AI-generated transcript of Medford Happenings Episode 56 Mayor Lungo Koehn

[John Petrella]: Hello everyone and welcome to Method Happenings, a show for and about the City of Medford and I am John Petrella. And the purpose of this program is to give Medford citizens facts and information to help you make informed choices and to discover city services or businesses you may not have been aware of. And our guest today, special guest, is the mayor of the city of Medford, Brianna Longo Cohn. Madam Mayor, it's our honor to have you, and thank you for coming on to the show. Thanks for having me. We really, really appreciate you coming on. some good questions here for this show, so we're gonna get into it now. Let's do it. Okay, sounds good. Question one, been a lot of discussion on the council floor about the city's legal department and the city solicitor. Can you talk to us a little bit about that, explain what's going on?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sure, sure, yes. The city of Medford for quite some time had in-house counsel, city solicitor, and at certain points would have a city solicitor and an assistant. Right now, we have – we use Kopelman and Page. They're a municipal law firm. They have about between 40 and 50 attorneys that specialize in different fields, all municipal law, and they've been wonderful to work with. Our main lead is Janelle Austin, who does mostly everything standard that a city solicitor would do. She's our point of contact, and she connects myself, the council, or different department heads with the proper attorney at the firm, depending on what the issue that comes up that day, that week, that month. Some cities or towns, you have a city solicitor or a town council. My choice is to use Copeland and Page. I feel like they've been able to move this city forward in so many ways that I didn't see when I was a city Councilor. I remember asking multiple times over multiple months, if not a year, for a draft tree ordinance. And that ordinance never came the council's way to the point where I was kind of getting frustrated and decided to draft my own. It wasn't a perfect draft, but it was what I gathered from a few other cities and towns, and I put my own tree ordinance in place. Residents were asking for it. I was asking for it. And I couldn't even get that reviewed. So Koppelman and Page have the capacity to help many, many different people, department heads, council, myself, all at the same time. So, for example, they have helped the council alone, the city council, review 20 or so ordinances over the last couple years. That, whether it's in the retainer or not, totaled about $65,000. Reasonable, because it's 20 ordinances. But those are the types of things that they're helping the council with. For the city of Medford, I'll give you a few examples. Sharin Everett, she specializes in land use, so we've used Sharin to help us move along the redevelopment of Medford Square. We have three lots that we're trying to develop, multi-use lots, which we hope to break ground on next year. And that's moving forward, thanks to Sharon's help. We have Lauren Goldberg, who's an expert in charter, elections, and we've used her multiple times, including that she was present for the recount that there was. We also have Robin Stein, who specializes in zoning and ZBA matters. She's working on a number of matters for us presently. Mark Reich, he's procurement and contracts. Tom Lane helps us with all small claims. and some larger claims that we have. And Janelle's our day-to-day. She not only serves as our solicitor, but she also specializes in certain fields, such as open meeting law. She helps the chief of police with all of the gun appeal matters. And the list goes on. So we have 40 attorneys that help us throughout the day, week, months. Some of our department heads call a KP once a week, twice a week, three times a week, some call every other week. It all depends on the workload and what matters come before us. But they have really been able to move the city forward. We've been able to do so much work. You'll see it in our parks. You'll see it through the 1600 housing units that we're bringing on board, and Medford Square that we're redeveloping, and the list goes on and on. So, for me, I'm extremely happy with the service that we've received. I feel like they help the Council when the Council reaches out to them. They also serve as our labor council. Brian Mazur does most of our labor. And we pay, Copeland Page, $2,000 a month for labor and $11,000 for municipal work. The labor is actually less than we paid before I became mayor. Before 2020, we had a firm, Sullivan and Reed, and we paid them $3,500 a month for labor. So just to give you somewhat of an idea of the money we're talking, but for me it's been completely worth it because like I said, we've gotten so much work done and our department heads have specialists, over 40 specialists in certain fields at their disposal.

