know. It would save a lot of budget, wouldn't it?

[Jared Powell]: I mean, if we needed to add something like that, you could always add a last little sentence that says, like, you know, the bicycle commission is appointed by the mayor, if that procedural information is necessary.

[Ernie Meunier]: I was just going to add the words after Medford, through the mayor's office.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: But if it's redundant... I was questioning if that has any bearing on our mission statement. Mission statement implies... Okay. Yeah. Okay. With that, does anyone want to raise a vote to adopt this as our mission statement?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Thank you. Bruce and Jared, all in favor of adopting this as our mission statement. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, all opposed? All right, hearing none, the ayes have it. This is now officially our mission statement. Terrific. Yes. Great. All right. So then with goals, really quickly, does anyone have any specific edits that they feel are very important to make? These can be modified slightly, wording can probably, you know, have some leeway with the wording.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: The only question I had is a question of what are ongoing goals versus specific goals such as the ones for by the end of whatever. And I kind of feel like we should somehow or another reorganize that so that the ongoing goals are one thing that don't always have to be constantly re-voted upon unless we make changes, and then that the ones that are specific plans for either a particular month or year would be made in a separate section.

I'm not strongly for that, but I think it might help clarify or make it easier moving forward as we go.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I believe that most of these are tied to 2026, except for the single point of the developed strong relationships, which is sort of an ongoing. So I'm not sure if there, if people are saying that there should be, we should be dividing them out or if we're okay with like readdressing goals again.

[Ernie Meunier]: Okay. I think it was Chris's intent to have this be for the calendar year 26. Right. As in the implementation paragraph three down.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, I'll just add that I think it's, to the extent that we can, it's always good to have time-bound nature to goals so that we have something to shoot for. And we're going to have to check in on, we'll have to develop a little bit of processes around how we, you know, check our, keep ourselves on track on this and track progress. But I think at least having most of these sides at the end of the year gives us a point at which we can look back and say, how are we doing? And then we'll reestablish goals for next year and reset times, et cetera.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: And then the only other comment I have is point number two under build a strong public presence, whether or not we wanted to say at least four tabling events versus four, does that matter?

[Jared Powell]: Um, I have a thought regarding two quick things, one regarding timing and like Chris, your point about timing. If this whole thing is most of these have target dates as end of 2026. And this whole thing is framed as 2026 goals. I think we could simply frame it that way, that these are all goals for 2026, such that by the end of 2026 does not need to be carried through each of the goals.

[Ernie Meunier]: I agree, but does that mean rewriting the whole thing each year, which isn't maybe a big deal?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I mean, I think 27 goals and 20 goals every year is something we should do. And we'll have to see where we stand on each of those. And some of these may roll over into next year, and they may be modified, or they may be new ones entirely. So I mean, I think either write it explicitly for each one or maybe it's implied, either way is fine.

[Ernie Meunier]: I like the idea of it being a multi-year living document that is automatically revised each year rather than re-originated, if you will. Going back to Bruce's point about the document is living and breathing. with goals for each year that are modifiable and readdressable.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, Ernie, I think that's exactly right. And I think we can add goals during the year as well. And I guess maybe I would advocate for keeping the time-bound nature within each goal because I could foresee us adding something at some point even later this year that has a shorter timeframe attached to it. And we may at some point say there are goals that have longer timeframes beyond the end of this year. We've sort of set that as the starting point for the ones we have now, but that could change in the future as we continue to update things.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: So I would say maybe- I don't think it's very painful to have by the end of 2026 reiterated across these goals. So I'm in favor of leaving it as it is.

[Jared Powell]: It's, it's just, it's just repetitive. It's not a problem. That's the main thing.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I would vote. Let's not get or vote. Um, let, let's not get too hung up on the fact that we might have like the repetition or that we might readdress the goals. I think the goals are the important part versus the actual explicit, like wording of this document to, to the, you know, the to a non-repetitive nature.

[Ernie Meunier]: I don't know how to put that, but... Well, my point is that people coming in from the outside maybe would be more appreciative of what we're doing here. This is sort of a master document that lists goals that are morphed and changed each year, but that this isn't just a one and done for 26, especially if they might want to get involved. with us or join the commission. So I'm trying to not have it self die in December need to be reoriginated. So maybe that's just a subtle way that it is postured. I'm not sure. But I want it to be living and breathing and transformed as projects come and go.

[Jared Powell]: I think that's fine. These are just shorter term goals for the most part, right?

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, no, I mean, always add more. This is an editorial comment I'm making, but you know what I'm saying?

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: I mean, if we keep it in a Google Doc like this, we can have tabs for different years, or we can have a tab for ongoing things versus annual goals. There's lots of different ways we could do it. But I would like to get us sort of back on track and decide if these goals we can all agree on.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I agree with you, Adam. Personally, I like all of these. Most of them are achievable, limited. They're good. They're in line with the things that we're already doing anyway. One standout to me is the implement policies and the multi-year plan for the adoption of a safe cycling ordinance. That is at a scale that's much bigger than most of the others. I like it. I think it's interesting. It's the toughest nut to crack on this list, perhaps, and the one that's going to trigger a lot of debate.

a lot of procedural issues about how to do it. I'm excited. I like it. Um, just I'm highlighting that that's a big one, but I'm 100%.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Um, I think that that one is more ambitious and aspirational. Um, I, I am in favor of having aspirational goals on here. And I, I, I intentionally wrote like first draft to try to say, like, let's at least have some progress towards this by the end of the year. And I think we're just going to have to see what we can do and what we uncover as we go through that. And then, you know, we can re-scope it as needed when we get more information. I think it's good as stated.

[Ernie Meunier]: Does the notation of four X's indicate all approved or a mystery author?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think that just indicates we don't have someone leading that effort initially.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yep. That'll be the second portion. After we adopt these goals, then we will move over to seeing who's going to be championing them. Okay.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I'd like to move that we adopt these goals as stated with the understanding that we might clarify them as we move forward.

