City Council 10-13-26

AI-generated transcript — the recording is the record.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Medford City Council, 17th regular meeting, October 13th, 2026, is called to order. Clerk Siegel, please call the roll.

[City Clerk Laurel Siegel]: Councilor Callahan? Present. Councilor Leming? Present. Councilor Mullane? Present. Councilor Scarpelli? Present. Councilor Tseng? Present. Vice President Lazzaro? Present. President Bears?

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Present. Seven present, none absent. Please rise if you're able to salute the flag. Announcements, accolades, remembrances, reports, and records 26-168 offered by Councilor Mullane. Resolution to invite residents to the Ward 5 neighborhood meeting October 20th. Councilor Mullane.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Thank you. I will pass this over to Councilors Callahan and Tseng. Just want to thank everyone for their hard work putting this together. It was a great Ward 1. We're excited for Ward 5. And I will turn it over to either Councilor who wants to take it.

[Councilor Anna Callahan]: Thanks so much. We are very excited to come to Ward 5. We'll be at the Missittook next Tuesday, October 20th at 7 p.m. We would love to hear from you. There is an RSVP, so you can tell us beforehand what kind of issues you want to talk about, but you don't have to. You can just show up and talk about anything that is important to you. We're really excited about it. Councilor Teng?

[Councilor Justin Tseng]: I think, sorry, I'm just waiting for this. I think that really encapsulates most of it. We're just really excited to hear from folks. We had an amazing, I mean, I've said this multiple times already, but amazing Ward 1 meeting. And lots of stuff for us to work on as a council coming out of that. Lots of really local fixes that could just make people's lives better, and I'm excited to do the same for Ward 5.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Great. Seeing no one else on this, I'm just going to read the other two announcements. 261676, a resolution to invite residents to Harvester Energy Festival. Planning Development Sustainability is hosting the Harvester Energy Festival Saturday. This Saturday, the 17th from 12 to 3 p.m. at Riverbend Park. Great way to learn about the green and environmental initiatives that the city is undertaking. And 26-177, resolution to invite residents to Sarah Bradley Fulton Day on October 17th. Be it resolved that we invite residents to attend at the Salem Street Burying Ground, October 17th from 10 to 12. This is the annual commemoration of Sarah Bradley Fulton, hosted by Looking Back at Medford History and Laura Duggan. And we have a statue now for the first time out here at City Hall for the first time that we're doing this annual celebration. Is there a motion to join and approve papers 26-168, 26-176, and 26-177? Motion by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Callahan. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes. Welcome back, Councilor Leming.

All right. One second. Records. Records of the meeting of September 29th were passed to Councilor Tseng. Councilor Tseng, how do you find the records?

[Councilor Justin Tseng]: I found them in order, moved to approve.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: On the motion to approve the records by Councilor Tseng, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Reports of committees 24-033 offered by myself, the Committee of the Whole, September 30th, 2026 report. This was the Committee of the Whole where we discussed the RFP for the next phase of the zoning project. Is there a motion to approve? On the motion to approve by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Leming.

All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes. Councilor Scarpelli, then Councilor Callahan. Councilor Scarpelli?

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: Before I ask to take a paper out of order, I'd like to publicly, if I can, Mr. President, I think that it's important that we publicly thank one of our city councilors who's back with us for defending our country. And I think that we all owe him a round of applause and just a thank you for doing your job in protecting our country. Councilor Leming, and welcome back and thank God you're safe. And we appreciate all the hard work that you had to endure in the last few months. So thank you very much.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: If I can, under suspension, Mr. President, if we could take Papers 26-142C offered to City Council in response to Papers 26142 by Chief Evans funding for the city solicitor. All right.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: One second, Councilor Callahan.

[Councilor Anna Callahan]: Thank you, I would also like to take papers out of order after those. The first is the school appropriation, that's 26-180. After that, the Tufts pilot discussion, 26-178. And after that, the zoning of Boston and North, 26-093.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right on the motion of Councilor Scarpelli amended by Councilor Callaghan to take papers 26142C, 26180, 26-178 and 26-093 out of order seconded by seconded by Councilor Mullane. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. 26142C City Council response to paper 26142 Fire Chief Evans and funding for the city solicitor be it resolved by the city council that we request Fire Chief Evans appear before the council at October 13th meeting to answer questions that's regarding the city solicitor and legal funding. Be it further resolved that we request an answer from the mayor regarding whether the full year of the city solicitor's salary were to be funded by the council. Would the mayor post that job and hire a solicitor? Would she use those funds for other outside council? We did receive a response from the administration in writing. Give me one moment.

Received, fire chief is unavailable on this date. We have made this request in the past, but I asked the council to consider this reasonable request and provide department heads with the opportunity to confirm their availability before placing them on the agenda. This simple courtesy allows for better coordination and planning. Equally important, the chief should be provided reasonable notice of the specific subject matter and concerns the council wishes to address. There's further stuff there. suggesting open meeting law violations, et cetera. And I will just note that this vote was taken in a previous meeting publicly with the city chief of staff present. So she was aware of it two weeks ago. City solicitor, as the council knows, I was asked whether the mayor, at September 29th meeting, I was asked whether the mayor intended to post the position and hire a first city solicitor. The mayor's position is clear. She intends to honor the commitments she made during the fiscal 27 process, including the intent to hire a city solicitor upon passage of the full fiscal 27 budget. The mayor engaged in what she believed to be negotiations with the council, and her commitments remain with the understanding that the budget would be approved without the cuts made by the council. et cetera, et cetera, it goes on.

