AI-generated transcript of City Council Ward 1 Meeting 09/23/26

[Liz Mullane]: Hi, everyone. I don't know if we might need this mic or not. I'm usually normally loud, so I don't know if I need the mic. First of all, thank you all so much for coming. We really appreciate it. My name's Liz Mullane. I'm a Medford City Councilor. I'm relatively new, just started in January, and really just looking forward to hearing from all of you, to kind of talk about issues, things that we can address here in Medford, and looking forward to our fun first Ward 1 neighborhood meeting. It is, oh, I like it, thank you, yes! I like that. This is our first one, so bear with us as we go through it, but really appreciate and very excited to have so many people here in the room today.

[Justin Tseng]: Hi everyone, I'm Justin Tsang. I'm a proud son of East Medford, so I'm particularly excited about this meeting. I love enthusiasm. Just before we get started, restrooms are out and to your left, down the corridor by the gymnasium over there. If anyone needs it, there are water fountains out there as well. I'm particularly excited about tonight's meeting because Throughout my time on the city council, I've been really trying to get listening sessions off the ground where we can just hear from folks in their own neighborhoods the problems they face. And as city councilors, we hear a lot from residents, but I think it's a really different thing to come into the neighborhood and hear directly about things like I've heard a lot about noise already, potholes, and the like. So, with that being said, I was thinking we could generally go around, I'll pass the mic around, and if folks could introduce who they are and just a quick sentence about the issues that brought them here today, that'd be really great and help orient all of us. So, I'll pass this to you.

[SPEAKER_10]: My name is Julie Jones, and the issue I'm concerned about is the noise from the motorcycle. And also, I'd like to talk about signage for Oda Street for the park.

[kOuBy-MtMpc_SPEAKER_22]: And I am here because... This person who has a motorcycle, it's 27 Otter Street, and he comes out at all hours of the morning with the motorcycle. We know that it is probably an illegal motorcycle because it is so loud. There are a lot of motorcycles in Medford. I'm used to them coming up and down the street. This one is just horrible. And what it does is it wakes everybody up. So there are children that are not getting to sleep. There are dogs that are barking. There are the elderly who just came home from the hospital and need their sleep. And they are being woken up by this one person. I looked it up, there's an ordinance in Medford that you can't be having loud noises after 9 o'clock and between 9 and 7 a.m. And they mentioned motorcycles even. And they have the Massachusetts ordinance which says it is illegal to have your decibels over such and such. They're also saying you don't have to say, you can't say well we can't measure the decibels as long as a policeman says this is definitely an annoyance, it's too loud, then it's illegal. So we have done a lot in this neighborhood to try to figure out how to handle this. And the reason why we're here is we're getting nowhere, and it's getting just as bad. We had a little reprieve in August, which everybody sighed a sigh of relief. And it is just, it's intimidating, it's scary, because we don't know why this person is doing this. He has been confronting different people in the neighborhood, doesn't care about it. We have gone down to the police station, we have sat down with a person, and actually she recorded what our complaint was. Another person went down, did the same thing. The only advice to us is we'll call when you hear him. And then they'll say, well, is he out there now? We're like, he goes by so quickly. No, he's probably not here now. And so we've done that. We actually gave a letter to the chief of police while we were there. We said, please bring this to the chief of police. It had the Medford Ordinance very clearly stating that this is illegal. We also have the Massachusetts Ordinance, which said it is against the law. We have what we have done to date, which is we call the police every time we hear when we can. But how many people can wake up at 2 o'clock and make a phone call because this is happening? So it's a real quality of life issue at this point. These are people who have lived here a long time, and it is horrendous. You're afraid to go to bed at night because you wonder whether you're going to be woken up or not. So our question is, why can't anybody knock on the door and say, let's take a look at your motorcycle. It doesn't have a baffer or whatever it is that needs to be there. And why aren't you doing anything about it? So I've also, when we called the police most recently, last week, one of them told my husband, well, why don't you? Oh, he said, the police are short-staffed. So we need to talk, is that the reason? Is that, you know, police are short staffed, so things like this don't get handled at all? And I was told, why don't you find a code enforcer for the town? Go to City Hall and look for the code enforcer. So if you go to the website, it's kind of hard to find who the code enforcer is. But if you look on, finally, the Health and Human Services Department, it says they handle code ordinances. So I walked down there. and went to find out, I brought them the letter that we had for the police that gave all the reasons why it was so annoying. And they were surprised that I was there. And it's like, oh, what are you doing here? And they said, the director came out and she said, Oh, have you emailed the police chief? I said, well, we walked down there and we gave them a letter. So I'm not sure how much more information you need. And she said, OK, I'll go talk to him. And she walked away. In the letter that we left, we gave one of the residents email addresses. And we left our phone numbers there. And we've had no response from anybody. So that's why we're here. And we're kind of upset.

[SPEAKER_13]: And someone's raising their hand.

[kOuBy-MtMpc_SPEAKER_22]: Sure, sure. Well, this is a big deal for us.

[Justin Tseng]: And we'll make sure that everyone's issues that they came here for go addressed. I think right now we're just getting a survey of what folks want to talk about.

[SPEAKER_12]: Hello, thank you. I just wanted to quickly introduce myself. My name is Rashmi Coray. I'm the Wellington Neighborhood Ambassador. And happy to speak with any of you after that about what that volunteer role looks like in terms of empowering, through information, residents in our area. Thank you.

[MCM00001445_SPEAKER_47]: You're all set.