[John Petrella]: So it sounds like you're very happy with them and it sounds like There's a lot of specialty. So when you need to turn it to someone, they have someone.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Correct. Janelle's our lead. We contact Janelle. She connects us with whichever attorney is going to help us with that matter on that day or that week, and then they see it through. And believe me, there's been times where we've had to ask deeper questions or we've talked to Janelle about something we want to see improved. So it hasn't been a perfect seven years, but it has been really good. It has been 25 years we've been trying to develop Medford Square. Without Sharon and KP Law, we wouldn't have been able to do it, in my opinion. So, yes, I am happy.

[John Petrella]: Okay. So, you know, naturally, I'm just going to follow up with, so it sounds like KP Law Basically helps with whatever Whatever legal matter is going on with the city.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: They're helping with it there Yes, they're helping with with most of our legal matters just like when we had a solicitor and assistant city solicitor prior to 2020 and the city would contract out on certain matters. So the city used to use Sullivan and Reed. They used to use the law firm Holtz and Reed. They used to use the law firm Collins, Loughran, and Pelequin. And they also used to use a firm, and these are just ones that I could remember off the top of my head. And they also used to use Peabody and Arnold. We still use Peabody and Arnold if our insurance carrier refers the larger federal cases or the MCAD cases. We do use Peabody and Arnold, but we don't use Sullivan and Reed anymore. That was Labor Council. So yes, we've also used a firm, O'Hagan and Mayer. They have a few of our cases. That's all through being assigned from the insurance adjuster. And I think probably three of the most stressful cases for me were filed a few years ago, and they were three employment labor cases that we've been working through the last three or so years. Now, we started with Kopelman and Page, but we really needed a specialist in labor law, especially when I decided to get second opinions and realize that these matters had to be defended and not just settled. Some matters we like to settle. We can't afford to bring everything to trial, nor do we want to, we don't have the time for trial. But there was these three labor cases, and I'll explain them one at a time. The first was a prior employee who filed a lawsuit stating that she never took a lunch break, that she deserved overtime for the Wednesdays we work late, and then said she worked a number of overtime hours that she needed to be compensated for. Now, I knew a lot of these were not true. could easily have settled and then risked future lawsuits from others saying they didn't take a lunch break, or they didn't, they deserve overtime, or here's a random list of 500 overtime hours I've worked. So that specific one, we started to mediate, it was upwards of a quarter of a million demand, maybe more, yes. Yeah, that's a surprise. So we hired the firm Syfarth. They specialize in these matters, and they were expensive, don't get me wrong. They all are. Yes. But this is my time to be honest and open, and I really have nothing to hide. They came in at, so we pay, you know, anywhere from probably $300 to $400, I think $275 might be our rate with Kopelman and Page outside of the retainer. Right. They were coming in at, I think, $900,000 or $1,000 an hour, and I was able to negotiate that down to about $650 an hour. I was also able to negotiate that if there was more than one attorney at any table, like a deposition table, we would only get charged for one attorney. So, hired that firm, we end up going through deposition and discovery, and we ended up settling that claim. And believe me, I didn't want to, you know, it's hard because you don't want, we took the time to do the discovery. We settled for $19,000. Okay. So, I felt like that was a win. Yeah, I was just going to say the same thing. That's a win. Yes, it is. It's a win. I mean, maybe we could have settled for $125,000 in mediation, but I chose to defend the case, settle for $19,000, pay the attorney's fees, and that's what I chose to do. And you're out of it. You're clean. That one's clean. Paid the attorney, his attorney's fees, paid our attorneys. Then there was a second claim, one plaintiff that also worked for the city, used to work for the city, that we're still defending. We really feel like we have a strong case, so we're defending that. The third claim, it had to do with current employees who filed suit claiming similar, that they didn't take a lunch break. So just for those eight to 10 plaintiffs, we calculated that a lunch break, three years of a lunch break times three, because they want triple damages, would be $350,000 demand plus their attorney's fees.

[John Petrella]: Wow.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: That was one of their many, many claims.