The council rejected the mayor's proposal and reduced the law department budget. And she followed up by, Nina followed up with the council explaining that the mayor is a person of her word and intends to implement the commitments she made during the budget process. And they were made as part of a proposal presented to the council. And I will just note, and oh, here it is. I've since confirmed with the mayor that her position remains unchanged. So that she will only hire a solicitor if we fund the full fiscal 27 budget. And I think as we noted at the last meeting, there was no negotiation because there was no agreement reached. So the mayor made a proposal, an ultimatum that was rejected. So with that, I will go to Councilor Scarpelli.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. And I think that we saw the response from the chief of staff and the intent of my resolution to bring the chief in front of us was solely for the fact that talking to the leadership of the Firefighters Union and understanding their frustration and also their willingness to try to figure things out before we went back to litigation or go back to a lawsuit and where the city was getting sued and we were losing time after time after time. So I think that the intent from our Firefighters Union was very noble in the sense that let's find a way to get the chief in front of us and instead of going through this dog and pony show that I think all of us have shared that we're frustrated as well. We're frustrated that we don't know how much money we're spending in this community with all the lawsuits and legal fees and the frustration that even sending this to a FOIA request and then possibly now sending this to the Secretary of State's office because we still haven't received a breakdown of what the ramifications of all these lawsuits from our own city employees have concluded to. So it's frustrating. So when I talked to a few members of the fire department, they said, George, here's a few situations. And they ran through a few situations that I just wanted to bring the chief here and say, chief, Is there a way that we hopefully tonight can figure out a way that we could get to a resolution for some very simple processes and concerns and issues that we don't have to send this off to another lawsuit, another arbitration and another bill in financial settlement on the backs of our residents. And unfortunately, the communication we received back from the chief of staff was that my resolution was in detailed enough that the chief, we have to run, we have to put things forth through to get approval so the chief can answer these questions. And it's frustrating. And so I will ask these questions, and maybe the rank and file that are here tonight can share just to help. Because I think that we heard of a situation that I presented that evening where educational credits. Now, being in municipality for 20 years, being in a negotiating team, being a board member in a union, in my union in municipality, I understand the process and the protocols. And I also understand how how the proper chain is moved through these processes. One of the questions was something that was negotiated, was educational credits and firefighters being reimbursed for the educational credits, right?

It's proven in a document that's signed by the mayor at the time and the president of the union at the time that makes it a legal document. And the only reason why I know this is not that I could turn to a city solicitor, where in the past I could do with just one phone call or one trip down the corner office. I have to reach out to my former colleagues that are city solicitors and I have to present them with these concerns. And I have to get their professional opinion. So I don't have to reach out to a law firm that is going to charge this city, I believe it was $600 an hour, to confer and answer a question. So I have to ask these questions so I can get the best answer without costing our taxpayers any money. The question and the document that I received from our firefighters was an agreement, I believe it's an MOU, from the union, a settlement in their contract that said they would be reimbursed or they would be given credit for educational credits and they would be paid. Period. That's it. And then we saw our communications from the chief and the chief responded with a piece of paper with something highlighted that wasn't initialed. This is what the city's former city solicitors were lawyers shared with me. There were no signatures, there was no date, there was no even initials. So it's not a binding document. It means nothing. It's no different than a tissue paper that you blow your nose with. It means nothing. So this was a situation that when I heard this was going to go to the next level, which would have been an arbitration hearing, which would have cost us money. Well, when we saw that, that's why I asked for the chief to just come in front of us. Is there a way we can settle this right now so we don't have to go to that dog and pony show so we know? Right? So thank you. We said, OK, that's one issue. I believe the next day there was an email that was sent out by the chief saying, whoa, wait, slow down. We're not done yet. We're still investigating how we're going to pay these firefighters. Not that we're not going to. So the message isn't clear. And then there was a situation where there was a suit that was heard, and it was public, right? That a firefighter who lost his job because of some sort of termination that wasn't founded. went through the proper protocol, they found out that this firefighter should not have been terminated, and the city now has to pay that person back the money that's owed to him, which is, I believe, over $100,000, and then that person will be put back in his position where he left, right?

And we're hearing that person still hasn't even been compensated or put back on the list. where the suit has been settled. Now, these are things that I wanted to ask the chief and say, chief, if this has already been done, let's stop, let's move forward, let's correct these so it doesn't have to go on to the next level. And just so you know, we're hearing this from other department heads as well. So I think that's my frustration. And my question to the chief would have been, and I would put this as a motion, to ask the chief these questions. Do we have an understanding yet for the credits, educational credits and payments out to our firefighters who've earned those contractually? Two is, are the suits that were settled already in court that we lost? Why haven't these two firefighters been put back to where they were supposed to be so we can stop any further legal actions? That's two. And third, a piece that probably bothers me more than anything as a department head, I'm a union member, so it's very odd when you're a union member and a department head. So when there's a grievance, the grievance comes to the department head. Usually that's the first level. The grievance goes to the department head. The department sees the grievance, and they read the grievance, and they say, hey, if I think I've gotten 10 of these in my lifetime, I would say half, I would say, I understand. It would stop at my level. It would be corrected.

The question I have for the chief is, he's been the chief for some time now. How many grievances at the first level has he settled on so we can move on with the business of being firefighters instead of wasting time and money? Both with the union, I'm sure you're paying a lot of money to your attorneys. And then most importantly, which I'm set to do, made sure that I'm taking care of the fiscal responsibilities and being the fiscal steward of our finance here in the community. So this is why the questions. I know some of my colleagues and myself at times are very frustrated because we haven't been getting the answers. So sometimes you're so frustrated you just want to plow through it. But I think it would be disingenuine if we did that. I think that that's the question that I wanted to pose to the chief, not to play the gotcha game, not to play that you're bad, not to play that you're a weak leader, no. The question is really to get to a resolution so we don't have to go to the next level. We could find a common ground moving forward that we can settle situations as a mediation, in a sense, because we're not seeing that with our leadership team in the corner office. So again, the chief isn't here. I can respect that. I don't like it. I didn't respect it. I know we have a response from The Chief of Staff, which was half-hearted, I don't appreciate it, and I won't take that with any weight. But I know that we have some firefighters here tonight that, after my colleagues share any concerns or questions they have, that maybe they can shed some light, since the Chief isn't here, and the only other people that deal with it on a daily basis maybe can shed some light to help us move on with this, so we can find a resolution. So thank you, Mr. President.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Clerk Siegel, do you have that list of questions from Councilor Scarpelli that he'd like submitted to the administration? Just what he just said in his speech?

[City Clerk Laurel Siegel]: Not immediately written down.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: I have three. If you could submit them as well, that would be great. And if anyone else has additional questions they would like asked, we will get those over. The question about education presents the question about settlements and why haven't reinstatements occurred. And the question about level one grievances, how many level one grievances has the chief dealt with at that level without further escalation. Right. Great. All right. Councilor Tseng.