[SPEAKER_22]: Hi, thank you so much for putting this together. My name is Anthony Lombardi. I'm a resident on Riverside Avenue. I'm just curious to hear about the process for, you know, getting more crosswalks and pedestrian friendliness.

[30Tq2YcwQa8_SPEAKER_01]: Hi, I'm Marco Crignali, a longtime Wellington resident. I'm just looking to hear about what's going on in the neighborhood and hear what folks are dealing with certain issues.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Larry Williams, I live on Middlesex Ave, and I'm just concerned about the building that's going on, the traffic that it's gonna create, and I heard something recently about the city wants, they're trying to get the owner of Stop and Shop to sell. Are we gonna put more apartments there?

[John Petrella]: John Petrello, Locust Street. I'm just here to listen to everybody. I don't have any issues. I guess that's a good thing.

[Paul Garrity]: Hi, my name's Paul Geraghty. I'm here with John to hear what people are saying, what the issues are in this part of the city.

[Matt Leming]: Hi, I'm Andrew Whitaker. I live over in Glenwood. And I guess I was coming as someone who's in the group of people who have moved into the neighborhood. A lot of people on our street are starting families. We have kids out in the street playing, things like that. All good things to see in a neighborhood. But I think the main thing I wanted to ask about is our street and some of the other streets seem to be used as cut throughs late at night, things like that. while some of these kids are out playing, especially by the driver's ed and whoever wants to cut between on their way down Salem Street. Aside from that, I guess just some of the other things about putting in tickets for trees, how long that takes, things like that. We've had some potholes fixed lately. That's a great thing to see. And yeah, just kind of making sure that neighborhood stays a place where kids can play in the street. Farragut.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hello. I'm Sarah Whitaker. I agree with a lot of his things. I am married to him. I would just add, like, yeah, also very interested in traffic calming in general. There's a lot of traffic on Salem Street. I spend a lot of time walking up and down Salem Street and walking across it. And, you know, people can get flying pretty quickly. And then also kind of having some thoughtful parking restrictions where there aren't any right now. Like at the end of Farragut Avenue in particular, it's very narrow and it can be difficult to have anyone pull onto the street because the parking is so utilized there. So we had an issue with a fire truck not actually being able to turn onto the street because there was so much parking there at one point.

[Matt Leming]: It is marked no parking, but there were probably two cars passing by.

[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, my name is Megan. I live over on 4th Street. I was curious to talk about, or to hear more about ways that the neighborhood could be better connected to the Wellington T Station, like wayfinding, pedestrian access for people who rely on public transit. especially like going through the massive intersection people call the supercollider, and especially with the known ripple that a lot of those roads are maintained by DCR, so Medford has some limited ability to do things, but then like how can we advocate as a neighborhood or as a city to get what we need from DCR?

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Hi, I'm Andrew Castagnetti. I live in this part of East Medford. I have one suggestion that I made over 22 years ago when they built these two so-called new schools, and that is a major safety suggestion. Right here at the corner of Freedom Way, this is Freedom Way, and on the corner of Riverside Avenue, It's kind of dangerous, not just for the youths, but also for other people going into the parks 12 months a year. There should be, in my opinion, a push button, inexpensive. I'm not talking about millions of dollars for new traffic lights. It can run on solar or whatever. You people can figure that out if you even ever do this. The kids or the seniors push the button, especially when there's no crossing guard. And they'll have red lights on both sides facing down Riverside Ave. And they should give them at least 10 seconds to cross the street or maybe more if there's a bicycle or a wheelchair involved. That's all I have to say, sir and miss.

[SPEAKER_15]: Thank you so much. Thank you.

[Aaron Olapade]: Hi, everybody. My name is Aaron Olapade. I'm one of the school committee members here in the community. I was asked to come just to listen and kind of see how these meetings go and then be available to talk about schools and education. Obviously, there's a hot-button question about the new high school building, so I'm here to talk about that if you have any questions about that and just to listen to all of your concerns and interests in the community. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_23]: She spoke for a lot of my concerns on Otis Street about the motorcycle. I also came here because I want to talk about just the lack of traffic enforcement in the city overall. And I won't go into it now, but I did some research based on the city, the police annual report and stuff, and it's pretty appalling.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[SPEAKER_15]: I just have to say something. I just came back from Seattle.

[SPEAKER_13]: I don't know if you can hear me.

[SPEAKER_15]: I did not see any trash or litter anywhere.

[SPEAKER_13]: And it wasn't, I had to seek out the trash bags and throw something in, so it's not like you're on every corner.

[SPEAKER_15]: It is extremely clean. The other problem too we have is our intersection. No one stops us. They go all over the place. They do not stop us. Not ever.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Not there. Otis and Washington? Otis and Central Ave.

[SPEAKER_15]: I used to sit there in the morning and I'd watch them going right through. We had one guy speeding from one end of the old street down to the other. And I was like, oh my god. I was afraid that someone was going to get hit.

[SPEAKER_17]: They do the same down the center. You see, just one of each stops on both of the streets.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, they do right through it. It's like they do the California walls. I thought, OK, don't do this. Don't do this.

[SPEAKER_15]: And then the police were up on Salem Street. And I got them and I got them and said, well, I need some money for the city. I said, no, you can't lock yourself. That's allowed. And everybody goes through. They can have my library.