[Jared Powell]: I agree with that, but real quickly on the last one, I'm going to kill the triple question mark and just say it's period.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay. Um, with that, uh, Jared, is that, is that a second?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay. Uh, so there was Bruce and Jared. Um, uh, so all in favor of adopting these goals, uh, for, uh, for the Medford bicycle advisory commission. Um, sorry. Um, yep. All in favor. All right. All opposed. Okay. Hearing none, the ayes have it. All right. So with that, do we want to go over now just figuring out who the owners of these should be? I'm happy to start off. I'm going to have to drop off. Thank you so much for leading this, Daniel. I appreciate everyone's support and help in getting this across. Well, across the starting line, I think is maybe more appropriate. uh analogy here um i will just say that i i am interested in supporting the implement policies to improve cycling safety in medford one as well um uh you know tbd and whether i would own that or if somebody else wants to jump into that as well um and i i think i've got my name attached up while there's also so um if you guys are okay to proceed without me i'm going to drop yep we should be good Thanks, Chris. Thank you very much, Chris. All right.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: We're going to have 5 of us on board. We still maintain a quorum.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay, I guess let's go down the list. Establishing processes for collaborating with key parties within Medford Mayor's office, City Council traffic. please send with state agencies, MassStop, DCR, et cetera, to enable NBAC's input on all projects and policies that affect cycling in Medford. Right, I should probably be removed from that if I'm going to be gone in like one or two months. So is anyone interested in being a champion with Chris on this?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I can volunteer to help out with some of the agencies. I don't know if that warrants putting me on that list or not.

[Jared Powell]: Would that mean number two on that point there? Oh, state agencies you're talking about?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think it might be fair to relieve Chris of needing to do that as well, since he's going to be taking on a lot of other things.

[Jared Powell]: Okay. I'll put that as a comment, likely removed just in case he really feels strongly about it.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Does anyone feel like they are able to help with the communication channels with ABAC and the other related segment groups in the area?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I think that's- Adam, I've got some contact information and so on, but I would be happy to have you take a lead on that.

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's good, I think. Um, Ooh, the due date's hard, but yes, that is, you got a couple of days. You just have to probably should have noticed that one before. Well, you know what, this is a living document. I'm going to go in and change it.

[Ernie Meunier]: Why just, why not just delete by June 26? Yeah. We don't, we don't need that sentence.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right, support installation of 50 bike racks throughout the city by the end of 2026. Emily has been making great progress on that. I also joined her for spotting out a couple of racks. So I think that it makes sense to leave Emily with this one, unless someone else feels like they need to be joining in there.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: No, I feel like she's handled that quite well. And I think we've also actually achieved the goal already. We had 40 in the last round, and then I'm pretty sure we had at least 10 in the round previous, or was that technically last year?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, I'm not sure. I want to say we only have 40 as of this year, but regardless, we are actually very far along on that goal. Awesome. Um, complete the repainting of high street rotaries by the end of 2026. Uh, I remember, uh, well, I remember being on the working group for this. Adam, I think you are also, are you also, no, Chris definitely was right. I remember Chris was the one who sent Chris.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Right. So I can give a real quick status on that. We got contacted by one guy who, this is a couple of months ago now, probably longer, and we had a good discussion, but I haven't seen any follow-up, so I should probably bother him again. But I think it's good to keep myself and Chris on this.

[Ernie Meunier]: Are we limiting this section just to these two items or Should we be adding others that we will then readdress later in the year?

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: No, we should leave this as is. We can have a parking lot for other things.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I agree. We deliberately wanted that to be attainable. If we keep shoveling stuff in, We end up with what I'd like to say, number six on the top five items.

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: We never get to it. We also just spread ourselves too thin if we're working on all of these different things. The whole point of this is we have limited capacity and resources. Let's just focus on these things. Okay.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right, develop a multi-year plan. I think we had said Chris was interested in this one. I am not sure if anyone else wants to jump in on this.

[Jared Powell]: I'm definitely interested. The scope of this one, like I mentioned before, is big. So this is going to require a lot of thought, a lot of work across groups, right? Like as soon as you're talking about like an ordinance, you're talking about city council. So there's different branches of government involved. There's potentially like nonprofit partnerships, opportunities, you know, Walk Medford and probably others as well. All that is to say the scope is big enough that it can probably, it will probably take a few.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Not to mention that since we're basically an arm of the mayor's office, we would definitely need to at least get a sanction from the mayor's office that she wants to present this ordinance. I think it's fair for us to develop it, come up with the idea, but then we need to present it to her and get approval to bring it before city council.

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think when we were working on this, the word developed there is really key. Like, we're not doing this, we are sort of figuring out how we would do it.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, and it's a plan for adoption as opposed to like drafting legislation. Yeah, right.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Well, I mean, it might get to that at some point where we draft the proposal. And then it goes to whatever channels it needs to to become cleaned up and whatever.

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: Sure. I think the goal is just to have a place to start, to start working on this is basically the goal here.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I would maybe suggest we don't go too far down turning this over too much.

[Jared Powell]: I think that's fair. The point is, though, that I think we're talking about how it is complicated enough that it's going to take several people. We should think about their relative skills in helping achieve this.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah. And because the noted word in there is safety, it then has intercourse with what I'm trying to champion with lights and helmets, and whether there could be ordinances that touch that or activity therein. So yeah, it's a big topic. I agree, Jared. So maybe all our names are in there. I'm not sure.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I think it's reasonable to let it stew for a little bit and have all of us involved until we at least have the 20 bullet points we want to put into it. And then somebody can serve as a champion at that point to work it through with the development draft and how we move on from there.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, we'll need to do like some research maybe to see like what the protocols and processes have been in like other communities, right? Like Cambridge did it in like a very different way than I think we're talking about doing it here, but maybe that's our recommendation. Spin off a nonprofit arm to actually draft an ordinance or something. So maybe this is, maybe this is all for now. Okay.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, I think who was originally Anna, Chris and me. Right. OK.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: And Anna seems to be. Well, we know Anna's gone. Yeah. And as much as I have good intentions, I've been very poor at execution on this one. Chris has been much better. He's done a few things already. But particularly, actually, I'm going to say a couple of things here that are a little bit off topic here for a second. Daniel with your leaving, we obviously need to vote on a new chair and he had expressed interest in being nominated for that position. I don't know if anybody else here wants to do that as well. But what that would mean is. Chris is going to be even busier than even all the stuff that he's here got on the goal. So it's not clear to me that he's going to have the bandwidth to address the website. So we might need to figure out how to do that better. Maybe if we lobby for some additional members, we'll have some more power there. But I just want to put that as an aside as we're deciding who's responsible for this. I think we can leave it TBD for now, frankly, if we're willing to do that.

