AI-generated transcript of City Council Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee 08-05-26

[Marie Izzo]: Hello. Hello. Hello. You guys hear me. Yes. Can you hear me. Yes. Great. We can hear you Matt. Great.

[Liz Mullane]: Long time no talk, everyone.

[Matt Leming]: Very true. It's been such a long time. I don't know why I'm getting. Let's give everybody else a minute or two. Yeah.

[Unidentified]: Oh, there you go.

[Marie Izzo]: How is everybody's sleep?

[Matt Leming]: No kidding. I know that Anna and Justin should be on their way.

[Marie Izzo]: And there we are.

[Unidentified]: All right.

[Anna Callahan]: Yellow.

[Unidentified]: Hey, Anna. Hello.

[Anna Callahan]: Mm work thing here.

[Liz Mullane]: Looks lovely.

[Marie Izzo]: Now you just need to put your fan on so your hair starts blooming so it looks like it's real.

[Anna Callahan]: Yeah. Right, I do.

[Liz Mullane]: All right.

[Anna Callahan]: Hello, Justin. Justin, you have the wind blower that goes with my windblown background.

[Justin Tseng]: It's like we should trade places. Exactly. Can I get your background? Is that on Zoom?

[Anna Callahan]: It's just a standard, yeah.

[Justin Tseng]: Nice. That's funny.

[Anna Callahan]: They could put us all in the same location. We could all have that background. I like it.

[Liz Mullane]: All on an island. All right. I think we're officially good to go then, right?

[Justin Tseng]: I think so.

[Liz Mullane]: All right. So, call to order the Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee for August 5th. Clerk, do you mind calling the roll?

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Kelly?

[Liz Mullane]: Present.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Lennon? Present. Councilor Tseng? Present. Councilor Scarpelli. And Chamberlain.

[Liz Mullane]: Present. For present, one absent, we can get started. All right, so I am just going to share my screen. I realized that the newsletter, it was on the agenda for June. So I wanted to make sure we reviewed it here quickly and see if there's anything. I know I did email this out ahead of time. But so starting first with the newsletter, I'll go through this quickly, but at the same time, what I would love to have any help with is I wanted to go through and in the Word document itself to make my life easier. I have already pre-linked all of the different meetings and the notes and everything back to everything back on the website. The only things that I was having a little trouble and I just wanted to make sure were accurate was the wording for the standard compensation ordinance that was moved for third reading. I just want to make sure I'm linking back to the right one. So I don't know if there's another spot on the website to be able to link back to it or to go back to one of the last times it was up, because I can't seem to find whatever is the final one. I don't know if anyone knows where that might be. And the same with the personnel ordinance. Those were the two that I, from the June 9th meeting, that I just couldn't find exactly how to link it back. So I'll keep looking, but if anyone here has any idea, I would welcome any thoughts.

[Anna Callahan]: Rich, do you know how, like, do we have a good way of doing that?

[Marie Izzo]: I can send, you need the personnel one, right?

[Justin Tseng]: Yeah. It's two, right?

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah, the, the comments. Oh, sorry, Matt. Go ahead.

[Matt Leming]: Oh, no, no. So I was just going to say with typically with regards to ordinance drafts, especially ones for a, for a 3rd that were brought up for a 3rd reading. Like, sometimes there just weren't any real changes between the 1st and the 3rd reading or sometimes it's just like. Uh, like, like a word or 2, um, that are described during the 3rd reading. So they're not, they're not always, uh, attached to the agenda, especially because there might be edits on the floor. So they're more. I would say, sometimes I would. I would be inclined to look in the meeting minutes that are published to see if they include those as a potential source. And if those don't have them, then I think it's fine to just link to the first, whatever the most recent draft that you could find on the website was. The newsletter, it's not meant to have the same level of pinpoint accuracy, I'd say, as meeting minutes. But if somebody wants to read a draft of the ordinance, then they can.

[Liz Mullane]: Okay, I'll go back and see the most recent one if the meeting minute notes are not linkable up there. So I'll do that for those first two.