[Justin Tseng]: Okay Now that we've kind of gone through got a got a survey of what folks are here for We can talk tackle them pretty You know get into conversation and about the substance I've we've heard a lot about noise including from outside of Ward one or East Bedford and Liz and I recently introduced something in City Council to work on the noise ordinance. And the reason being, we've gotten so many complaints. A lot of folks are telling us that they call the police, the police say they can't do anything, they call code enforcement, it gets bounced back and forth. And yet, you know, all of this sound exists and keeps people from going to bed at a reasonable time, or wakes people up at an unreasonable time. And when I delved into the ordinance that we have, there are a few legal problems with it. One being that it doesn't delegate authority, except I believe it delegates authority implicitly to the code enforcement officers, but not to any other folks. So we have three, I believe, and they sit under, it's kind of joint under the health, the board of health and building department. The truth is we're pretty understaffed when it comes to code enforcement. And they can't take on all the requests and some code enforcement, right? They're also doing building inspections and they're doing large scale work as well. So I think in the long term, we need a plan to hire more code enforcement officers, but we can also explore ways to expand authority in the ordinance that we're rewriting.

[Liz Mullane]: Well, I think part of it too is, you know, I think some of the things that Jess and I have talked about, and again, hearing from a lot of residents around NOISE, is trying to bring all these partners to the table as well, so to be able to talk to code enforcers to be able to talk to the police to just to make sure like what is actually reasonable and what are we able to do. I think I was pretty surprised when we first looked at the noise ordinance and the last time it had been updated was 1974. And some of the big pieces, there was like two major pieces to it and one of them was ensuring that people don't sing in the streets. There's a whole paragraph about that. There's a whole paragraph about how loud. And so what Justin was mentioning, he was starting to look at some of the other cities, too, and see what are some of the different cities looking at and how they're identifying different ways. And I think that's something that we'd love to have residents and public engagement and feedback on as we talk through this, because everyone's getting a different piece of some of those things that we're seeing within that noise ordinance. So in Somerville, for example, they have it very outlined, very specific if it's animal, if it's fireworks, if it's motorcycle. So they really do lay it out for people.

[Justin Tseng]: And they have clear standards as well. In our ordinance, it kind of just says, please don't be too loud, which we know isn't really working. But in Somerville and Cambridge and I think in Malden and just cities around us, pretty much every city has standards in the ordinance itself of you can't cross this decibel level. You can't cross this amount of loudness. And it gives our city staff at least a metric. by which they can enforce the ordinance. And part of the problem we're seeing right now, too, is we have city staff that are scared, I think, explicitly or implicitly, to enforce the ordinance because there's no standard. And so when does that decision become arbitrary? Without that in the ordinance, it's purely arbitrary.

[SPEAKER_15]: because I think as we talk about the ordinance, right, and noise. Noise is big around the world, right? And so folks who are experiencing a lot of, like, traffic, that is noise, right? Salem Street is noise. A motorcycle, one person disrupting an entire neighborhood is another, like, noise. And so it's a question of identifying the different values, right, of the noise. And so I would think that, you know, noise on Salem Street is going to be much louder because it's more open space. It's, you know, it's just more movement up there. And it's more tolerable. When you're walking down the street, you know, it's loud. And it feels dangerous sometimes out there, because people speak through, right? And then they come back and forth really quickly. We have people that fly up, and now notice that we're not very good anywhere else. That's noise. But it's a different, and it's just, it's annoying, but it's a different type of noise. And so I think that as you start to look at changing that ordinance, those are some of the particulars that need to be looked at, the specific types of noises that we

[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_16]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_17]: just the general noise thing is that it's also, there's also a lot of cars with these, I don't know what they're called, wrap-wrap-wrap type of things. Now I know that, I don't know the name of the street itself, but I don't know the number of streets. And I remember being, I think, several times on the street, taking pictures of people who keep saying that I was hard. Yeah, and it's so impromptu what we're having, that I don't think it's extreme. If they said, it's got to start from our level up, it's got to start from our level down, it's got to start from our level up. And I'm always saying, I see the same events over time, and I'm saying, I think it's impromptu. But he is a bit impromptu.

[SPEAKER_16]: He has a nephew, but his first path to put the exhaust on made noise. He went down Spring Street. So it would be really nice to know how many calls they have actually gotten in the last 90 days or so.

[SPEAKER_15]: It's quite a number. How many they've responded to and what the results of those were. So we don't know if there's fines being levied. We have no idea if anybody's contacted the landlord. I would think that he holds some level of responsibility for his tenant. And so, where is he in all of this? Now, this man, years ago, put in a halfway house. right next to a playground. I came home one day, and there was the most intoxicated young woman sitting on my front porch, crying in her mother in the street. And then somebody burned it down. Somebody killed themselves in there. And then when it was cleaned out, Contractors came in, came out, and said, you would not believe the number of pipes that are in here. They were so afraid to open that place up. And the owner has now installed this guy. But apparently, it was to help his granddaughter. And this was his great-granddaughter. Anyway, this kid lives with her, but now she's gone. And now he's their mom. So what does this story get? Is he getting Section 8 housing for this? If he is, there's no kids in there. There's no family in there. It's just this young guy. Now, I don't know.

[Adam Hurtubise]: This is just all of it. Yeah.

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.

[Liz Mullane]: Well, I think this, I mean, all of this, I think, is very helpful when we talk about the noise piece of it. I think one of the things that we've talked about is how to best solicit suggestions and other pieces of areas that we could cover with the noise. I'm sorry? Well, what do you mean, like if we did a survey or something?

[SPEAKER_15]: I mean, I think.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Liz Mullane]: No, I was actually talking as we, I know there's a lot of different items people want to chat about today.

[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, there's a lot of topics.