[Ernie Meunier]: Well, we have to lobby the group to see who has the internet skills and website skills to want to tackle this comfortably.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I think Noam had offered in the past, but I mean, I guess he's not on the commission, but he could still help with this if we want to, you know, rope him in as a civilian. Yeah, sounds like TBD for now. Board tabling events. That's all.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I think we basically get a champion for each individual event once we've decided to do it. And then we just execute it. We kind of know what we have to do there.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, we're decent at that. Bike safety stuff. Ernie, that's obviously you.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yep. And he does a good job of that. So I think we have people here.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: uh roles responsibilities expectation documentation i've got that okay that's fine uh i think this one is pretty much either whoever the chair is or all yeah are we going to suggest that that the chair might be the one responsible for that Though it can be helpful to have all members be willing to sort of spread the word or rope people in because there is sort of an advertising element to it. Yeah, for sure.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I think at a minimum we ought to decide how many members are our target and at what point we call for a refill. So that it's not kind of, oh, yeah, we need a few more members. Let's go do something. But rather, we have specific thresholds that when crossed, we do something. And then we have a policy that says, OK, we ask the mayor for three more members, four more members, whatever.

[Ernie Meunier]: Since we're talking about, well, appropriate resources, within that then would be maybe our discussions about requesting more funding. You're talking about adding more members, we should add more funds. I don't see anywhere in this list yet, or maybe continues further down. I know it's on the agenda item for Daniel tonight, but shouldn't it be in this document somewhere?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I would like to suggest that we revisit this document on some regular schedule to add items of this nature that we feel are important enough to get onto our goals list. That's not to say that I don't agree with you, Ernie. It's just that we adopted this particular item earlier in the meeting, and it wasn't our plan to then revise this document going forward immediately. So that's my suggestion again, you know, whatever other people think, let us know.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, I would also question if that, we've already gone through the budgeting process for this year. If you would like to make that a goal for next year, that's probably a goal that you would want to set for next year versus this year as well.

[Ernie Meunier]: Okay, my point then would be that if that's added as a number two, to secure funding options or increase funding, that it should be within this category. Because the word resources is there. It's people and money.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Somebody has suggested, I think they use the term parking lot for, additional items of this nature that we think are candidates for adding to the list?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Do we want to adopt an official policy for how items get on the parking lot? No.

[Jared Powell]: I think that's going to the point. Yeah, that's kind of the structure of the parking lot, that it's open and you can drop whatever there.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Do we want to include it officially at some point at the end of this document or it's a separate tab or something of that nature?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think the intent of this document was initially to just go through an approval process for it versus modify it. It has been modified several times and it's sort of gone through the commission multiple times. It doesn't mean that things can't be added in the future, but we do have other items and we're sort of getting started here. I think that if we want to have a debate over adding additional items, then we should probably have that at a later point.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, so we can approve it and move to the next meeting. Okay. For further discussion and amendment.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right, well, we've already approved these. We're simply assigning who the individuals are. Yeah, yeah.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yep. All right. So with that, we are a little bit behind, but I will say, does anyone have any announcements? Because that's what I'd leave you with.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yes, I do. All right. I've been contacted by someone named Mark Hoffman, who is apparently a director, writer of some sort. And I don't know, it's a little bit sketchy, but he's put together a film that is apparently showing in theaters across the country, theaters like Arlington, Regent, places like that. It's called A Simple Machine. And apparently it's a story about somebody who gave up their car to use a bicycle and whatever. He's looking for involvement with us in some way. He doesn't yet have a specific time other than maybe in August, maybe in September. And I don't really know the nature of this film, whether it's a commercial, would be considered a commercial venture on his part, or exactly what it is. So what I'm basically doing is just mentioning it. And maybe I should bring it up formally at the next meeting to ask if we have any involvement or reservations about being involved. And maybe I'll get some more information from him to understand exactly what it is.

[Ernie Meunier]: Bruce, why don't we just ask him to show up at the next meeting?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Oh, yeah. I would actually, I kind of implied that you're right. I had implied that to him as well, that maybe that's what he could do. So I'll arrange for him to show up at the next meeting to discuss it, and then we can decide how to move forward. That's fine. Thank you.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. One with that. Sorry. Sorry, I got a ping on my work thing. That was a pain to see pop up. Oh, right. Okay. Events, Farmer's Market Bike Fest, July 30th.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Before we do that, I would like to make a motion to add an additional agenda item at this point, which is to discuss the commission members and what we need to do and how we should arrange for Daniel's absence going forward. If we could add that, that's my motion. We'd need to vote on adding the agenda item and then we can discuss it.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, there's 2 things. 1 is. The fact that you're leaving, so we ultimately need to reorganize in some fashion, at least appoint a new chair. but we might take the opportunity if depending upon what Emily wants to do to appoint a new co-chair or vice chair. And if anyone's interested in being secretary again, that's my agenda item. Do we need to do that? We need to decide that. And then the other is whether we formally ask for additional members from the mayor as we do from time to time. Okay, we don't do it now. I can put it as an official agenda item on the next next meeting.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: So, the motion is to add the agenda item. Yeah, immediately and.