[Councilor Justin Tseng]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. I really can't add that much more to it. You were on fire. You're, I mean.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: Oh, that's good.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: I think we want nobody on fire.

[Councilor Justin Tseng]: Yeah. I mean, I want to second that motion to get those questions over and the answers back because these are the basics of how any, don't even say city government. This is the basics of how any organization should be run. It's insane that we're asking these questions, that we have a culture here in the city where we won't find resolutions, peaceful resolutions before things get litigious and things get contested and combative. We could have so much unity and peace in the city if people were willing to talk to each other and willing to hear each other out. This has been a one-sided conversation, unfortunately. You know, I see all the firefighters here today, and you've been here God knows how many times over the last few years, and it's awful. You guys shouldn't have to come here.

And yet, we still don't have basic answers, questions that we need answers to. And so I'll leave it there because I think it's important to hear from our firefighters and to get those answers to the questions that Councilor Scarpelli asked.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Seeing no further hands, I will just briefly say that I think We need to figure out in this city how we can sit down at a table and talk to each other and how all the people who work for this city can figure out how to come to work every day and be excited to come to work and not be afraid to come to work. And I think this is yet another incident in a long line of incidents across many departments where We're getting into fights and arguments because we won't sit down at a table. We won't try to work together. We won't try to work things out. And I hope that we can get some answers to these questions. I hope we can get someone to come down from the administration, whether it's the chief or the mayor or the chief of staff, so that we can work things out because it just seems like a never-ending battle where nobody wins. Nobody wins. The city doesn't win. The firefighters don't win. The city workers don't win. And the residents don't win, because the people who work for the city don't feel good about working for the city, and that's not how it should be. So I'll just leave it at that. If there's anything from you guys that you'd like to say, I'll open the mic.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_08]: Good evening. Jeremiah O'Brien, President, Medford Firefighters, Local 1032. I just wanted to start by going through, I know that last time we were here we spoke about a FOIA request that we put through. That's only been partially filled. We've received information about 2025, which is missing about four months. 2024 has been fully fulfilled. 23 is missing one month. 22 is missing six months. 21 is missing completely, and 2020 is missing completely.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: I'm sorry, this is information about?

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_08]: About legal expenses that the city has spent on.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yeah, got it, got it, great, thank you. Firefighters alone. Thank you, thank you.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_08]: So Justin, what we have back, it's not even half filled, is $286,000. Obviously, that's a large number. For us this year alone, we've spent $135,000. So as you can see, it's only climbing. Obviously, we want to come to resolutions, like George said, with the fire chief in his office. We feel as if that's not even an opportunity afforded to us. We've tried on multiple occasions. The education is just the most recent one. You don't just pay someone a certain amount of money In some cases, over five years, and then take it away and say, well, we don't think your credits are correct. I mean, that's unacceptable, especially since these are credits that have already been accepted for, like I said, over five years prior. So if there's any more questions about the education, we'd be happy to answer those as well.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: Just one thing on that, Brian Honeycutt, Secretary for the Union. We were informed, I was actually informed myself, I was the first person to be notified on Tuesday when we were getting paid on a Friday that credits weren't going to be accepted. So there was no leeway for guys to get things figured out. I actually personally had to send out the emails or text messages to the guys to let them know they weren't getting paid. I'm one of those people on that.

Yeah, in his, this administration, the current one we have right now with the current chief, has paid this out two times previously, so it didn't come out of left field.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Just before you go, Councilor Scobell, could you talk about just in practice, right, so this means that people's paychecks were one thing and now their paychecks are cut down and the communication was with three days notice?

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: The last week of September you're supposed to be paid for education and, yeah, last week of September. Yeah. Yeah, and so guys were expecting it, and I was the one to let them know on Wednesday or Tuesday that, sorry, but that $3,000 stipend that I personally thought I was getting myself was not gonna be getting paid. There was one discrepancy in mine, so even if there was, say it was, you were at the fourth level and he said, well, I think you should be at the third level, you didn't get paid for the third level. You got paid zilch, so. It's pretty, you know, it wasn't just knocked down a tier and then you were arguing over, you know, four to six credits. It was everything or nothing.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Okay. Two more things and I'll go to Councilor Scarpelli. Were you notified that they were looking into changes around this at any point or did they discuss it with you? No.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: So, yeah, I was called in myself personally.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: In your capacity as like an individual or as a union representative? When I was at work as a union representative.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: I was called into his office and he said he was going to file, you know, files about this thick. These 27 members all have, you know, what he deemed discrepancies in their paperwork. They're not going to be getting paid this week.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: And that was like with days of notice?

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, two and a half days of notice. Okay.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: And I guess my last question is just so that folks can understand, because they probably don't understand the details of your contract or what this is all about, but why did the city negotiate education credits? What is it incentivizing? What does that mean? Like what are firefighters doing to- Fire science credits. Right.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: Continuing education through the academy. all things that have been contractually agreed upon, bargained, like Councilor Scarpelli said.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Incentives for firefighters to stay up to date on latest protocols, to learn additional, you know, certifications and just, if you could talk a little bit more about like, when you go to school, what do you learn?

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so things like, you could learn rescue tactics, like, you know, hazmat, you could learn confined space, you could learn rope rescues, you could learn, you know, different, Yeah, fire investigations, you know, different things like that, different fire tactic classes and things like that. If you were a deputy chief, how to read fires, you know, different, yeah, smoke conditions, things like that.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: It's an incentive for you guys to go above and beyond to learn more so you can better protect the residents.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: Exactly. And to better ourselves, you know, it's, you know, it's a. I don't know. I mean.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: And it's something.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: We should want to better ourselves and the city should want us to be better at our jobs as well.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yeah.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: That's how I view it.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Just wanted to quickly go down that. I have Councilor Scarpelli and Vice President Lazzaro. Councilor Scarpelli.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: I think that was the one that I wanted to make clear so the residents can understand. This isn't something you just negotiate and get money because you said this is education credits that you negotiated that the city agreed on and that said You're going to make yourselves better on your dime, you're going to go to take these classes, you're going to get certified, you're going to get these educational credits. And then by doing that, we agreed that you're going to get a stipend at this level every year. Now from what I gather.