[Liz Mullane]: But certainly with the noise, and I appreciate so many people showing up for this too, and this is something we're working on. We definitely want to get as much feedback as possible from everybody when it comes to that and their thoughts on it. I know we've talked about sending out a survey or putting a survey out for people to kind of share some of their thoughts about it. We do have Some sign-up sheets in the back, too. Again, if you're interested and you want to help join and share information, or if you have our emails, you can certainly send it that way if that's best. But this is definitely very helpful for us as we try to navigate how best to address this ordinance, and very apropos, since it's something that we've really just started taking up on right now.

[Justin Tseng]: I mean, I think there's a natural segue here, too. You had mentioned the noise from traffic. And a lot of folks here are curious about traffic calming and what the city is doing on traffic calming. I think, slowly but surely, we've been working on building more bump-outs to increase visibility of pedestrians in major streets. I think, as with everything, we are a resource-constrained city, so it's a little slower than I think a lot of folks would want. At the same time, there's also a lot of major roads where, I mean, I can think of the Fellsway, right, by Wellington Circle. That's a few minutes from where I grew up, or a few minutes walking from where I grew up, and it's just an impossible street to cross, right? I think the difficulty sometimes is that there's a disconnect between state and local when it comes to the needs that residents are asking for on the ground. But I think when we organize as a council, when we get residents together to write in to the DCR, to our state delegation, there can be a lot of progress made. And that certainly happened. I'm thinking of the rotary at I-93, that one. There's been more pedestrian infrastructure built out there, sadly because of a tragic accident. But since then, you know, tons of residents, neighbors around the area wrote to us, they wrote to the state delegation, and we got something fixed there. Same story in West Medford. Now I think the challenge is how do we get proactive about this? How do we fix these pedestrian issues before someone gets hurt? And I think that is where you guys come in, where you guys can tell us the intersections, tell us which roads in particular you're finding particularly hard to walk on as well. I think, yeah.

[SPEAKER_10]: One side of the park is on Logan, one side of the park is on Otis. The Logan side has a department. So rightfully, they have a sign that says go to children. Oh, OK. So rightfully, the side that has the sign has a taut lot on Logan. However, there are a lot of children now on Otis Street who go to that park. In my house alone, there's six, I'm sorry, three children, six, five, and a two-year-old. Mine aren't the only one. There's a lot of children now on Otis Street. Like she said, they fly down Otis. And I'm really concerned. I think you should also have a slow chill or whatever the sign says on Logan, another one on Otis. Because it's a park that both streets use.

[Justin Tseng]: Yeah.

[Liz Mullane]: is they can hear you online.

[MCM00001445_SPEAKER_47]: Logan and I, my kids are almost grown now, and I've been trying to do something about this since they were little. And they did put up those slow signs, but nobody pays attention to them. There are two wide streets. There's a nursery school at the end. And then there's the park, and now the park's been expanded. Because the street is really wide, people just, like, they use it almost for, like, drag racing sometimes. It's like they just, and then, you know, they can go around and then go down Otis.

[Justin Tseng]: If there were even just like those rumble trips or like some kind of a bump out or something, but like I Yeah, yeah, I um that that park in particular is when I spent a lot of my childhood in so I'm definitely familiar with the cars around there

[SPEAKER_10]: and slow down.

[Justin Tseng]: And I was just going to bring that up. I think a lot of, to your points, I think a lot of research nowadays about pedestrian safety and the speed of cars in neighborhoods talks a lot less about the signage that you have on or the speed limit that you give to an area. And it talks a lot about how, imagine you're in the driver's seat. If you didn't know what the speed limit was, you look at how wide that street is, how fast would you drive if you could drive, you know, if there weren't police there, right? And I think that goes to the point of more bump-outs, more speed bumps. And this isn't, it's not Otis and Central, but by Central and Spring Street, a lot of the residents around there had been asking for a long time for speed bumps, and they wrote to us, they wrote to the mayor, and we got those done. So hopefully, maybe we can get something like that done at Otis and Central.

[Matt Leming]: I was actually going to add on to that. We had a pothole that got fixed recently. And everyone on our street is already conditioned to not hit the pothole. And then we noticed that once it's fixed, it's people who are trying to cut through Central and Salem that see, hey, it's a brand new road there. And I also wanted to add on to that. Yeah, there used to be, but then, I mean, I walked up and down the street and was talking to people, and a lot of them said, oh, I wouldn't even mind having a speed bump anymore. I know people are opposed to them at first, but it got everyone on the same page. I also wanted to point out that some of those streets, I mean, if I go for a jog or a bike ride or something, I've noticed that Some people mention the stop signs you can go straight down, you know from Salem to Riverside and oftentimes you'll have Half a mile to a mile of just straight through if you ignore all the stop signs. So Yeah, if people are ignoring that then kind of like other setting that gives you a drag strip there, but I did notice that the city had At least at some point we have that walk-through between Central and Lagoon. Yeah, things like that, but I mean that stops people from coming from Riverside to Salem, but it still lets people get to the park and things like that.

[Justin Tseng]: I'm going to hand the mic on this side of the room so I can hear from folks here as well.

[Paulette Vartabedian]: I live on Central Lab. I don't know if it's one year or two years. I was like, I know you're going to be shocked because you think I'm so shy. But when they, no one does that. But I was going out like in the middle of the street and stopping guys. Hey, you didn't stop at that stop sign. And they're looking at me like, oh, like a mental person there, right? And so I called. I called, and on the corner of Central and Otis, there is a four-way stop, and I had them put the flashing yellow lights. That was me. That was me. I'm surprised that they're still going through with the flashing yellow lights. And I haven't noticed it as much, but I'm not out there as much as I used to. So the city has done something to try to I'm not sure if they were able to remedy that with the four-way stop with the flashing lights. So I'm not sure, and I said they need to put, I'm not sure if they did this, on the... Yeah, they put stop on the pavement as well. But maybe like the rumble strip or something. But the city has done something, saddened that it hasn't remedied the problem because that is a huge problem. And back in the day, way back before there were stop signs on Central Ave at Dudley and at Salem, every summer we would have multiple accidents on those two intersections because you could go all the way down Central from Park Street all the way down to Spring and just go. So the stop signs did help, but people aren't following it.