[Ernie Meunier]: 2nd, Jared Daniel, can I ask how many months you think you can officially. continue to be secretary? One or, well, chair, but one or two. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. There's no statute on that. There's no hard date.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: There's no hard date. Yes. Okay. Good. So that, that's like, that's sort of up in the air. Um, I don't, I don't have a great sense right now. We have to figure that out after we get back from the West coast. Yep.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: So we need to move forward. Are we going to vote on it?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, so sorry. Thank you. That's where we were. Bruce and Jared were first and second for the agenda item add. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. OK, all opposed? OK, hearing none, I say the ayes have it. Let's add those items. They are so added.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Okay. All right, so in that case, moving on to discussion over the, I guess, the officer positions.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: It would just be at this point, my point was to at least bring it to our attention and decide how we want to move forward for that. I'll make the suggestion that we solicit nominations for all three positions and stating that I am interested in retaining secretary position, but would also entertain leaving it if somebody else is really interested in doing it. And other than that, we would want to seek nominations for the chair, the vice chair, and present that at the next meeting.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I can administratively do that soliciting from everybody and then arrange that for the next meeting.

[Jared Powell]: So that happens offline and then you review the submissions at the next meeting?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Oh, yes. And that one we could actually vote on, I suppose. The question was, do we need to refill? I recommend that we do, because I think what would we say we're down to now? Nine. Nine members?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah. And I think traditionally, we're interested more in 11 or 12 members.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I made a spreadsheet at one point that was very helpful for thinking that through. And of course, I can't find it right now.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: But there's pros and cons. Do you remember what our target number is? Is it 11 or is it 12?

[Jared Powell]: Yeah. Yeah, you want to give yourself enough flexibility that you can still likely hit quorum, but have enough people that you've got some capacity to actually do stuff.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Then I would like to move that we ask the mayor to appoint additional members such that we arrive at at least 13 members.

[Ernie Meunier]: All right, do I hear a second? A point of discussion, asking her to appoint, don't we have a proviso in there that we are the first filter? And that she appoints from our nomination list? Or is it vice versa?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I'm pretty sure that we present people that we believe would be good. Right. We nominate people to the mayor and the mayor. That hasn't been uniformed.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, we are allowed to solicit people, but we send them to the city's standard application form. That form goes to a black box somewhere in City Hall. And then from there, they have been sent to us to review. We have then given our thoughts and approval back to the mayor, and then she appoints. She's not beholden to appoint the people that we have identified, but She generally does.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I believe so. I think that's how it works. But in fact, that has not been problematic in the past that I'm aware of.

[Ernie Meunier]: Then the language of your proposal shouldn't just sound so much as though she is vetting the candidates first and for us to approve them. You made it seem like a singular path in your wording.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I see. What I meant to say was basically getting the process in motion to let the mayor know that we need new members. And then perhaps in such letter indicate that we will look for people and solicit nominees and have them apply through the standard form.

[Ernie Meunier]: Right. And welcome her submissions as well to show collaboration.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: So the point would be that either the chair or I guess the vice chair in the absence of the chair would need to send a letter to the mayor, which I can draft. Um, but the, the, one of the chairs would need to approve it and send it basically saying we need more members and here's what we want to do.

[Jared Powell]: The city very recently published an advert. soliciting for members at other commissions. I noticed I saw that a couple weeks ago.

[Ernie Meunier]: Is that signed by that those commissions or again through their vetting office like the mayor's office?

[Jared Powell]: I think periodically they just tell her we need more members but it seems like that process is maybe that timeline for looking for new members like checking to see if they need more is something that's maybe formalized for the committees that are permanent as opposed to the ad hoc ones. I think the ad hoc ones fall through the cracks.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: So effectively my motion is to get this process started.

[Jared Powell]: All right. That sounds good. And I agree with targeting 13, because then your quorum is seven. So same as 12. So you always want the odd number so that you've got the same number for quorum.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: All opposed? I will champion this issue with Daniel, you as chair or in your absence, Emily.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah. I should be around long enough to start that process. Okay. I can remove the share from those goals. Okay. Let's see.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yep, now we're on to events. Alright, let's see what we can get through before it gets too late. Quick reminder, Farmers Market Bike Fest is July 30th, 2026. Who was the one who originally was doing this?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I added all these events in based on getting the mailings from these different organizations to our official address. And that's how I know about these items. So in the past, we basically said, are we going to do it? And let's appoint a champion or volunteer someone or whatever.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. About 20 people. Does anyone want to join that? Or is capable of joining that?

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, it's the bike theme day at the farmer's market at the Condon Shell. So they'd be looking for tabling between three and, was it seven? Is that when it closes? It's always a lot of fun, a lot of people. Usually there's several of us that can come. I can come for some amount of it, but not all of it. It's best if it's tag team, because there's a lot of people to chat with there.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: The real question is, who is the champion? Because we agreed that we need one person who is responsible for making it happen. And I'm willing to do Tufts. I would be hesitant to try to do both of these. But farmers market is coming up real fast. The other ones are in October, so we have more time to think about it.

[Ernie Meunier]: They provide the tables and all that. It's about whoever has the banners and that maybe. Right.

[Jared Powell]: Am I looking at the wrong document, Bruce? I feel like all the others are identified as May.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Hang on one second. Let me find the email because I realized I didn't include what that other document was. Harvest your energy. October 17th is what I've got. And what you're saying that the toughest thing you think was may.

[Jared Powell]: No, no. I'm just looking at the agenda and I don't see anything, anything after bike fest in July. Oh.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Oh, yes, that's because I've added it to the working minutes as opposed to the agenda, which was frozen. Sorry.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I thought I added it to the agenda, but I didn't. Sorry about that. But now what I'm looking for is the third item that was on here. We've got Tufts Community Day. I'm probably going to have to... Wait, hang on.

[SPEAKER_07]: Maybe it was this. No, it wasn't that. Summer events resource page.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Uh, let me, let me come back to the, given that I thought whatever it is, is in October. It's not, uh, it's not urgent. I will figure out what this, uh, third item, which I only added the date to is. I don't remember what, what, what that is. Um, so those are just two announcements. The only one we needed to really get a handle on it's a farmer's market, which, um, I don't think we've officially voted that we're going to attend it and we don't have a champion.

[Jared Powell]: We definitely should. We've just got a few people absent who I think would likely be interested. Like, Leah has done these in the past, and I suspect she probably would be interested again if she's around.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Can we vote to attend and we'll figure out the details going forward?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I'd like to vote that we plan to attend it and we'll just figure out who's going to do it. I mean, one of us will do it.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I'm going to make the motion that we attend the farmer's market.