Nothing's changed when the chief became the chief when he first signed off on those credits in your stipend, correct? For the last couple of years, two or three years, he's been signing off. But for some odd reason, again, and we're seeing a lot of retaliation with union members lately, that this is what's alarming to us, is that all of a sudden, two and a half days before, okay, you don't qualify anymore, there's some discrepancies. Well, it's alarming that as a city councilor as well, that if there's a discrepancy and we just paid them off for the last three years for 29 firefighters, that's just as alarming.

But from what I gather, from what I've read from a few documents that were shared with me, It speaks directly to what was agreed upon in a contract. And it seems like you've done your due diligence, and you should have been paid for it. So.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: The one thing about that, Councilor Scarpelli, was that you talked about a piece of paper that you have seen that technically the chief was going off of. Right. Like you said, that was actually, from what we believe, a proposal from a previous contract. So it was nothing contractual, nothing signed in our agreement that said exactly what classes played out.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: And that's why.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: What institutions you could use.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: I think that's why I'm bothered as a negotiating member and a signing member when it comes to negotiations and everything had to be, you know, there were 300 pages that we would have to initial, we would have to sign, and by doing that, that made it a legal binding agreement. So when that was shared with me that there was just a blank piece of paper, That's all it was, a blank piece of paper. It had no standing at all. And I had to reassure myself because I said, if I'm going to go down this rabbit hole, I shared that with a few legal minds that I've trusted for many years. And they said, George, this paper doesn't mean anything. There's nothing to it. There's no page one that said anything. There's no last page that had signatures. There's no initials to that page. And no date.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_08]: Just to be more clear on that piece of paper, when the chief decided that he wasn't going to accept Fire Academy credits anymore, he said the reason was because he didn't know how many hours at the Fire Academy would equal one credit. So for example, say it's what we have gone by is 15 hours equals one credit. And if he just read two lines above the line that he was going off of, it explains 15 hours equals one credit. So it's not just trying to use a piece of paper that isn't signed, isn't agreed upon. It's also not even following that to the words on it.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: So it says a lot. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Vice President Lazzaro.

[Councilor Emily Lazzaro]: I appreciate you bringing this to our attention. There is sort of a method that you can utilize to bring this to, you know, if there's a breach of contract that you can bring it forward to arbitration, right? I'm only saying that because I do want to mention that it's just highlighting a pattern that we've observed. City councilors don't get to join a union, so we don't have something that we can, we don't have like arbitration that we can go to, but we write ordinances, for example, which are laws in the city, and then the mayor's job is to make sure that those laws get carried out, and what has been happening sometimes is that she just doesn't. And then, unfortunately, we can't do anything about it. And it can be... It's extremely frustrating, but it... Doesn't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: I know.

[Councilor Emily Lazzaro]: That's what I'm thinking. And I'm I'm jealous of the capacity that you have to utilize the systems that are already in place because you've signed a contract and now you can carry it through. What's really frustrating from the city perspective is that it costs money and you just finished one and there's probably others in process already and we know how many times, you know, and I don't think like I've worked with Chief Evans. I meet with him on a regular basis. I think he's a good person. I don't think this is something he came up with to do. I don't think that there was probably, you know, a vindictive moment that he had where he was like, I don't think that this is something that I should continue to sign off on. You know, I think it was probably a larger conversation. This is, I'm just guessing. But I, it's really unfortunate that we have to keep doing these, Having these conversations, you have to keep carrying out the full capacity of all of this infrastructure of your union, all of these lawyers, all of these fees.

and going all the way to the end of the road and then we settle again. And we're wasting so much money on this instead of just operating a city the way it could be operated and fully staffing your firehouses and allowing you to continue to develop as professionals. It is so obvious to me that you should be doing professional development as firefighters, and if not more than what you're doing right now, if not to a greater degree doing tactical training and having a dive team and being in the trees and having more equipment and stuff, I mean, you're underfunded and understaffed.

You shouldn't be wasting money on lawyers, and we shouldn't be wasting money on lawyers, so that there can be debates about things that are in your contract that you've negotiated in good faith and signed off on, on both sides. Saying this because the purpose of having this discussion here in a public forum is so that people in the city understand what's happening, not because we can actually do anything to help you beyond have this public meeting. I think it's important that we're having the public meeting and the discussion publicly. I appreciate you bringing it forward. And I hope that you have the stamina to continue to go through the process. And I'm sorry that you have to.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Vice President Lazzaro. Do we have any further questions from members of the council?

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: There's a couple other things.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yes, go ahead, Brian.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: President Bears, if you don't mind, that we kind of just wanted to bring to light, and Vice President Lazzaro kind of was just talking on it, you know, ways to bring it, you know, in simpler terms to members of the community. We currently have $331,000 out in owed money to under three arbitration winnings. The first one is $175,000 to one member, $98,000 to another member, and $58,000 for an overtime bypass. The statute of limitations has ran out on all of them, so there's no more time for them to appeal. The second one, the $98,000, is in the process of being signed and settled. The other two will still be outstanding.

And we currently have, so we've had 14 arbitrations since 2020, two full DLR hearings, and we have four more arbitrations scheduled for the end of the year, beginning of next year, and one full DLR hearing scheduled for next year. Out of those 14 arbitrations, I don't want to say win, but the union has won 13 out of 14. So just to say, if our legal bills for the year so far have been $135,000, almost $136,000, the city's paying that as well to fight against the union. You know, just as a 36-year resident of Medford, employee of Medford, taxpayer of Medford, There's a lot of things. I mean, you know, the Medford Community Network, the streets, the DBW, the schools, everybody needs money. I just think it's, I mean, you're talking, yeah, I mean, half a million dollars in wasted funds.

So that's concerning to myself as a resident and should be everybody else.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Brian. Yeah, one for 14, it's not even good in baseball. Councilor Scarpelli.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. I don't want to keep beating it to death, but that's one thing we asked for over the last five years, how much legal fees it costs. We haven't gotten a true indication, but I know I've heard over and over again, I believe the chief executive went on a show and said that, you know, if she went out and did a video every time she won a lawsuit against the fire department, it would be disgusting.

I've been following this pretty closely. How many lawsuits, grievances in the past five years has the fighting department lost to this administration?