[SPEAKER_15]: You can have a, you know, state walk for people crossing, and you'll stand, I mean, many of us have pets, and we walk across all the time, and you're just trying to cross the street in a crosswalk that has lights that say, you know, pointing to the, I mean, I don't know what you need to do, and they fly right through it. Nobody stops to let you cross. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you really have to, there's no such thing as feeling comfortable.

[SPEAKER_18]: I just wanted to, she mentioned that Medved has very few policemen. What's going on? Why did she say, I mean, do we have a shortage?

[Justin Tseng]: The question of the number of police officers, I think it's a really difficult number to answer because it really depends on what standards you're comparing it with. For example, the National Police Union has a much higher ratio of police officers to residents than I think a lot of municipal, like national municipal government organizations. So I think it's a policy question, but we are, when it comes to police and fire, What we've seen as Councilors is that a lot of we've heard a lot from first responders that they feel stretched thin and that they you know, they're taking each other's overtime shifts. They're just like, they're forced to be in this position where they're working all the time. And, you know, I think this is a larger, it's a difficult policy discussion, right? Because I think for a lot of residents too, there's not necessarily that trust. And so a lot of, I think, energy has to go into building trust between our public safety and first responders and our residents as well. Now, we are getting a new police chief, hopefully by the end of the year, maybe next year. And I think there'll be an active conversation, in my opinion, with whoever that person may be, to reevaluate our staffing levels. But we do hear from folks on the ground that they feel a bit stretched in. And I think, is Medford in the right ratio right now? Like, we fall within the zone of, you know, officers to residents. But, I mean, I think what matters more is the kind of experience from folks living on the ground. And, yeah. Right. It's paper. Right. It's just a number. Right.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_15]: of what we need them to do and what they need to be doing. So I understand that there are priorities, right? And so noise or traffic or car streets or, you know, different things, they have to be prioritized. And if you've got a potential, you know, you've got somebody who's got a gun in the middle of, you know, Salem Street or whatever, or somebody drives through a school window whatever craziness goes on in the city, that all has to be weighed and prioritized. So maybe a motorcycle to, in that datum set, hits the bottom, but that's not our responsibility. So it's, it's, I don't think that it's, I personally don't have trust in the police.

[Justin Tseng]: They've been great to me too, yeah. Right. I think to your point too, this actually brings, it almost circles us back to the noise ordinance. I think we have just tons of ordinances that in any other city, officers, be it police or code enforcement officers, one or the other or both, they're in charge of kind of enforcing. And in Medford, when you read through these ordinances, they don't have anyone assigned to execute them. And so it becomes a real kind of mess, I guess, communicating, right, who's on first? Right. I think that's a great way of putting it. I think at the same time, too, my understanding from reading the police reports and talking to the police chief is that every call is answered and addressed, but that in many cases, especially in quality of life cases, again, overlaps with the ordinances that we're talking about. There's just not clarity about whether this is their job, or the building department's job, or the health department's job. Right now, I think the legal language is just all over the place, and it causes a lot of confusion for city staff. I do want to make sure we cover all the kind of questions and concerns about traffic and traffic calming as well. So I think Liz.

[SPEAKER_22]: Hi. Yeah, Anthony. So I am right at the end of the Clippership Connector. It's the pathway right behind the school. It's wonderful and amazing for bikers, dog walkers, and everyone. But right there is also the end of Medford Square. It's also a stop point for the 134 bus. I live right on that corner and just in my own experience on the walk over here, saw two people trying to cross the street and almost get run over. So I'm just, it's one of those things that seems like because I see so many pedestrians frequenting it, it just seems like a no brainer to do something at that traffic point. just generally across all of Riverside, I think that there is a pretty endemic speeding problem, but I recognize that that's because it's a very wide street and a thoroughfare. I'm curious how, you know, the City Council is addressing those sorts of things in tandem with the potential rezoning that's happening in Medford Square too. I'd just love to hear your thoughts.

[Justin Tseng]: I do think we should decouple the idea of more housing or more businesses with this idea that we're definitely going to have more traffic problems. Oh, no, no, no. I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying, like, writ large, right? But they are, I think, the most important intersection, actually, between these things. And this is the reason why I think, you know, folks might disagree with me on this issue, but why development is important for Medford is because these new buildings can bring in the revenue that we need. to fund these street repairs, to fund these crosswalks, to fund the enforcement actions that we've been talking about all night. So for me, that's one big part of the housing puzzle. At the same time with the new kind of Medford Square rezoning plan, we have an opportunity to work with those who own property in the square right now to reconfigure a lot of the traffic. And I know our planning department has been working really hard about talking to some of the big property owners on Riverside in Medford Square about how can we reformat traffic so that it's safer for both drivers and pedestrians while kind of bringing in a sense of business, like livelihood, thrivingness. And so it's a big kind of It is a very big discussion in the planning office. I think we've also talked a lot about the width of streets, Riverside being one of them. And while adjusting width is a huge way to calm traffic and make things safer for pedestrians, an additional thing that does slow down drivers is, I think, a general sense that you're in a more urban area. And I'm not saying we need to build it up like New York or Boston or whatever, but it does, I think an observation that we've had in the planning department is that when places are slightly more built up like that, it can help with foot traffic or just the safety of foot traffic and vehicular traffic.