[John Petrella]: Okay.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I calculated it at between one to one and a half million is what they were demanding. So if you can imagine, I lost a lot of sleep. There was nights when I said, do we go settle these and provide each plaintiff $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 in a paycheck, in a check? Right. It's a tough decision. Or do we defend this? And the problem was that at the time, we didn't have timesheets. So we were susceptible to this attorney going to other employees saying, look at what I got this plaintiff 50,000 why don't you sue the city of Medford right so over two years ago we implement timesheets we defend these claims okay again eight to ten plaintiffs demanding a million to a million and a half Meanwhile, I don't even know if they knew what they were suing on. I think they were pushed to sue from the old boys club, but we'll get to that in a little bit. We defend the claim, we do a number of depositions, and we do all the discovery, and that million to a million and a half in demand, we were able to settle for $28,000. 28 that I'd rather not pay for the city's sake, but we did. We settled it. We saved a lot of money. That's the bottom line. Again, $650 an hour. Didn't sit well with me either, but we did it. We've hired the firm. And I must say, the city of Malden has hired this firm before. There are a whole host of communities that have hired this firm. But to swallow these three cases at that price tag, We're calculating the numbers now, getting the bills together to send to the council, but we had to have spent, if I had to guess, $200,000 to $300,000 to defend. So paid off their attorney, those two small settlements, plus attorney's fees. So it's a matter of who you are, what circumstance you're in, and I guess asking the people to trust me. I lost sleep, I didn't know what to do, do you just go settle these, pay off half a million, be done with the claims, or do you defend them and try to prevent additional lawsuits, create a barrier to protect the city, and spend the money? And I chose to spend the money on these ones.

[John Petrella]: That's exactly what you're doing. You're defending the city, you're saving, A lot of people don't look at it that way, but you have to look at it that way. You're defending the city, you're saving the city money. It's our money.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And I'm here today to give more of the facts because I know people have been hearing it over and over on Tuesday night on the council and I haven't went to defend myself. I'd rather not talk about litigation. A lot of things are confidential. and I haven't even told you everything on those cases, because in the agreement we did sign some confidential, but I feel like some of those plaintiffs were used and they were pushed to file suit for a certain reason, and that's unfortunate, but at the same time, I'm stuck with lawsuits and I have to defend. I need legal monies to defend what I feel like some frivolous claims.

[John Petrella]: And we were gonna get into, my next question was gonna be about specific cases, but you already got into it. I did a little bit, yeah. I didn't expect you to get into it.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: To rattle it all off, yeah.

[John Petrella]: But that's... My apologies, I just... No, don't apologize. Okay. That's great that you... I just didn't expect that. I'm glad. I mean, you're getting it all out, and I think people need to know. Yeah, it's a good thing. That's what it is.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I think people need to know my stance and the facts from me, and then they could decide themselves. They could maybe say, yes, you did the right thing, Mayor, or I may have settled. It's half dozen, six in the other. It's hard choices that I'm making on a daily basis on not just litigation. And I did my best. And you know what, after settling those two cases, I know I'm in my, I believe I made the right decision. You made the right decision. Yes.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, yeah. It sounds like you did. And it's nice to have it out there because I really don't think, you know, I'm not with or without whatever, who, what, but it sounds like You know, they needed to hear this side of the story, that's all, because we're not hearing, I didn't know any of this. Never heard your side, nothing, zero.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: There's certain reasons why I've waited. I'm trying to protect the city as much as I can and protect our current employees that I know were, in a way, used. So I have to be thoughtful on everything I do and say and when I say it.

[John Petrella]: All right, so that was something I didn't expect. Thank you for that, and I'm sure the city, you know, a lot of people are gonna be, you know, make up their own minds, but at least you got it all out there. That's good. Really, thank you for that. So now, my follow-up question to that is, Is the council, I mean, are they aware of what's going on, of all these cases, the litigation?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, they, especially the three that I just discussed, yes, they have to, we put any settlement in front of them that's $2,500 or more, and we usually have an attorney present, either somebody from PBD and Arnold or Kopelman and Page or in that in those two cases SIFARTH. So they had executive session meetings where they could ask their questions in a confidential setting. Right. And ask, I believe my chief of staff was present. I was not so I couldn't speak to what was said or what wasn't nor what I was confidential, but SIFARTH was present in executive session and They approved the $28,000 settlement to the eight plaintiffs or so, and they approved the $19,000 settlement to our prior employee.