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_08]: We've lost one. And the 14 number isn't including ones that have been settled prior to arbitration.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: We've settled seven prior to arbitration as well.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: So one out of 21.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: Yes. Batting average is not getting better.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: So again, I don't want to keep beating on this, but I think that's why I really asked for the Chief. With all sincerity, I really wanted the Chief to be here to say, Chief, there's got to be a dialogue that we can, even if this council can find a way to mediate, a way that we can get to a resolution so it doesn't have to go back to the city, back to the taxpayers, that we can understand these situations and follow through for what you did do already, which is pay these attorneys. The fact that you paid over $400,000, I can't imagine what the city has paid. Or should I say, some people don't know, sometimes it's not the city that pays it. So I believe I was told tonight that we should be happy that sometimes it's the insurance companies that we pay out that they pay the penalty. And it's not coming out of us. The city's not getting hurt. And thinking that would be a feather in our cap, I thought that was, that's something that I find disheartening as you look at the process. It's not just the city that doesn't come out of the taxpayer's pocket sometimes. Sometimes it comes out of.

insurance agreements. But I will tell you, I will tell you, I appreciate the fact that you reached out and we had that dialogue that we said, hey, enough is enough. We grew up here. We live here. Your kids go to school here. You'd rather see this money go to where it's needed instead of to legal fees that there is no standing. And we've proven that at least 20 out of 21 times. But on a side note, again, something you get no credit for. People don't realize this when, I know we've been pretty quiet for fires in Medford, but I know our neighbors have had a few, and a lot of the people that are sitting in this room were also on roofs and running into burning buildings in the last couple weeks, and I wanted to thank you guys for that, because some people don't realize that. You're just not protecting the people from Medford. Sometimes you're called upon to go above and beyond, and that's going over the line to help people from Somerville, Stoneham, And I want to thank you guys for doing that as well. So thank you, Mr. President.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_08]: I just think the last thing that I want to leave with the council and the residents is that just a comparison between us and the city of Boston's fire department, we are in nowhere near the same universe as them. We have around 110 members. They, at any time, have around 1,600. And this year alone, we have had the same amount of arbitrations as them. It's a big difference in size and the same amount of arbitrations.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: And the one, sorry, one final thing. I believe it was Councilor Scarpelli was talking about solving things, step one, or even step two when it comes to the city. We go to the chief, hash it out there, then go to the city before we file for arbitration. The amount of conversations we've had since Jerry, Eddie, and myself have been in since January. Every single time we talk with the chief, we're like, can we just solve something here, regardless of how minuscule it may be, just to finally break bread and get things done. We haven't solved a single thing. Everything has gone to second step.

I actually don't think we've got anything in Second Step. No.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Do you ever meet with the administration at Second Step?

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: Oh, yeah.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yeah. Yeah. But never, it always goes to arbitration.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_09]: It was the former HR director who we always met with.

[Bob Jones]: Yeah.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Could you, just into the mic, people can't hear you.

[Bob Jones]: Yeah, we had instances where the hearing officer was also testifying for the chief. So they were playing two roles, which is obviously illegal. We have had, I believe.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: So they were hearing the grievance and testifying for one side in the grievance dispute?

[Bob Jones]: Correct. Yes. Great. So we've had multiple DLR, Department of Labor Relations charges on the grievance process. We've won all of them. I believe it was two or three of them. Just to drill down a little bit on the stuff that was discussed before, this is just one situation. We have these on a monthly basis, this education, situation. It happens all the time. And like Brian said, every time we meet with the chief, we ask him to settle it in the office. We don't want to go to City Hall. We don't want to go to the lawyers. Just for some numbers, I mean, taxpayers should be upset at the amount of money that is going out. I have a report that shows that we spent $2.4 million in legal bills over the past six years. Haven't won many cases.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: That's just KP law, it's more like 5 million.

[Bob Jones]: More like 5 million, okay. Are we getting any value out of that 5 million? I don't think so, I think we're losing actually too. As far as our legal bill since January of 2020, $432,000 is what the union has paid. So I'm sure the city has paid more than that to lose mostly every case. We have, George, could I see the piece of paper that you referenced that the Chief highlighted? Do you have that document?

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: I have it in my office, I can forward it to you.

[Bob Jones]: Okay, I'd like to see it, because if it's the same document that I'm talking about, something was found, like Brian said, it could be a proposal, who knows what it was. And so the Chief just started to go off it. He had paid, another thing that's, let's just not forget about, people had been paid last year and the previous year on these same credits. fire science, fire academy credits will count as fire science credits, the things that we talked about before. And then all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, they stopped being paid. He actually took money out of somebody's check, which is illegal. So if it's a piece of paper that I'm talking about, he found a piece of paper, so the chief, when we discussed it with him, he didn't know what it was, he didn't ask us, and he just decided to go off of that. And again, we would love to be able to Settle the grievance, that's step one. These are clear contract language, cut and dried situations, as Councilor Lazzaro said, that they say, we don't care. We're not going to honor the contract. Go to arbitration. And it's my suspicion that that's what we do with every single case, just to cost the union money. I mean, you've seen it with the DPW. You've seen it with other departments. Nobody goes, nobody gets a contract. You got to threaten JLMC, which we're at right now. We can go into, I mean, I could talk up here for an hour about all these things. We could talk about our contract, which is another disgraceful situation. And again, I'm embarrassed to be here with these issues. Love to be able to handle these on our own. Thank you for the forum. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: And Jerry, just to confirm, you said we have the same number of arbitrations with 110 firefighters that Boston has with 1,600 or more?

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_08]: Yes, for this year. All right.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thanks. Anything else, George?

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: No, thank you, Mr. President. All right.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thanks, you guys.

[3ypfWQqQ8Ws_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right. We have the motion of Councilor Scarpelli on those three questions. Are there any other questions we want to submit to the administration? on the legal questions. I would just like to add one, if someone could add this for me, since I can't. Which is, I'd like to get an answer as to whether they're agreeing to do the outside audit and review with a public report on the legal practices of the city. I think that was another request we had made last week. So if we could add that to the motion. Yeah, Councilor's saying thank you.