[Jared Powell]: I would very much like to be the champion but my wife is away then and I will have both kids so it's hard for me to be the champion of something where I can't guarantee that I'll be there the whole time.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I would also possibly offer as long as I know that I'm not going to be doing something out in Western Mass during that time since that will be post-closing.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: And I will provide more information about these other two events.

[Jared Powell]: I think Bike to the Sea will be at the Farmer's Market, too. So maybe we can rope Pat into chatting about MBAG stuff, too.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. OK. You have to eat a little something. All right, recap of Bike to Work Day. Bruce?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, really quick. That was May 7th. I helped lead the ride. We had about 20 people by the time we were done. So that was pretty good. And then, of course, there's a big festival down there. The only thing I wanted to point out is we decided not to do the community path this year, which actually means that none of the convoys, I believe, are officially using the community path. And I was going to do a proposal to maybe add another convoy that leaves from West Medford specifically to use the community path to go in. But that's on me to figure out with the people at the city of Boston. So that's really all I have to report on that.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Well, thank you for that, Bruce. You want to go on to the North of Boston Coalition Bike Ride?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Oh, yes. I wasn't able to attend the test drive, but that didn't matter. There were a lot of people on this ride. By a lot, I mean 50 to 75, I'd say. It was substantial. And we had a good ride to get up the community path. basically rode through Cambridge and then got on the Northern Strand and went up to Lowell Lynn and then back. And it was just basically a way to meet a lot of people, see a few pieces of infrastructure, and have a good ride. So I would strongly actually recommend that as a potential a public ride that we might sponsor at some point, just through maybe modifying slightly so it's a little more Medford-centric, or at least we pass through Medford or something, but it was good.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I'm actually not sure. membership pop-up park, kids bike swap.

[Ernie Meunier]: I was not able to attend that. It was postponed till Sunday, right? So that didn't help it. So did it actually occur?

[Amanda Centrella]: Hi, guys. I'd be happy to give a little update if it's helpful. You're right. And if not, I don't want to interrupt. Is that okay? Yeah, so the bike bash was postponed due to weather to the Sunday. We did have a good turnout, I think largely because of the bike swap. I think that was driving a lot of the folks that were attending. There was kind of this cool natural pairing that happened between the bike swap. And there were some folks, volunteers from, I think, the bike kitchen at Boston University had shown up and kind of set up a tune-up tent. And so they reviewed all of the bikes that were donated and made some adjustments and things so that they were rideable and safe, and then pulled out some ones that weren't and readied all of those. And then pickups happened a little bit later.

The end of the event got rained out a little bit, so we ended up not doing, there was going to be like a guided ride on the Clippership path, so maybe another time. But I think Given the weather and sort of the quick turnaround for putting the event together, there were some good successes and there were also certainly some learning opportunities. And I think if I. If I could make a suggestion, we learned from this event a couple of things. One being that so many of the exhibitors that do these types of events get booked out in January. And so if you all were interested in being involved, and we'd certainly love to be more proactive in inviting you to do so. Maybe it's a conversation that we, the city staff, could start with you all this fall even, depending on your own timelines.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I'd like to comment, Amanda, I really appreciate you folks coming and coming to the meeting today. And that's a great piece of advice and suggestion you're making, which is just generally coordinate with us better, because with a little more lead time, we can round up troops and volunteers and help out with that. And certainly something that we're interested in doing, as you saw, was part of our general goals, charter, and mission, and that kind of stuff. So I think we just work together more. And your showing up today is a good faith effort on that part. So thank you.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, absolutely. And definitely heard on the coordination piece.

[Ernie Meunier]: Amanda, small question. For legal reasons, we had a waiver, a document that was strongly worded, I thought, kind of onerous. Did you get any negative feedback on that? People not wanting to sign it to be involved?

[Amanda Centrella]: No, I didn't. Although it might be worth, we could check in with the folks that were more closely organizing the bike swap to see if they heard anything directly. But yeah, I haven't heard of anything.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I'm very pleased the bike kitchen took the onus off of us there legally in terms of being at risk to providing unsafe bikes In the swap and having the city sort of be responsible for that in a way.

[Jared Powell]: So I can, I can speak to that a little bit. I was, I was there. Um, we, we did use like for the bike swap. We did use the, uh, waivers that the city solicitor, I guess, back when we had one, uh, drafted for us like a year or two ago for this purpose. And it was a full page of scary legalese about how biking is dangerous and all that kind of stuff. I read it. Absolving the city of liability, but everyone who got a bike had to sign it. It seemed like people were pretty excited to get the bike, so I'm unaware of any complaints about it. I actually have a pile of those waivers that I need to deliver to. Yeah.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: My opinion is that even though the waivers were strong, they were necessary. It's basically saying, hey, we can't guarantee these bikes, you've got to use your own judgment on this.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, and there were and there were bikes that got weeded out, right, like the bike kitchen folks from BU and stuff like they were really helpful there, you know, like, like, I'm decently savvy with a bike, but nowhere near the level of expertise that some of those folks had. So it was really awesome to have them there. They were so useful.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I think that that was a critical aspect of it and changes my mind as to whether I would have been supporting it. You know, because I Well, my interest is in the due diligence of making sure that the product is safe for the recipient, if we're involved, and even including the correct fitting of helmets. Don't want to be giving away helmets unless we can assure people that they fit safely, et cetera. So that's all good news. Thank you, Amanda.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. With that. Proposed summer M-back ride, Northern Strand.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I could speak to that. I don't have a bunch, but basically, I've been talking to Pat Bibbins, former MBAC member, Medford resident, and Agnes Ricardo, who works for Bike to the Sea, about trying to do some Bike to the Sea type, maybe not a technically affiliated Bike to the Sea ride, but something that might take advantage of their expertise. Talking with Pat, basically, near-term options would be a casual, small ride on July 9th. That works for our schedules. From 6 to 7.30, McDonald Park, up to the Northern Strand, out to their bike kitchen. It would be up and running that day. I think that's a Thursday. And that way, it would show off ways to get from Medford over there, show off the bike kitchen, that kind of thing.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I'd like to add the idea that rather than starting McDonald Park, perhaps we start closer to Medford Square so that we can use the new Clippership connector. It does add some miles to it, but going up to the bike kitchen is not terribly far from McDonald Park.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, that's a good that's a good point. Let's see. Let me see what what day of the week is the ninth? Is that a Thursday? Wednesdays and Thursdays was when Pat was generally free. So like, that's kind of what worked out pretty well.