[John Petrella]: So, you know, I know executive session means it's behind closed doors for a reason. I mean, for good reason. Correct. So they are aware of these settlements. It's not like they weren't They're aware of the settlement.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, they approve.

[John Petrella]: I mean, they have to approve them, right?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Is that part of it, or you just? I don't think by law they have to approve or review settlements, but I do want them to know about them. So, we always have an attorney present to explain anything over $2,500. Okay. Yes. All right.

[John Petrella]: You know, is that common practice, Brianna, that you would?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'm not sure if other cities and towns mayors or town managers run all litigation by settlements by their town council or city councils, but it happened when I was a city councilor, and I'm keeping with it, because I think they need to know. Yeah, they should be aware.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, and I agree, and it sounds like they're aware, so. They approved those two settlements, yes. Okay, all right. A follow-up question to that, if you share all settlements with the council, and I'm understanding you do share them all, I guess I do watch the council meetings now and then. Can you explain why the council, it seems like on a pretty regular basis, they keep asking about litigation and what's going on with it or what's going, you know, what's going on? That's the question.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sure. Yeah, I try to figure that out too, and it came to me pretty early. Early on I'll take you back to 2021 when there was a mayoral election and the old boys club put up a candidate and We're working towards campaign issues, and the biggest one they had at the time, refresh your memory, is when a few Councilors on that side were talking about litigation, too much litigation, too much attorney's fees, too many settlements, and all I have to say to that is, this group, the Old Boys Club group, were the ones filing the grievances and trying to push people to file lawsuits against the city, leaving me with no way out. I mean, of course, if people are filing suit, I have no control of that. And of course, if you're having people file suit against the city, yes, there's going to be attorney's fees associated. There's going to be settlements. And I'm going to do what I have to do to defend or to work through them and to take the advice of legal counsel. So that was a 2021 mayoral campaign issue, and it didn't work. And now is a very critical time. If you're thinking big picture, you have about six months before you have people announcing their mayoral candidacy for the biggest mayoral election in the city's history, in my opinion. I agree with that. It's a four year term. It's a four year term. And now, you know there's been our revolution members that have actually helped me back in 2021 when I went to the council or when I talked to them behind the scenes who supported you know how I handle things and would even help me defend myself at council meetings but now you see a shift after the November 2025 election you saw a shift where they've kind of grouped together my councils kind of grouped together, all seven, and have made, and have all, especially a couple, have made this a campaign issue. And that's all I can think of, because I'm, I will talk to any councillor anytime they say, can you shoot me a call? Can you, can we meet and have coffee? I'm happy to discuss anything that goes on with the city. And for this to be this huge issue, has to, it makes me, I know deep down that this is a campaign issue. And I don't blame OR putting up a mayoral candidate. This is politics. But the litigation has gotten to a point where I just don't know, they've taken our legal costs. And I just saw over the last couple months, five or six complaints come in that were all, it's just not a coincidence.

[John Petrella]: I agree with that, yeah. It seems like, yeah, they're getting ready.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: They're getting ready, and that's fine. It's just the public records request would have taken us thousands of hours to complete. So far, we've given them all of Kopelman and Page bills back from January 1. 2020 to the present. We've given them all settlement agreements of $25,000 or more. I think earlier this week we gave a list of all settlements since January 2020, over $10,000. They've approved everything over $2,500. except for the school ones. That's the school committee. But we've given them everything. And then now we're collecting everything from Peabody and Arnold, Sy Farth, and oh, Meg and Mayor. So any other firms we use, we're collecting those and going to provide them to the council because we are doing what we can to provide them what they're looking for.