Cuz I think that's what we're gonna need to move ahead on this. One second, Bob. Bob, one second. All right, do we have a second on that? I second. Seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Okay, so that's an amendment to Councilor Scarpelli's original motion. Yes, Mr. Jones.

[Bob Jones]: One thing I would like to know, what line item, what portion of the budget are these legal fees and all these settlements coming out of? That's why we're asking for this.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Like seven different ones.

[Bob Jones]: Okay. We got an answer. I didn't know we had an insurance company that would pay those out.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: I think some things are, but I don't know if arbitrations, I think lawsuits can, but we haven't gotten an answer on that.

[Bob Jones]: Good to know where that money's coming from.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yeah, we got some responses. We got maybe 25 pages of documents that we had to compile ourselves because the administration said they didn't have time to figure out how much we've been paying outside council, how much had been paid in settlements. I think the ones they sent us were just, and I might be wrong about this, I'd have to look, but I think it was just the ones that were paid for with, Municipal funds, I don't know if it even included insurance, what was paid out by insurance. It didn't specify, I don't think.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: Yeah. Or with that, I know that you mentioned something with, was it 165, 93, 50 something thousand. Residents don't understand this is what our frustration is. We're back paying these firefighters that we already paid someone to do that job. So, by the way, mostly had to be overtime as well. So this is where our frustration comes in. So the residents understand, why do we keep beating this up? It's because we still don't have the answers and we're bleeding money and we need the answers.

[Bob Jones]: 100% correct. These are monies that should not have to be paid. These are settlements that if the city did and was able to negotiate with us and come to a good resolution, these settlements wouldn't be paid. It's extra money that's being burdened to the taxpayer due to bad decisions. None of this 2.4 million, all these hundreds of thousands of dollars don't have to be spent. I hope everybody at home, the taxpayer and the citizen understands that. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right. I see no further discussion by members of the council. Are there any members of the public who'd like to comment on this item? You can raise your hand on Zoom or come to the podium in the chamber. All right, seeing none, on the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to refer these questions to the administration amended by Councilor Tseng and seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion passes. All right.

Paper 26180, reappropriations of the capital stabilization fund for Medford Public Schools. Dear President, mayors and city councilors, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body in accordance with the attached fiscal 27 capital budget changes memorandum dated August 21st, 2026, and approved by the school committee on August 24th, 2026, approve the following funds to be appropriated from the projects, adding railings to the Cairn Theater, flooring rug replacement at the auditorium, auditorium seating repair and Cairn Theater lighting, to the proposed project to replace intercom systems at Brooks, Roberts, and Missituk schools. And from the project for the Roberts hot water tank replacement to the Brooks chiller repairs, expanded scope for Brooks turf repairs, supplement funding, the McGlynn fridge freezer condenser replacement, Roberts drainage repairs, and Roberts fire pump repairs. We have Ken Lord, the Chief Operating Officer for Medford Public Schools. And I'll recognize you, Ken, if you could just present on this and then we will consider it.

[Kenneth Lord]: Thank you, President Bears. Yes, these capital project budget changes come from two primary sources. The first section of projects, we were able to complete the carrot theater railings with our operating budget last year, and the next three items we receive funding from the state supplemental budget. So you no longer needed to use those capital funds as part of the budget to towards to completing these projects. And we'd like to reallocate these towards the intercom replacements that would be in next year's capital budget at the three elementary schools. And the second section, the Roberts hot water tank. This project was originally a full electrification project. of the two hot water tanks at the Roberts School, which is a fairly expensive project. We did have to replace one of those two hot water tanks during the school year last year as it had failed. And also the accelerated repair program, we had hired the contractors for RFS Engineering and PCA 360. and they advised against an electrification project. So we'd like to use those funds towards these projects listed, and that still leaves enough money to replace the other hot water tank at Roberts with a traditional gas-fired hot water tank.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right. Thank you, Ken. Do we have any questions from members of the Council? Councilor Mullane.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Just a quick question. The Roberts hot water tank replacement, wasn't that for 250,000 total? And this is for 209. What happens to the rest of that money that we have left over?

[Kenneth Lord]: Correct. We're requesting to allocate 209,000 of the 250 to those projects, and the remaining funds will be directed towards the remaining Roberts hot water tank that needs to be replaced.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Great. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any further questions? All right, seeing none, is there a motion? On the motion to approve by Councilor Callahan, seconded by? Seconded by Vice President Lazzaro. Clerk Siegel, please call the roll.

[City Clerk Laurel Siegel]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Mullane? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? No. Councilor Tseng? Okay. Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. President Bears?

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, two absent. The motion passes. Thank you, Ken.

[Kenneth Lord]: Thank you, everyone.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right, paper 26-178 offered by President Bears and Councilor Tseng, and hopefully Councilor Tseng will be back here in time to present this. 26-178, resolution to discuss a pilot and community benefits framework for Medford, whereas the Medford City Council has previously sought to establish a more transparent and representative framework for payments in lieu of taxes pilot, including papers 20021 and 20053. which resulted in the preparation of a draft pilot commission ordinance and the council's 2024 through 2025 governing agenda, which subsequently contemplated a community benefits agreement ordinance. providing for community participation in negotiations with major development projects and nonprofit institutions. And whereas Medford's last written pilot agreement with Tufts University expired in 2018, the subsequent arrangement was not memorialized in a publicly available written agreement and Medford currently lacks a permanent publicly established process through which residents and the city council can participate. in defining and negotiating pilot contributions and community benefits, and whereas large non-profit institutions and major development projects can have significant and lasting impacts on Medford's neighborhoods, housing, infrastructure, public services, and finances, and the city would benefit from a transparent and consistent framework for community participation, institutional dialogue, negotiated community benefits, and public accountability, Be it resolved that the Medford City Council discuss the development of a comprehensive pilot and community benefits framework, including revisiting and updating the previously drafted pilot commission ordinance and developing a community benefits agreement ordinance. All right, Vice President Lazzaro, I'm gonna need you to take the chair because Councilor Tseng was supposed to present this paper, but he's not present. So I need to present it from the floor.

[Councilor Anna Callahan]: I don't wanna present first, but I'll talk after you guys.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Councilor Tseng pilot commission. All right. If you could present the pilot. I just read out the resolution, Councilor Tseng.