[Ernie Meunier]: But that also better cements Medford's involvement in this if we include some Bedford geography in this.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I'm thinking, so the 9th is a Thursday, which means it's Farmer's Market Day. Leaving from the Farmer's Market would work pretty well to go there. I'm not sure exactly how far that is, but that would do kind of what you're talking about there, Bruce.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, the only slight issue there is coordinating everybody to cross Main Street, which we can do. It's just that's the only wrinkle I see there. You know, but once once you're across Main Street, it's a pretty clear say, well, then the only other one is crossing route 28.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely challenging there. I guess it's a rose with a thorn, or a thorn with a rose, maybe. It's a challenge, but also showing some number of people how to move through that space while also letting them see the negative aspects of it such that it might trigger a conversation with the city or city council isn't a bad thing either.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, that's a good point. In order for this to work with daylight, and the uh movement through the northern strand when would it we have to leave medford and let me uh let me look that up for you and would that be too early for the end of the uh allow people who want to be there for the farmer's market and they do both events or is that just hopeless i mean realistically like it's not going to be that many people like i don't think we have like really that much

[Jared Powell]: advertising ability and pull to get like all that many people to come. So like if it is kind of a smaller thing, since we're not, I don't think we've got like a ton of expertise as a, as a commission in terms of like leading group rides, like after you specific members accepted, maybe like Bruce.

[Ernie Meunier]: Oh, I'm just curious. So when would we have to leave Medford in order for it to terminate without getting too dark?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I'm looking right now. Okay. Hang on, July 9, sunset is at 8.22 PM.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, still fairly late. And then twilight ends at 9.40. So that's when it's dark. And you clearly want to be back by then. Oh, civil twilight, sorry, is what I want, 8.56. So by 9 o'clock, you want to be homing in bed. But just one quick thing, I think I am out of town that week and would not be able to help out, unfortunately, as much as I support the ride.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I mean, I can attend. We can advertise it on social media, get a handful of people to come. But I guess it sounds like we're saying maybe get a small, A small cohort to potentially leave from the farmer's market. I'm not sure exactly what time would be best, but probably, you know, five 45 ish, something like that. Maybe more or less go to McDonald park, pick up another crew there and then go up to the bike kitchen and back on kind of whatever schedule that takes. And if it's a smaller group, that seems fine.

[Jared Powell]: July 9th, specific timing TBD, but you know, 530 to 730 all in, something like that. Maybe a little less, but that's kind of the window.

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: I cannot. July 9th, I am. I might be around. Yeah, I mean, I guess, will somebody send out like a calendar invite? That's probably the best way to get this on the Commission's radar.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, let me, um, I'll talk to, I'll talk to, to Pat nail down specific times, but it would be somewhere in that ballpark that I'm talking about. And, uh, and I'll come Daniel. Hopefully you can, Adam, hopefully you can, and maybe we'll see if some other folks can too. Cool.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: So just so you know, it's about 6.2 miles from Farmer's Market to the bike kitchen by the route I'm doing, which takes us around a few bad areas. So 12 miles round trip. Not that that's unattainable, but a little bit aggressive for a family ride. But not, I don't know. I'm just pointing it out.

[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I don't, I don't think we'd advertise it as like a family thing made for that reason.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: In that case. Yeah. If it's an adult thing, 12 miles is perfectly reasonable for a ride of this nature, which means we can count on that taking an hour and a half to two hours with stops and sluggishness.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Oh, uh, Jared, you're the lead on this, right? Basically.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I mean, we might as well have a vote that we're actually going to make this because this would, this, I'm not sure if this counts as, oh, no, that's not a tabling event.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: No, but it is, it does have our name attached to it. I move that we approve. to coordinate a ride on July 9th from Farmer's Market to the Bike to the Sea Bike Kitchen and back.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Aye. Aye. All opposed? Hearing none, the ayes have it. All right. Okay. Moving on, budget recap. We did get a budget increase. We now have $1,200 to spend per year on sending individuals to possibly training programs. So we do have that in our budget. It was very generous of the City Council to approve that. Onwards and upwards. If anyone is interested in going down to, oh gosh, I forget the name of the one we were looking at down in DC.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: The Bike Summit, the League of American, yeah. And I'm definitely interested. I have the advantage that my daughter and her husband live just outside DC, so I would be able to stay with them and be able to save significant money. So it would just be a matter of basically transportation.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: And cost of the event. Right. Well, that's next May or whatever.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, exactly. So that's a little ways off. But yeah, I will leave it to you all to make that vote on who to send down then.

[Ernie Meunier]: So Daniel, is that $1,200 at our discretion to use if Bruce doesn't eat it all up? To go in our general fund?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: No, it does not go to a general fund. It is year marked. Give me a second and I can tell you what the.

[Ernie Meunier]: So it was city council, not the mayor's office. So that's not Alicia.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Alicia was taking care of part of that for me. Yeah. Council.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: So this actually is in the official city budget as a line item.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Travel conferences and training, that is what it falls under. We had 500 before, and we have 1,000 for public safety supplies. So Ernie, let it be known you can request that we use some of that for bike lights and helmets.

[Ernie Meunier]: Well, I'll address that when we segue to my few minutes. Sounds good.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. Where were we? Going back down. Budget recap. OK. Snow removal strategy from April, Emily and Daniel. I'm actually trying to remember. Emily was the one who took most of the pictures of this. I think we were noting that If you do actually reach out to DCR about roads or bike, uh, sorry, I should say bike lanes that are on their roads, they, they actually, they seem to be responsive. Uh, it may be worth it to create a multi-town working group. Um, so that's another thing that might be helpful to get coverage across, like, for example, over in Burlington or over in Kamaldan. Um, so something worth considering.