[John Petrella]: Yeah. So I mean there is a lot going on and the council meetings, the last few I've watched, it just seems to be pounding that same drumbeat, put it that way, with fees and everything else. So yeah, the council, has, I'm confused about this. So the council has only provided the city, right? With like three months of legal, is that accurate? Like three months of legal fees through September 1st or whatever it was? Am I right or wrong? I don't know.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: You're close, you're close. In June, when we were trying to get the budget passed, the council cut our legal budget by 83%. I remember that, okay, that's what I'm, yeah. By 83%, meaning we only had enough to get us through the summer. And then they recently, right before September started, they recently allowed us one more month of legal expenses. So there's been things already that we've had to put on the back burner from a legal perspective because we only have a few more weeks of legal.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. So that is, what I'm trying to get at is that's, for real, like they're actually, that's to the detriment of the city as far as I'm, I don't get it, that's all. I'm still confused.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I understand they want documents and they want information and we're trying to provide them with as much as we can. I've asked them, does anybody want to have coffee with me and maybe we can go through this? you can tell me exactly what you're looking for, because I can't have our one legal clerk doing thousands of hours of work. Absolutely not. She has to focus on public records requests, which are also up, I think, 50 to 75%. Yeah, there you go. So I'm trying to get it out of them what they're looking for, and as the weeks go on, I'm getting little bits, and the President emailed me back, but nobody will sit down and talk to me. trying to focus on what the president wrote me and what they're looking for. We provided them a number of things. We're getting a few more documents together. And I'm hoping that we can get our legal budget back because I'm nervous, department heads are nervous. We have to for many reasons. Number one, the city will be at a standstill. We contact the legal team. Some of us daily, some of us, again, weekly, some of us monthly. We will be at a standstill. How are we going to move Medford Square forward? How are we going to move affordable housing forward? There's a lot going on. How are we going to get contracts signed? But most importantly, how are we going to defend the claims and make sure they were being timely on responses to the courts? And I think we are heading into dangerous territory. So I'm hoping that once I provide them what I believe is the last few pieces of information they need, that we will get our legal fees back and we can move forward as we always have. And then I told them, you know, once we get our legal fees back, we will post for a solicitor. Now, I'm happy, again, with Kopelman and Page, but the council wants a solicitor, so I did compromise in June. In June, I said, don't cut the legal budget, and we'll do these, you know, ten things. They voted for the ten things and then still cut the legal budget. You know, good faith, bad faith negotiating. We negotiate a budget. It's not quid pro quo. It's negotiation. Like, please, you're looking for X, Y, and Z. I'm looking to keep the city steady with legal expenses. I'll give you these 11 things or 10 things, whatever it was, but please don't cut our legal budget. Department heads are going to be disrupted. Their daily grind and all they're working on is going to be put at a standstill.

[John Petrella]: Yeah, there's not much I can add to that. I mean you just cleared up a bunch of very important things and I was confused about it because I know there was something going on and I know you only had so much time. And I'm just gonna say this, it just seems like the council, it's just like they're all voting the same. There's no more discussions on the council, there's no more... you know I mean there's no I don't want to use the word but there's there's no balance there's no more um yep I disagree with you Brianna let's talk about this and you know this one agrees and it's it's always um like it comes down to they're all making the same decision all the time I guess yeah this is about a mayoral campaign yeah it just seems strange

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, and they have joined forces. I think they know Old Boys Club and a few of the Councilors in OR have joined forces to take me down. Right. And that's truly what I feel. And I've had allies before in OR, and I'm trying to communicate as best I can with them. And it just feels like this is about the mayoral candidate.

[John Petrella]: Well, whatever I won't get into it. But yeah, I don't like what they're doing either. It's not even a matter of discussing things or You know, usually when you when you when something like this happens you might get three vote years for whatever it just doesn't Difference of opinion talking it through none of it none of it's going on.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: This is a four-year term usual This is a four-year term. It's fair. It's very

[John Petrella]: Yeah, and it's big.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: It's been ugly. I saw it turning right after the November council race in 2025. I saw it turning and right about three, four months ago, it got really, which makes sense. It's about six, nine months from when somebody has to announce.

[John Petrella]: Well, the one time I know a few of the councillors and they were always able to talk with you and they had good things to say. I'll just say that much.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: They're hard workers, and they've done a lot, and I still appreciate all the work they do. I just, I wish we, I wish they'd pick a different campaign issue. I don't want to be here talking about necessarily litigation that I'm dealing with on a daily, weekly basis, but at the same time, what they're doing for the The term in the campaign is trying to ruin my integrity and all I've done over the last 25 years, and I won't let that happen. I may not make the right decision every time, but I sleep at night.