[Councilor Justin Tseng]: Thank you, Mr. President, for reading that. Sorry for my delay. I'm asking the council to support the pilot slash community benefits resolution that we're introducing tonight. Because I think that Medford needs a more serious, more transparent, and more durable relationship with the major institutions that call our city home. Tufts is an important part of Medford. It educates students, employs people, supports research. It contributes to the cultural and economic life of our community. But being part of a community also means having responsibilities to that community. When a major tax-exempt institution occupies valuable land, when it relies on public infrastructure and services, and when it makes decisions that shape the neighborhoods that surround it, Residents deserve a meaningful voice in that relationship. And the city, us, we deserve a clear understanding of what that institution is contributing in return. We've seen, I'm sure a lot of folks have seen the comparisons of what they would be paying in property taxes versus what they are paying in their pilot. And as was in the resolution earlier, we've had a lack of transparency on this. for almost a decade. We haven't heard anything as a council. Residents haven't heard anything about what our pilot agreement is today.

That's why I want us as a council and as a community to revisit two tools. First, a pilot framework and a second community benefits framework. A pilot conversation is about whether major tax-exempt institutions should make an appropriate contribution towards the public services that sustain them and the communities on which they rely. A community benefits framework is, sorry, Community Benefits Framework is broader. It's about institutional growth, housing, transportation, neighborhood impacts, local employment, and the other ways that they affect our community.

Later tonight, I know we're going to discuss Boston Ave again. I've spent a lot of time with residents in the neighborhood. And I think folks have raised really legitimate questions about whether privately developed student housing could someday be acquired by Tufts, what additional housing capacity could mean for university growth, and why Tufts itself should play more of a role and assume more responsibility in our community. I think those questions deserve real answers, but we should not try to manage the entire relationship between Medford and Tufts through any one small permitting process for any one property. And plus we know the Dover Amendment really does hurt our community's say in negotiating with Tufts. So I think we should answer those questions directly, comprehensively, and publicly. We should amplify the voices of our residents, especially the residents who are dealing with these major institutions, be it the tax-exempt ones or the big developments that come into our community. We should be able to enforce those agreements, to enforce the promises that these actors bring into our community, and we should We should form these commissions because they mean deciding what Medford should ask for. It means us hearing more from residents, sitting down with Tufts at the institutional level, and building a framework that survives any one project, any one controversy, one mayor, or one council. I don't think this is about hostility towards any one institution. I believe that this is about partnership with accountability. Trust but verify.

A city should not have to negotiate its future one property, one permit, or one controversy at a time. We should know what our expectations are as a city. We should put them into daylight and negotiate from a position of clarity. I believe that we're stronger when we talk about these things first and when we negotiate all together, residents and the city government. So this resolution begins that work. I think there's a lot of work to do on this, and I hope all of you, my colleagues, will support it. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Just very briefly before I go to Councilor Callahan and Vice President Lazzaro, I appreciate you bringing this up and inviting me to cosponsor this. In your resolution, you talk about Papers 20021 and 20053. Those are, the 20 is 2020. I introduced these in the first three or four months that I was on the City Council. I think at least one of them with Councilor Morell at the time. George and I are the only ones left who voted on those. And, you know, a pilot commission, I think one of those I even introduced before COVID, which struck about three months into my first term.

You know, pilot negotiations, pilot commission, those are, I think, really important advances that we need to take. I know a lot of residents. have a lot of questions about why we don't have a public pilot agreement with Tufts, about what the city's negotiating position and power even is with Tufts. And I think a lot could go a long way if there was a group of residents who were able to be part of negotiations, and we were pushing for a formalized agreement, and we were pushing for a long-term certainty about what Tufts is going to do from a development perspective. And that was one of the first issues I put forward seven years ago. The administration, through its many City solicitors and KP lawyers and all of them never really engaged in a serious way on that ordinance. So we'll see if we can get them to do it again. Thanks. Councilor Callahan.

[Councilor Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I'm especially excited about this because I think it's a really hot topic. I've been at a couple of different listening sessions recently at people's houses where they gathered many neighbors together and talked about this issue. And, you know, one of the things that became really clear to me is that If you do look at the agreements that we've had in the past with Tufts, they appear to be really driven by Tufts. So Tufts decides Tufts is going to do a community day and that's worth a certain amount of money, and Tufts is going to give this amount of payment in lieu of taxes, and then Tufts is going to count as some amount of money their own students, doing pro bono work for some organization in Medford, which really puts the burden on those students. Tess doesn't have to give up anything.

When we were sitting down, I have to say, I was at one of these neighborhood meetings with President Bears, another one of them with Consort Tseng. The issues that came up as things that people care about are not the things that appear in the agreement from Tufts. So Tufts is deciding and making the decisions about what matters and what doesn't matter. And I want to just go ahead and read off some of the things that the neighbors who live right near Tufts were concerned about. And a lot of these, they don't appear anywhere in the agreements that we have had historically with Tufts.

They're concerned about the water table and green space. They're concerned about rats from construction, about parking, about fire trucks not being able to get by. Some people say they lost mirrors when trucks came by down roads that used to be cars only and no trucks, but then because of construction from Tufts, they became a road that could be driven down by those trucks. They're worried about poisoning pollinators with lawn poison. They're worried about what the difference is between the deal that Somerville gets and the deal that we get and how we can use that as kind of a way to look at what we're doing. They want better communications about what Tufts is doing. They want to understand how they can communicate better with Tufts students about late night noise and about trash. They're worried about climate change, the impacts of buildings and trees being removed. They're worried about their ability to use some of the services that Tufts provides on Tufts campus, about traffic, about parking.

And I'm not even through. There are so many other things that neighbors are really affected by. And some of those people are here today. And I think having the neighbors be involved in this conversation is absolutely crucial. Because if we don't allow that to happen, Tufts derives what the agreement is. And it doesn't cover half of the topics that they are concerned about. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan, Vice President Lazzaro.

[Councilor Emily Lazzaro]: My favorite version of that is when Tufts told us that when they accept students from Medford and then they become Tufts students, that that counts as one of the payments they make to Medford. It's like they had to get in, guys. They still have to pay tuition. But if they give them any scholarships, that counts as like scholarships that they earn. that counts as payment to Medford. I was like, I don't see how that would work.