[Marie Izzo]: If you want, you may be able to, because normally I upload any ordinances that are have been ordained, I'll upload them to MuniCode. So if I've already had them signed off, then they should go right to MuniCode and sometimes you can pull a link from there. Okay. I will take a look. I can double check. So it's the personnel one, right?

[Liz Mullane]: And the other one was the... The standard compensation. Yeah.

[Marie Izzo]: So I'll check. And if I can, I'll try and get you links today.

[Liz Mullane]: Awesome. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Um, okay. So then for the rest of it, I was able to find everything to relink it. or link it back to the website or to the YouTube videos, to any of the different meetings. And tried to kind of condense it a little bit to make it hopefully easier for people to read through it. So we did both of the general meetings up front. I tried to highlight any of the free cash, any of the different appropriations at the top so that it was kind of easy for people to go through. And linked any of the different types of community preservation committee, any of those appropriation requests, they're all linked back with what was approved. And then I talked about the fiscal year 27 budget that was in that final June meeting and kind of where we landed with putting that all together and where some of the votes landed on that as well. After that, I just went into each of the different committee meetings. For this, I linked all of the awards, all of these back to the events calendar because all of the meetings are on the Medford events calendar listed so far. And obviously any of the video meetings are linked in here as well. For the committee of the whole, I went through and added again the different budgets, the fiscal year 27 budget and any change that happened and occurred from fiscal year 26 to now. So it'd be easy to see. The Medford Public Schools one is more comprehensive. And so I didn't think I'd really do it much justice if I tried to pull a lot of things out. So I ended up linking it back to both the budget presentation and more information about the vote that was taken by the school committee with how that ended up getting budgeted and the change. And then at the very end of it, one of the things that I thought would be helpful in here, I spoke with their communications team and DPW to try to link back to any streets or sidewalks that had been most recently paved. just to kind of be able to demonstrate things that are happening throughout the city as well. So this actually links to a Facebook post that they posted that lists all the different streets that had been recently updated or sidewalks or potholes repaired. So it was approximately 125 tons over 23 streets. And so I linked that as well for people to be able to look at. And that is it on the newsletter. I didn't hear any feedback from people, so I wasn't sure if anyone had any questions on it or anything I can add. Yes, Matthew.

[Matt Leming]: Yes, I thank you so much. I love these drafts in the newsletter. I especially appreciate just the detail put into it, you know, who voted on what, particularly on split votes and the, but, and the different funding amounts, which I think that the audience that is subscribing to City Council. Council newsletters definitely appreciates reading those as well. I think the only change I'd have is the very last paragraph. I think it's a great idea to add in how many streets were repaired and linked to the DPW's posts on that because that is another thing that the audience wants to have, wants to know about. I would refrain from promising that it's going to be in every future newsletter. Fair enough. And I say that because one, it's going to be different Councilors writing the newsletter every time, so it just could be stylistically different. Two, we may not, like the DBW may not publish that. All the time and, uh, 3. If, you know, if we forget at some point to to publicize that information, then people will just people may be falsely assuming that the just didn't do any work on sidewalks that month. So I would just say, um. Additionally, thanks to our lovely Department of Public Works, in June, approximately 125 tons of asphalt was poured for pothole repair on 23 streets throughout Medford. So just kind of add that as like a nice little signing away.

[Liz Mullane]: Great. I can do that. Um, great. Okay. Thanks everybody. So I will make those edits and get that out. Um, ASAP to the newsletter, um, list.

[Anna Callahan]: So a lot of work. I really appreciate everything that you do. It's looks amazing.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Justin Tseng]: It looks really good.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you guys. Well, you say that now, because now I'm going to share the, um, agenda, which is, Newsletter sign up. Um, so hoping that, um... I'm feeling kind of sick.

[Matt Leming]: I gotta, gotta stop off now.

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah, no, sure. That's where everyone, like, wants to leave. Um, but trying to, uh, get some signups for, um, at least the rest of the calendar year. I have it through November, but I will, um, knowing that there's only going to be a couple people on for tonight, I will send it back out to see if we can get it, um, filled. with other Councilors, but I figured I'd finish doing the summer one, so I'm gonna put July and August together. I'm tentatively looking at middle of September for this next meeting again, which is to be able to go through this. And those dates in here are also tentative right now, due dates around getting the newsletter done. So people wouldn't mind. Councilor Leming?