[John Petrella]: I'm just happy that you came on the show, and I'll be honest, I'm thankful that you're saying a lot of things that Even to me, it's kind of surprising, that's all. It's a... It was time. Yeah, you're opening up things and you're letting people know what's really going on, and that's a good thing. So I got, you know, really, one more question, and I don't even know how this applies or if it even matters, but, and this is just something, you know, you're here, don't know what's going on, but the, The Bond Rating Agency has heard about all this litigation stuff. Is that, are they trying to say it's a, I don't know. I don't even know how to ask the question.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, yeah, this is one of the reasons why I decided to come and speak my, give you some facts from my side. We met with the Bond Rating Agency a couple weeks ago and That's a nerve-wracking call. It's my third or fourth one. Every time you go for a large bond, you have to get re-rated. And we have the second highest rating a city or town could have, and we want to keep it that way. We actually want to go higher, but two calls ago they told us our income level per household was a little low, and there's nothing I can do about that. Right, no, that's fine. But two weeks ago at our bond rating call, to get a rating, to do the HVAC projects at the Roberts, the Misituck, and the Brooks. They started their questioning with, we've been hearing all the circulation about this litigation issues in Medford, but we've reviewed it all, and it looks like you have, and I'm paraphrasing, I don't know.

[John Petrella]: I understand, yeah.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And it looks like Medford has about a million to a million and a half in liability, so is this just noise? This is from the bond rating agency. This is the bond rating agency. They rate us. And I, my heart dropped because for this, you know, in my opinion, political noise has reached them and they've already deciphered it as noise.

[John Petrella]: Okay.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And thank goodness they deciphered it as noise because if it, if they thought it was something different, it could have affected our rating, which would have affected our, our, our not only our ratings, but our interest rates. And when we have this $60 million that we're spending in HVAC on the Roberts and the Brooks and the Missituk, that's a large amount of money, and we need that interest rate to be low. But more importantly, We have one of the biggest projects in Medford's history that we will be going out to bond and probably have another bond rating call with the agency in 2027 on Medford High School.

[John Petrella]: Right, another hole.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And if I heard correctly from our After the meeting, talking internally to our finance team, if our interest rate, if our rating goes down from Everett High School and our interest rate goes up, we're looking at tens of millions, if not $100 million more to our taxpayers. Just based on the interest? Just based on the interest. My response to the bond rating agency was, yes, this is political noise. This was a campaign issue against me in 2021, and I'm only nine months into my term, but they are already gearing up to make this a campaign issue in 2027. You know, you have the old boys clubs, Mike, Mark, and Steve connected to now all joining with the whole council on the matter. It's discouraging and it's scary from that perspective. Trying to get me out of office is one thing, but risking a project for our kids and our staff and our faculty is a whole nother level. So that's why I say I really wish they would pick another campaign issue or two, because I'm sure there's many that people could use. We need we need a good rating to get the best interest rate so that we can move projects forward and that potentially was at risk Thank goodness. The bond rating council did their homework and they realized that our liability was although we wanted at zero, right? Well, it was very low can never be at zero.