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah, and I just want to also say, I think what's also been helpful, as we've been hearing from everybody, are identifying some of those areas, those places where you are seeing some of those big issues. We do have, I have some sheets over here for what people are comfortable putting down, but it would be helpful to us as people, eyes and ears, that are seeing this firsthand, of where you are seeing some of those places, where you are seeing some of the, where people are really potentially putting themselves in danger, trying to get across the street. And we can start at least putting together those lists so that we have them. And I can't guarantee we get right to every single one of them right away, but we can at least be identifying them. And I think that's also part of what we're hoping to do is to identify some of these issue areas that we can at least have a list and know that these are really top priority for people in the area too. Yeah. And I know some people were talking about Wellington, too.

[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, and I wanted to say a really quick note, actually, because I think this ties into Wellington especially, but something that I've been working on with Councilor Leming is something, it's called a Traffic Demand Management Plan. And so with these new buildings that are coming in, what we'd like to achieve, and I think the planning office is on board with it, it's just technically very difficult, is to essentially say, you can build this apartment in the city, but we want you to provide a shuttle from your apartment complex to Wellington Station or to Medford Tufts Station. This is something that is done in Malden. It's done in cities all around us, and it reduces traffic for folks who are driving through the neighborhoods. It also encourages public transit use by those who are moving into these new apartments. And we also know that statistically, You know, I think folks who are moving to apartment complexes near transit stations or near enough to transit stations do want that option. So that's the actual, again, the legal language, the legalese is always where things get very complicated, but it is something that Councilor Leming and I are working on.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks. And to the bit about Wellington and even what you were saying about building up, you had said earlier tonight at one point how difficult it is to cross the Fellsway. That's exactly where I live, is right on 4th Street, where you can cross the Fellsway. And it's actually not impossible, because there is a light there with a pedestrian signal. But the issue that I have, and I think this comes with what you're saying about building up, is the pedestrian signals around me are built for cars. When I used to have apartments in Cambridge and Somerville, you hit a pedestrian signal at the cross, and it turns to the white walk signs that you can cross. At that specific intersection when you're crossing west from 4th, the pedestrian light sign never turns white. All it does is change the car traffic light when you're coming down that one-way bit of 4th Street to green so that they can turn right, but I have to cross on a red hand across the Fellsway. 85% of the time. So for some reason when you're coming east and you press the button, it'll sometimes do the walk sign, but it'll take like a solid 75 seconds to turn and most people don't wait for that. Similarly, at Riverside and 5th, it's the same thing. If you're walking down Riverside on the east side trying to cross west, You press the buttons and the white walk sign never comes. The green light for the cars turns green, but especially if you're walking from east to west, nobody comes down 5th Street from the east because it's like, you know, there's the dead end with the train tracks. people come down, they rip down Fifth Street the other way to turn left on Riverside to run up to the car wash place that everybody loves. And so they're making that left turn fast and running that red light fast. And so you're trying to cross. There's a lot, which I appreciate, a lot of crosswalks that don't have pedestrian lights on Riverside, just past that. There's like 4 3rd, 2nd, each one has one. But like I tried, I've stopped trying to press the button to cross. I'll go to the next one instead where there's no button because I'm more likely to go to, and I got verbally harassed by a man the other day just for crossing there, like for holding up traffic trying to go home because I didn't cross at the light when the light doesn't change. Like, so it's like that stuff where I'm like, could we be a more pedestrian friendly city and say like, these pedestrian signs are for pedestrians, safety. not for cars to get through intersections? Can we be more of like a modern city built up that cares about that? And when I have done C-Click Fix for that, it's been like, oh, we'll send it to DCR, we'll send it to DCR. And like, DCR doesn't care about pedestrians in Medford. They really don't. So like, how can we advocate for that better to make the things that are already there just actually work?

[Justin Tseng]: I think that's a great question. And it's something that both happens on state property and on city property. Oftentimes it's lack of maintenance. Oftentimes it's folks not being aware of those problems. Oftentimes what I'll do when a constituent comes up to me with something like this is I'll write an email to Rep Donato and see if he can get DCR to meet on this. You know, sometimes it's successful, sometimes it's not. Oftentimes it is pretty successful, though, because as a state rep, the folks in the state departments know you a lot better, and so they're willing to have that conversation. So I'm making a mental note now, but if you want to contact me about those lights as well, I'd be happy to forward that to Rep Donato. Now, I think for residents writ large, you know, if you bump into a situation like that where maybe a light isn't working or something's broken that shouldn't be broken, I think the biggest thing is creating awareness of it. And so if you can write to us and write to the state delegation, we can help bring more awareness to that issue and we can contact, for example, the mayor or the department of, like the transportation engineer about it. And we can try to get that solved quickly. And if it's a state problem, then we can try to flag it for them. I think getting neighbors aware and writing in can oftentimes be really helpful as well to show that there's a community concern there too, and to get it on more people's radars.

[SPEAKER_05]: I've got a few things to say, I'll make them all brief. E-bikes, they have to do something about those. The scooters and the bikes, it's insane. Another thing is I'm hearing that the stop and shop, the city is hoping to develop that piece of property. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you have to. I mean, all these people talking about the traffic in that area already, do we need more? So you also get cappies. You're going to put 248 apartments in there. And has anyone been down the Fellsway or Commercial Street lately? Where did the construction guys park? Yeah? I mean, I counted 25 cars on the Fellsway. On that side, it's not a problem. It's not a neighborhood. Same with Commercial Street. That's not a neighborhood. I live on Middlesex Ave. I won't be able to park in front of my house for two years when they start that construction. And also, I was at a meeting a couple years ago. I mentioned to you earlier, and the woman who was running it, I mentioned to her about the corner of 9th and Middlesex, right where the building is going. There's a school bus stop. And the ones, I didn't know that.