[Matt Leming]: I'll do the one that's due on December 8th.

[Anna Callahan]: Okay, I can't do the 7th. I'm looking for 1 where the weekend before I don't have my kids. So, let me see if it's going to work for me. They're both after I've got my kid the whole weekend. So, um. It's just harder. Sure.

[Matt Leming]: If the December one works better for you, I could take the November.

[Anna Callahan]: Hang on. Hang on. Let me see about December. Crossing my fingers. December would be amazing. Yes. December would be great. Great.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. And I'll just take the last one that hasn't been taken.

[Liz Mullane]: Councilor Lemme, which one then if you, if Councilor Callahan's doing the 8th, the November one, do you, September or October? December 8th, yeah.

[Matt Leming]: I was looking at the due date. I think we're looking at the due dates, Chair Malayne.

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah, no, yes, I'm sorry. Councilor Callahan would do November, the month of November.

[Matt Leming]: And I would do the month of October. Okay.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. And then Justin, we'll put you for September. Thank you very much. And then I'll reach out to the other Councilors to get additional dates signed up. So thank you. Okay, so then really what I wanted to just go through and talk about and provide an update a little more in depth is the neighborhood ward meeting. So as I mentioned last night, we have through the rest of the year assigned and locations picked. and confirmed for each of the different wards. I did speak with Kevin at MCM. The only issue right now is I had booked it starting at 6.30, and they need an earlier setup time for each of the different meetings, so I'm trying to figure that out with the schools right now. but we should have no problem with doing hybrid. He and I talked through it, shouldn't be an issue with it. We talked through the run of the meetings and felt it'd probably be easier in terms of people lining up or wanting to ask questions to do it with a microphone stand instead of trying to have people run around passing out microphones, just giving staffing and what they have there. The only thing that was mentioned was needing someone to manage Zoom. And some of the questions, I thought personally that we would be able to split it between the Councilors. So while one Councilor might be handling one aspect, the other could look at Zoom. But unless you think we should try to see if someone would help volunteer at each of the ward meetings to help with the Zoom or to any other suggestions that you might have. But it doesn't have to be cited today, but Councilor Tseng and I are the first ones up in the middle of September. Any thoughts before then would be appreciated.

[Anna Callahan]: Only we had a legislative aid.

[Liz Mullane]: I know who could be there and like, that is a fair point. The only other thing that we did talk about in previous meetings was the agenda, and we basically kind of landed on not really having a set agenda to have it be more open-ended. I know we've had a couple of meetings and months to kind of think about that. I just wanted to make sure that sounded correct to everyone still, or to still have maybe a couple of items in our back pocket to get conversation flowing. Welcome any thoughts on that.

[Anna Callahan]: I mean, I always enjoy them more when they're more facilitated, but I think it's better that they're all the same. And I think for them to be the same as each other, like for all the wards to be similar, I think this is probably what will work best.

[Liz Mullane]: Okay. That works for everyone. That's fine with me too. Um, the biggest piece really is talking about like the communication and outrage. So in previous discussions, we talked about having at least one month notice. Um, so we're definitely ahead of that, at least four of the next three meetings to getting that in front of people. Um, we talked about whomever is the city councilors hosting the ward meetings, they would take the lead on advertising. So councilor Singh and I would be first up for September and then councilor Callahan and Singh would be up for, um, October and then myself and Councilor Scarpelli would be up for December. And I did December just because with the holidays and stuff in November and our other meetings, it just seemed a little tight. So I just want to make sure I say that again. So Councilor Tseng, you and I should probably connect after this just to talk more about that. I did reach out to the communications department to talk through what and how they'd be able to send out notifications about it. So my hope is to get a meeting scheduled this week or early next to kind of understand the different ways the city can help us kind of communicate. Like I said, we're already on the events calendar for the city. Thinking that we do the City of Medford channels and see if they'd be open to the text, phone call, newsletter, any social media. Obviously, I'd start advertising them, or all of us can start advertising them more within the newsletter. Any other places that we might have on the website, maybe continuously bringing up at the City Council meetings. I can reach out to the different publications just to at least get those out, those first three dates out to people, or if they'll only do it one at a time, but I have the patch, Gotta Know Medford, the Tufts Daily, Medford Bites, I don't know, Medford Happenings, at least sending it to those people that manage those things to kind of help pass that out. I did get some suggestions from different residents about, and I think one was mentioned at the meeting last night as well, about putting out more paper flyers. I don't know where people think about that too for certain areas, but I can also see, I don't know if we have a budget for that or anything to be able to print and put those things out, but would welcome locations or any other suggestions of outreach for the meetings.