And right now we are probably not too worried about that, but it's probably worth thinking about in the coming year.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: So this might tie into the goal item we have, which is to work with the other groups around the area. And this would be one of the items that we would add to that.

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: Hey, Daniel, can I ask a question? Do you, is that budget information somewhere that we, like the committee, commission members can refer to it later?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I don't actually know where it's posted. It presumably is public information, so it should be discoverable.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Emailing back and forth with Alicia when trying to figure out what the budget items were.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Let me reach out To Alicia about it and I will see if she has any concerns with sharing that email with the rest of the commission. I doubt it is because it's right. It's public communication.

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: Or if you want to just summarize. You know, the email in an email to the rest of us, that would be great too. It, it, it feels like. Sorry, I don't want to go too far in a tangent, but it feels like a lot. There's a lot of like. Different. people talking to different people and it doesn't make it to the commission and it's frustrating.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I understand. I'm happy to pass that along. I will get whatever information I can.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, even though the money is there, as an example, when I was asking to be reimbursed and the bike stuff, Alicia couldn't find the money. and basically said, I'm going to have to find some money somewhere. So it's as though it's not an actual pot that is that obvious. We get $1,500 a year, but it seems amorphous. So yeah, some due diligence there in the future is going to be needed. And I'll talk about that again, I guess, in a minute or two. I don't know what's left on the agenda.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, I would say the city budgeting process is a little bit more convoluted than I initially anticipated. That's probably the best way to put it. Later you go to Northampton. Yeah, we'll see if I want to deal with city budgets there. Figure that part out later. OK. Clippership Contraflow, pothole question. Images of potholes at the crosswalk. I actually do not know. Why can't I open this?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, basically at the crosswalk, there used to be some lights that were embedded in the roadway. Those have deteriorated, and now they have potholes. I think Todd answered this by telling us, I think he told us when we were out painting the bike racks that that area will be redone. They're going to change the curb cuts, and so there'll be a small section of the roadway that's repaved to make up for it. So do you see that ramp? That ramp is going to be widened and the sidewalk adjacent to it is also going to be widened to accommodate bicycle traffic.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, so this was a question that came up and I confess I've not gone through that intersection with an eye towards understanding what is there. I've actually been through that intersection a couple times and forgot to look. The point was that At one point, the bike lane used to continue and hug the curb, curving around onto Riverside Avenue. And someone said that more recently, a parking space was painted there, and possibly with a meter or a sign or something, which now meant that effectively the bike lane terminated into the back of a parked car, if a car was parked there. And there was some question about exactly what ought to be done there and what we ought to do. I don't have any documentation on it, so I can't make a recommendation. And this was actually something that we had talked about two or three months ago now, so it kind of fell out of my brain. I apologize for that.

I don't know, in general, what should we do when we have stuff like that? I think that's really kind of the question is how do we move forward with issues like that where something gets done and then it gets undone or something's not coordinated and it ruins something that had previously been done, et cetera.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: My initial reaction is to say A, probably put it on C, click fix, and then B is probably to reach out to Todd. and see what his recommendation is. I don't know if they have the ability to, like, de-paint. Hmm. Oh, interesting. Um, okay. Thank you.

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: And just to mention, I think the, like, the procedure for handling this is one of, figuring that procedure out is one of the goals, is part of one of the goals for this year.

[CAS00002535_SPEAKER_05]: Oh, exactly. I was just chiming in to confirm that that that pit in Medford Square is, at least last time I was there, still had an indicator that it was a bike lane and a parking meter. And so sometimes you get there and there's a car park there. And I have also been curious whether it's a former parking space they're turning into a bike lane where they never remove the meter or a former bike lane that they are turning back into a parking space and they haven't removed the bike lane indicator. But yeah, you almost can't blame the driver for being confused because there's a parking meter there. I don't know who in the city I'm supposed to talk to, though, to get an answer about that.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, okay, I've noted that, and I will go and take some pictures and talk to Todd, who is the traffic engineer, and he kind of knows how to get stuff like that fixed. I might also take a paper bag and put it over top of the meter. That's what I do. Love that. That's what Nerdy does.

[Ernie Meunier]: But you're right, Zachary, that's exactly the process. You come to the meeting and tell us about it, and we try to

[MCM00001816_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Hey, Bruce, can you somehow include the rest of us on that, any charms you have? Yeah, thanks.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: OK. So that's that. Thank you, Zachary, for your input.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: We had a list of streets that were getting work of some sort, most of it minor, like potholes and that kind of stuff. And we were questioning at that point whether we should talk to Tom about bike infrastructure since when stuff gets repainted, that's always the classic time to do it. And I think we determined that there was nothing substantial in the list that he had.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. Okay, e-bike law changes, Bruce and Chris. Yes, I did know about this. Was there anything you particularly wanted to bring up about this?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: I think the only thing is my read of each of these bills. were that they were pretty common sense. There was nothing in them that I felt was an overreach or whatever. It's basically saying, you know, there's bicycles and then there's bicycle-like e-bikes. And then there's more powerful bicycles. And then there's things that are really motorcycles, even if they have an electric motor. And each of those has different ability to be in different areas. Like if it goes over 20 miles an hour with a throttle or motor, it doesn't belong either in the bike lane or on the paths. And at a certain level, you're supposed to be licensed and or 16 years old.

Helmets required, et cetera, that kind of stuff. So I didn't see anything that really warranted our attention or considering any kind of a letter to the legislature. And I don't know what the current state of these bills is, whether any were passed and moved to the governor's desk or if they're still in session.

[Ernie Meunier]: Did you send us a copy of those just to see how this is moving globally and locally?