[Justin Tseng]: That's the one I used to take to the McLuhan.

[SPEAKER_05]: Didn't they do a traffic study? I mean, that's, yeah, that's, kids' lives are in danger there. And then one other thing is, can we handle the sewage and everything for all this additional building? I remember a few years ago, there was a city council meeting, and I was watching it. And I don't know exactly what the term was. It was something where a developer had to get permission and permits and stuff. And Councilor Leming was asked about it. And he says, apparently, it hadn't been updated in many, many years. And so then he said, well, they don't seem to be complaining about it.

[Justin Tseng]: So has anything been done about that? Something actually has been done about that. I'll take it in pieces. I'll make sure you get a chance to speak as well.

[30Tq2YcwQa8_SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to add on to what Larry was just talking about. With all the traffic and everything that's going on in Wellington, all this development, everything that we have going on there right now, Well, we have Cataldo Ambulance in the area that have decided, you know what? We're not going to participate in this traffic in Wellington. So we're going to go down Middlesex Ave. We're going to put our sirens on. We're going to cut right through everybody else. And we're on the Fellsway. We're going to put our sirens on. And we're going to cut right through everybody else. And when they're on Riverside Ave, and they're coming up to the lights on Middlesex, they're going to put their lights on and they're going to go right through there. It doesn't matter if it's green or red. At some point, they're going to turn onto Middlesex and Riverside, and there's going to be a head-on collision when they do that. And somebody's got to call Cataldo and say, stop turning your sirens on just because you want to go through the circle. They come into the circle, they put their lights on, and as soon as they get through, they shut the sirens off. It happens all day long. All day long.

[SPEAKER_16]: I even got a couple of videos of it.

[Justin Tseng]: Liz, do you have that down?

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah, I did, sorry.

[Justin Tseng]: I'm taking notes, too. On what you talked about with what Councilor Leming was talking about, this is helpful for everyone to know. We do this thing called a linkage fee when a new big development wants to come in. And so essentially the idea behind the linkage fee is that big developers coming in should pay for upgrades to sewage, roads, sidewalks, et cetera, things that the public needs, the public uses, and which would become more constrained if this development came in. So essentially, the idea behind linkage fees is to pay for those upgrades. Medford hasn't updated its linkage fees in many, many, many years, and it's become kind of a long process to update that because we needed the state legislature to pass a certain piece of legislation to let us change it. Now, we got that passed, and we've actually done the next step as well. So the next step was, in order to exact the linkage fee, so in order to charge that fee, you need to basically show your math. Medford has to show its math about how it got to the fee charge that we're proposing, right? And so that depends on a number of factors, and we recently had a council meeting a few weeks ago on this topic. I don't know if you wanna pick up.

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah, no, it was actually very in-depth. They had a consultant come through who has worked in this area for decades to really come through and assess. And this was done with our housing planner, Catherine, who did an excellent job of facilitating and navigating this through. So they're putting together a full report. We actually were, you know, went through this at one of our most recent Committee of the Whole meetings where they really went step-by-step through that deck. And I would suggest if people are interested, it may be a little dense. But it definitely provides some good information, some good feedback, so you could see exactly how we are getting to these numbers. And then what I thought was also really helpful was, what was our number in relation to other nearby cities? And when was the last time they'd also updated their linkage phase too? So you can kind of see where that assessment came from. It's really in-depth, and it really gives a nice perspective as to what we're looking to accomplish. by updating this linkage fee.

[Justin Tseng]: And that study found that Medford is undercharging by a huge, huge percentage. So I think the council's really excited to have something to pass, hopefully as soon as. I know they're, as Liz said, they're finalizing the report. But we're hoping that helps pay for a lot of the kind of like sewage, for example, Right, right now it's under the old rules. Well, I think that the linkage fee update will pass, I think, a lot sooner than most of these new developments come in. I also have not been informed that any project is going on forward at Fellows Way Plaza or at Fellows Way Plaza. I think the Cappy's one, there is actually a proposal for it. Yeah. Now, with With the Felsley Plaza situation, I think a lot of folks, including folks in Wellington, have been asking, maybe we can do something more with that property. It's really early days. We haven't had that conversation as a city yet. My understanding is that no deal has been made and that actually in the short to medium term, actually, nothing will happen there.

[Liz Mullane]: That's my understanding at least so far, but they do have I think this was brought up on As people were talking about this meeting tonight We do have a report that's been created around the Wellington study And I think it's helpful just to kind of see some of the information that they were able to garner from consultants that came in Kayla who works for the city She does a great job of being able to kind of explain that and walk people through it as well again It was just kind of a study to assess the area Certainly a long way to go from what white what might actually happen with it But it does give you a more kind of robust idea of some of those different opportunities there. Yeah, and I believe they're still looking for feedback I Can't what were in terms of the Wellington study Mm-hmm

[Justin Tseng]: No, I also haven't heard anything about that. Yes, Commercial Street in particular, that section of the shopping area. I think the hope with the Wellington Transformation Study is that if we can reformat all the buildings in the parking lots, we can actually open up streets that lead into the wetlands so people can kind of enjoy it as a recreational area. but that's a very long-term vision for Wellington, and they're still writing the study, so they're still soliciting feedback from residents. And I think our planning department and Kayla, who's our economic development director, is still very much trying to look for folks, especially in East Bedford, their thoughts on what Wellington should look like going forward. Sorry? It's by the square foot. It's by the square foot. I have an estimate of a number. I don't want to spread misinformation.