[Anna Callahan]: So one question about the paper flares. I'm trying to remember, I was there when that person made the suggestion. Do you remember where they suggested posting them? Because I know that we're not allowed to put them on telephone poles and those kinds of places.

[Liz Mullane]: I think it was mentioned for the Ward 5 meeting. I think they mentioned that. And then another resident mentioned to me after the meeting, too, about being able to, for that ward, that that would probably be a good way to advertise more around the meeting. Um, I can follow up and see if there's more suggestions as to location of where within.

[Anna Callahan]: That's what I'm curious about is I can't remember if they had a specific location in mind because like you can't just put fires up. Um, but I mean, there's always the possibility of like putting them at people's doors, but that does require a lot of like work. Like that's, you know, a lot of work to do that, but it's happening. OK.

[Liz Mullane]: Any other thoughts around communication strategy?

[Anna Callahan]: I mean, there are organizations in Medford that we could reach out to. I don't know whether that would be up to each. I mean, I guess all of the communication is up to each pair of city councilors. But going through organizations is not a bad idea. Great.

[Liz Mullane]: No, that's a good idea. we can maybe each one start brainstorming lists of being able to send it out to different groups. I did hear from Milva from Neighborhood Ambassadors, so I will send information out to them to send out to their lists as well. And if we can think of any other ways to kind of, any other people that we think would be able to kind of put it out through different lists, I think that would be helpful too. Great. So, I'm counseling you and I can kind of connect later on and just kind of put together more of a plan and then I'm sure as we go through it if we see different strategies have worked we can share it with the other Councilors to.

[Justin Tseng]: I think that sounds good.

[Liz Mullane]: And then next steps for any, I don't know if there is any, if we're gonna print things or if there's any budget for that as well, if we're printing any of these flyers, I don't quite know how that works. I can get started on looking at some of the next year's meetings, but if anyone would like to join me in helping to schedule those, I'd welcome it.

[Anna Callahan]: Well, I will tell you, I am great. If you can just, Tell me when to meet with you and I will happily meet with you and we can do it together. Awesome. It's way easier for me to do that. I'm kind of driven by in-person meetings or not in-person, but like, you know, in-person or Zoom meetings. Sure. Harder for me to put something on my list of things to do, which is already too long. Fair enough.

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah. I can reach out to you afterwards and we can set that up. That'd be great. Awesome. And then the last thing is just, I know last night we talked about the noise ordinance, since it didn't obviously make it onto the agenda for this meeting, it wasn't, it didn't give enough notice for other people to be able to actually start talking about it, but I wanna mention it, that we'll have it, and perhaps some ideas and thoughts on how to address it at our next meeting, which will hopefully be that mid-September timeline.

[Anna Callahan]: I'm excited about it as well. I was interested in helping with it. So I think I'm really glad that it's coming out.

[Liz Mullane]: Awesome. Great. So I think that was it for me. I just wanted to run through those neighborhood ward meetings and kind of just share where we are with that in terms of setup, what that looks like. And if anything doesn't sound or anything else you think should be happening at those meetings, let me know now because the first one, is only like a week between our next meeting, next committee meeting. So I just wanna make sure we were ahead of it and I gotten in out in enough time in front of people. All right, so that's it. No other questions, comments? All right, is there a motion? Motion to adjourn. Thank you. It looks like Councilor Tseng and seconded by Councilor Callahan. Clerk, do you mind calling the roll?

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Cavan? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. Councilor Scott-Pelley is still absent. And Chair Moline?

[Liz Mullane]: Yes. Four in the affirmative, one absent. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone for participating this evening.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

[Liz Mullane]: Bye.