[John Petrella]: I understand that so they saw through it and I You know, I can draw a lot of conclusions, but I'm just glad you came on. Very interesting. Happy to be here.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I have one more thing, too, like I could talk about. Because people do say, where do we stack up when it comes to other communities on how much we pay for attorney's fees over the year and compared to other communities. Oh, I've heard that a lot. Do you mind if I talk about that just for a minute? No, shoot. We did this calculation for the council back in fiscal year 22, and we were at about $450,000 in legal expenses. If you take a place like Somerville, 1.4, Malden, 1.3. Newton, 2 million. Wow. Cambridge, of course, almost 4 million. Well, you know Cambridge is going to be through the roof. Right. Melrose, 1,085,000. Arlington, 603,000. Everett, 655,000. Salem, 550,000. And the list goes on. Right. We were at 450,000. That was our whole legal budget combined in fiscal year 22. So it's actually not bad. That was not bad. And I want to move on to, we did the calculations again because With all the noise, I wanted to see where we matched up. Melrose, fiscal year 26, was over a million. Cambridge, again, about four million. Malden, around the same, 1.4. So Malden's up there too, huh? Malden. Yeah, they're comparable to us. Well, that's what I mean. No, I mean, I thought that was kind of... That's high. Yeah. $650,000, Revere $815,000, Lowell $3-plus million. We just budgeted, we're $648,000, and then you have to add the additional $3 million. High demand lawsuits to that. So we're probably around the nine. I would say 900 range 950 and believe me I would rather spend very little on legal fees if we could rather give it right back to our schools, but Defending the city is a must and with a budget of fiscal year 26 budget was 235 million and we've spent nine hundred Thousand maybe maybe close to a million, right? Because people are some people are pushing our employees Unfortunately to file suit against the city and yeah, it's it's it's disheartening. I know that but that's my job. Yeah, I And I'm going to defend the city. I'm going to defend my decisions. Again, noting that I don't make the best decision every single time, but defending my decisions, being able to sleep at night, and clearing up the misinformation that's out there. Nothing's perfect, and I wish there was no litigation, but there is. It's not outside of the realm of what any other city and town is dealing with. Although I'm not sure there's people running around, you know, pushing employees to file suits in other communities. That's a campaign issue that they want to use against me and have for the last four years. In a way, I think, you know what, they can't use Medford Square because I'm moving it forward.

[John Petrella]: They can't use parks because we are updating our parks.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: They can't use... Parks are beautiful. Our MVP program because it's the one the state uses to let people let the communities know what they should be doing So the list goes on and I mean, I'll say it.

[John Petrella]: There's a lot of you hear about this. I'm It's great that you came on the show and and this no, it's our pleasure because we want to hear what's going on and I think yeah, you let it up but let it out, put it that way. But there's a lot of good things that go on in this city. And from our perspective, you know, now that we do the show, we have a lot of different guests on. You know, the chamber, I can go on and on, the chamber, there's a lot of good things going on in Method, the parks, I mean, we get it all. But you don't, for some reason, I don't know, maybe it is because of election season, and you know, I didn't even pretend to forget, four years, the next mayor has four years. So I'm sure a certain group is gonna have someone up and running, yeah.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, maybe both, that's fine, that's politics, but I think it's, for me, I have to let people know that's, in my opinion, that is why you're hearing, of course they need to, they want to have legal documents, we'll give them to them, we're giving them to them, but it's becoming an every Tuesday night thing, and then they're mad I don't watch, but I'm getting bashed in my trying to ruin my integrity left and right and so that's difficult to listen to every Tuesday.

[John Petrella]: I hear ya, I hear ya, because I watch them every other Tuesday. I remember when it used to be every Tuesday, not anymore. Unfortunately, it's time for us to wrap up. I mean, we could go on for a while.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No, I could go on for a while, but no, we're good, thank you.

[John Petrella]: We could have really went on, but I'm sure we'll have you back on again. I want to thank you, and I think a lot of people in the city want to thank you for coming on and clearing all this up. Appreciate that. You got some good points out, honestly, and thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right, it's that time again. I want to thank Mayor Brianna Luongo-Cohen for joining us. And I want to wish her, everyone from Method Happenings, want to wish you continued success. So I also want to take a minute to thank everyone who has been watching the show. And we want to thank you for your feedback. And of course, if you would like to appear on the show, contact us at Method Happenings, 02155 at gmail.com. Thank you to all who have been doing that. We got a lot of good shows lined up because people are calling in and it's a great thing. It makes us feel great. I also want to let everyone know you'll be able to watch replays of this program on Method Community Media Access Channel. You can check out our website, methodhappenings.com. And you can now either view or listen to the podcast of this program And you can find all of our shows on YouTube, just go to YouTube.com. This is getting longer and longer every week. Search for Method Happenings on YouTube. Please like and subscribe to our channel and videos, of course. And you can also find us on Facebook at Method Happenings. We also have our own subreddit, whatever that is, which you can find us at reddit.com slash R slash Method Happenings. for the Method Happenings team. Paul, Marco, Bruce, and James, I'm John Petrella. Thank you, Mayor, for joining us this evening. And remember, Method, stay informed.