[Liz Mullane]: We can look at it and get back to you, John, if that's helpful.

[Justin Tseng]: I do think roughly it's around $0.03. But I don't want to be quoted on that. I do know the proposed number in the study is, I think, three times. what the current number is, I believe. But I'll get back to you guys once I check the numbers, because I don't wanna be wrong here.

[Liz Mullane]: Yes, I know we're running close on time, so I know one other person's been patiently waiting, and then we can kind of wrap it up.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you, Councilor. I did write down some paper there, as the lady said, You can write down some of the issues, I guess. So I wrote down a couple of issues. I want to bring this up about noise problems. Most of these people here, they probably don't hear about this noise that I hear near Magoon Park and about 15 to 20 blocks going down Riverside, both directions from here, Freedom Way. and going back down deep to, I don't know, maybe, I don't know, two, three, four blocks more, maybe even down to Central Ave. But when Hormel has an event, son of a gun. You hear the lady? You can, oh boy, you can hear it. So this is a low-tech solution, nothing to do with IT and TA and BBC and all that crap. Whoever's got the pull, Instead of me going down there, because I have an immigrant family next door to me, lovely people, and they said, Andrew, can you please, I said, hey, I'm tired of fighting City Hall, capiche? Someone else's turn. But you guys asked about this stuff, so have the right. powerful city employee, tell the frigging guy with the megaphone to turn it down, please. Because it's very, very annoying. It's horrible. And not only that, it's ignorant and inconsiderate.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you.

[Paulette Vartabedian]: Alright final thoughts final thoughts before you up just um talking about the noise issue I had a issue with a family behind me a few years ago that every single Weekend from like 2 o'clock in the afternoon until 3 a.m. They had a boombox outside, and it was a huge like a block party in the back so the first weekend I didn't say anything. I said oh, they just moved in they're happy second weekend Oh, maybe it's someone's birthday party the fifth weekend. I called the police a million times. And I said, I'm going to call you every 15 minutes until you get someone down here. And this went on for a couple of weeks. It finally stopped. But in the process of me doing this, I looked up and the landlord or the owner of the home is supposed to be issued a warning on the first time a police officer comes to the home and each subsequent visit by a police officer it becomes and I don't remember the fine so I'll just make it up a hundred dollars for the second visit five hundred dollars for the third visit and up and up and up and it goes on their taxes I believe so I'm wondering about this house with the motorcycle if in fact any fines have been put on there and that is a huge deterrent.

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah. Well, yeah, let's just have one more because I do want to be cognizant because we do have to close up the school. Oh, sure. So I think for us, part of having these conversations, A, is to highlight these different issues. What we'll be able to do, and we have some information, like sign-ups over here, in the sense that I can follow up and ask other questions, any kind of follow-up from it. Our hope is to go back and try to figure out what we may be able to do around, A, updating the noise ordinance, so we actually have something that we can work with. But also talking with the city to to find out what are some other opportunities That may be able to help to address it in the short term But like I said, you know as we're trying to pull together some of these different ordinances would really really really value everyone's opinions and thoughts and sending information in so that we are aware of different areas that we might not know ourselves, so that's why we're that's why I wanted to do this and that's why it's resident services and public engagement because we want you to be engaged and help us hopefully together. So we're doing another one next month, October 20th. It's Ward 5 at the Missituk. So we'll send out information on that too. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Yes, that's true as well. Yeah, the next ward meeting is October 20th. And then the Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee, which I am the chair of, so I would love everyone to be involved and engaged on it, happens every month. And the next one is October 7th. It's City Hall or on Zoom at 6 or 7. Sometimes the times change a little bit. But if you sign up, I can send you that information, too, because truly would love the help, would love the insight. I'm so sorry.

[Matt Leming]: Oh, no. No, it's fine. Possible segue from that, actually. So I know a lot of people mentioned, who do I contact? Like, who do I ask about these things? And it sounded like it was a different answer for different topics. I guess living in other parts of the area, having friends who live in other parts of the area, sometimes when I've tried to put something on CClickFix and it didn't get responded to, everyone else says, why don't you just call 311? So my question was just like, is there any thoughts about kind of revamping that system or creating a little more of a directory around City Hall or having a 311 operator?

[Liz Mullane]: say directories around City Hall just to know who's where and what they do.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, I mean, just like where someone said, like, I mean, I haven't really searched around the website, but someone just said they couldn't find the right person.

[Liz Mullane]: Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of great people that work at the City Hall, so I do agree. We probably have to talk to someone to see if we can get a little bit more outlined of what that looks like for people.

[Justin Tseng]: I mean, I think we technically do, but it's the same thing as see, click, fix.

[Liz Mullane]: I do want to let people go, too, but please, I welcome any feedback, any suggestions to reach more people, to get in front of more people, anything I can do, anything we can do, please, as a resource, really, anything we can help with, please let us know.

[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I know folks probably have other questions and more they want to talk about, so I'll stay around for a little bit, but please feel free to get my email and contact me more about those things. But on the C-Click fix issue, our city website's a little bit of a mess, so it's kind of tough. Yeah, it's their go-to, right? We just don't really have the capacity for that right now, so everything gets routed through CClickFix. I will say what tends to work really well is when folks contact us as city councillors.