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah, I mean, I can certainly put these links in the chat. I'm putting them in the chat now. OK, you got it. All right.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah. I'm putting the legislature, the actual bill, and then the mass.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: Yeah. And just as an aside, you can always go on to mass legislature Look up mass legislature and there's a whole website that has all the bills that are pending and the laws of the land and that kind of stuff. It's actually very useful to work your way through and just. Just to give some insights into how laws in Massachusetts typically get passed, there's this compendium of Mass General Law, that is the law of land, and then the bills basically edit each of those laws. So you'll read in the bill that's presented things like, change the wording of paragraph three to be this and that, eliminate paragraph four, add paragraph six after this, and it's kind of a little bit odd to do it, but you got to read the two side by side to understand what the new bill says. There unfortunately is not any new bill with the changes that you can read and say, this is what's being proposed. You kind of have to glue it together yourself, but it's all useful.

[Ernie Meunier]: Oh, hi. Yes. As expected, although I got a bit of a late start, distribution of about 150 kits and BLKs went to the five public schools last month. And they were all very happy to see me. So there are no bottlenecks there. So that, plus an event, I don't know, locally a couple weeks ago, I forget, exhausted the supply for the, till, you know, the end of June, let's say, right now, this fiscal year. So I have this fall and next spring supply, which I now have to crack into and pack some up for this event on July, So I'll sort of get to that. But maybe the bigger discussion is about funding. Last year, last fall, we'd spent some time, even had an ad hoc working group for this, to put together an initial order for helmets, 50 or 60 helmets, from a large national supplier, very low cost. I know it was an average of about $9 across the sizes for youth. young adult and some large size two helmets and that was presented to Alicia who said she wanted to order them so that we didn't have to get involved with third-party billing like I have to do with the lights through JRA so you don't have to get JRA in the middle of this. So Alicia was all ready to do it. And she verified with me the order to whom and the amounts and all that. And then end of the discussion, basically email chain saying, well, basically, I have to look for the money now. And I thought, Oh, huh. So that then that was the end of it. She has not come back. And I was sort of surprised to see that $1,200 materialized for travel and education. But like you said, that was a different pocket, a different process. But Daniel, if you're saying that somehow there's another $1,000, and that our budget is loosely defined as $2,500 a year instead of $1,500, and there's no reason that Alicia shouldn't be spending this $600 on 60 helmets as promised last fall. So if you're going to be in discussion with her about this, as we talked about 10 minutes ago, keep me in the loop. And should I tickle her now and say, oh, I understand we have funds. Will you please place your order so we can get these helmets before the end of the year?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I mean, you are welcome to make a motion to be able to use the safety budget to cover those expenses. I see no issue with that.

[Ernie Meunier]: We've done that before. I was was all approved. I don't know when it was November. You know, it's a long time ago now. And so I did all that and Alicia said, OK, I'll place the order. And she never did, saying she couldn't find any money or that she was going to find some money. But she never did. She never placed the order.

[Secretary Bruce Kulik]: So it sounds like what happened is for some reason of the thousand dollars we had last year was misplaced, if you will. Is that what you're reading?

[Ernie Meunier]: It seems to be, you know, it's in some undefinable box somewhere. Our entire budget is. It exists as a discussion item of $1,500 a year, but it's, I don't know if Alicia's office treats it as, oh, I don't know how it's defined there. Whether it's petty cash or just this little account that she, uses to justify spending a little money with us here and there, but it does not have the level of transparency that Adam is certainly eager to determine, as I am, from his request a few minutes ago. So, Daniel, you know, we should dovetail carefully on this, and I will, you know, this week, say, Hi, Alicia, how you been? You know, you never place the helmets, we need them. I understand there are funds. Please order the helmets and see what she says. If she comes back and says there's no money, or yes, you do have money, then you know, I'll take it a step at a time, but I'm not terribly hopeful.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: So why don't we just open the discussion with Alicia about using that part of our budget for, if you can just give me a number, Ernie, so just send me the number. I will be happy to start that discussion directly with Alicia and ask to place that against one of our budget items.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah, I think with shipping, it was just under $600 for 55 helmets or something like that. She never ordered them. Okay, if you can give me some sort of order number or yeah, I'll try to find I'll try to find that email that breaks out the order very specifically with their catalog numbers, etc. She all she had to do was, you know, send it to the vendor and pay for it. And it just never happened. But yeah, I'll try to find that stuff. Or if necessary, I'll regenerate it. I forget who was on the, I think it was Chris who was on this working group with me, but I found it and put it together. It was all fairly easy once we found the vendor. So I'll put it on the agenda to do in the next week or so.

We'll see where it goes. It'd be lovely to have some helmets for the fall, right? kids go back to school, you know, we have an event or whatever, or however we choose to distribute that initial, that's a seeded supply. It's only 50 helmets. But the point is, was to get this started, and have it grow to serve the needs of the city's kids through events next year, right?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: All right. Okay. Thank you. I'm happy to bring that budget item up with Alicia and see that we can actually get that order place.

[Ernie Meunier]: I'll act like I'm assuming that there's money without referring to anything specific and just ask her to place the order and see what happens.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Why don't you send that to me and I can reference our specific line item that we have like earmarked for that so that she is aware of what we are attempting to use our specified budget for. I'm more than happy to do that.

[Ernie Meunier]: Sure. All right. But I'll not contact her and I'll just send you the order information. That works. Very good. And you can order them from Northampton.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: That I cannot do, but I can start the discussion before I leave.

[Ernie Meunier]: Again, she wanted to order it ostensibly so that there wouldn't have to be a third party involved for payment. In other words, under no circumstances can money be given to any of us members for an expense. It has to be to an actual payee.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I will do what I can to work that through with her on MBAC's behalf.

[Ernie Meunier]: Yeah. Well, she can buy stuff. We can't. that she has to buy it and bills, send the funds to somebody who's an actual payee, like JRA, but it cannot be one of us commission members. It has to be washed through a third party unless she places the order where the city pays.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Ernie, I do understand this. You have reiterated this before. Okay. Any other? new pieces of information, let me know. You can email them to me. Just send me the invoice. I will help you get that through. I'm going to say that we move on to what, I mean, ultimately would be website updates. But Chris is not here. I'm not sure if anyone else has context on the website updates.

Bruce Kulik total time: 26.73 minutes total words: 4232