So Tufts gets a really good deal, and it's a nonprofit, and I could absolutely get in a soapbox because I've worked for a lot of universities in this area. And I have a couple of degrees from them. And I just, they are nonprofit institutions, but they have incredibly huge endowments. And they still charge so much money for tuition and then they put that money in a bank account and they just take the interest and they spend it and then they ask rich people to continue to give more money. And they ask not rich people to pay. to attend the school, and then they get to not pay any taxes. It's really crazy. I believe Tufts pays $500,000, like pays $500,000 to Medford in its agreement, but Harvard pays crazy amounts more than that to Cambridge. BU pays tons more than that to Boston.

I mean, Medford has this legacy for decades of just Not really. like trying to rock the boat or like asking for too much because if we, we don't want to be a bother because if we're a bother, then like what if someday we really need something and then nobody at the state or like a big institution or somewhere important would want to give it to us. But then the thing is like all of these things are things we need. We need money from Tufts because they have money and we need it to operate a city. We need services, we need streets, we need like safety, we need all the things that they're using from us. Like their police department, they have a police department, but they don't, they can't do a lot of things. Their police department can't do a lot of things. So then they, that police department has to call our police department. And then they use our services that they do not pay for.

So I think that this resolution, We should be taking it very, very far. We should spend a long time on this. This should be a project on par with like zoning or the charter. This needs to be like a big project. And then we need to put it in front of Tufts and say, this is, I mean, I don't really know how we, how we make it clear to Tufts from the government of Medford and from the people of Medford that, All of us are joined together in saying that we are not going to say we don't need anything from you anymore, because we've said that for long enough. We think you guys are great. But you can't leave. We're not asking you to. We're just asking you to participate in this community in a way that is significantly bigger than Tufts Community Day and in a way that is significantly bigger than like accepting the students that grew up in Medford and earned a place in your institution and then giving them the scholarships that they deserve, you need to pay for the services that you use, and you need to participate in our community adequately. So I think we should really take it very seriously, put it in committee and make like regular meetings, monthly at least, until we have it really ironed out. And I don't know, really bring in the community. Because everybody agrees that Tufts is getting such a sweetheart deal. Every resident that you talk to, it's like the vacant storefront ordinance. It's like everybody you talk to is like, please, make it so these storefronts are not ugly and empty. Like, we're trying to make this community better. How do we do that? And that's how it is with Tufts. They're like, yeah.

make it better, make this relationship better. Stop letting them walk all over us. So we got to do it. So I really appreciate you bringing this forward. I think it's very exciting and now's the moment.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Mullane.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: I obviously want to reiterate what my other Councilors have said here tonight, too. I think many of us, as we were even out there, you know, myself going door to door, talking to people, talking about how important it is to address this, to what everyone has already said tonight about the benefits that is believed to be coming from Tufts in this pilot program is just abysmal when you compare to other universities. I work in a higher ed university. We just came up with another plan for the city of Boston that's not only just thinking, you know, short-term but also a long-term master plan of really being strategic about what those benefits look like and how the neighborhoods are actually going to benefit from those types of investments. And it just seems like that we keep missing the mark when it comes to having these conversations with Tufts. And it's about time, and I really appreciate people bringing this up right now. And to have the community be a part of that, and what are those things that are actually beneficial, that the community is actually asking for, that we need to see here within Medford. So, yet again, I really appreciate this because without having this constant conversations. And I agree with Vice President Lazzaro about this isn't just a one-time thing. This is something we need to continuously have conversations on, be strategic, be planful and mindful about the impact that this can make, and something that we need to make sure that we continue to push forward because obviously without These Councilors sitting around here, I think we've seen this time and time again. These different types of agreements and movements to bring money into the city seem to consistently be missing the mark. And instead, as we just heard, we seem to be spending it out on all of these different types of lawsuits and things that are not benefiting our city. So thank you again, and I look forward to continuously working with everyone and the community and people here today about what that could look like.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Mr. President.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Councilman Ford. I think it's important. Councilman Callahan really hits the mark when you share the words of the neighbors, and I think that that's one thing we all hear, I think, that listening to the residents. And I concur with everything everybody said. And I think it's time that we start a working group, Mr. President, that we organize our community leaders and residents, a representative from the council and a representative from Tufts University. And then I hate to say this because I don't want to put more credit to where they, because I know I get a paycheck from them every week, but really, bringing in a representative from Somerville that actually sat on those committees and drove their pilot programs and maybe share their expertise and maybe getting them involved with a board working group with us and try to get this process going. And I do remember, Council, Council Bears and Council Morell at the time bringing this forward and we unanimously move forward with the process and to sit here seven years later and really not have anything yet that tangible that we can look at and say, boy, we really feel proud of this document and now we see where the benefit for that partner that we have in Tufts. So I think that I would make the motion that we, form a working group and like Councilor Lazzaro said, start putting some hours into this and put a group together with the residents and Tufts and like I said, I would love to see someone from Somerville who crafted their pilots and don't reinvent the wheel but bring someone in, so thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: I think Councilor Scarpelli, if we could move to refer to Committee of the Whole, we can talk about that. And, you know, I really just want to, I do want to bring us back to one key point, which is the mayor negotiates on behalf of the city. She's the only one who can. As Councilor Lazzaro noted in the last item, we can come up with the best ordinance in the world, and we can pass it, and the mayor can do nothing to enforce it, and we have no recourse, no arbitration, no anything. And we've seen, as you've heard on other items tonight, that when we try to ask questions, we get told that we're not funding the $2 raise for the librarians, and we're not funding $6,000 for the Arts Council, and we're not. I'm going to hire a city solicitor until you agree to my demands. So I really just, you know, do want to temper some expectations. I think we can do a lot of work over the next year writing up a really good approach. We can't execute that approach without the person who negotiates on behalf of the city being a person who will do that and that is just a reality.

As I said, I brought it up about seven years ago now. I've pushed it every year. I know a lot of residents have pushed it for a really long time. And we need the mayor to commit to act. So we have the motion to refer to the committee of the whole to discuss forming a working group by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Tseng. Any further comments by members of the council? All right, seeing none, we will go to public and you can raise your hand on Zoom or come to the podium in the chamber. We'll start in the chamber. Let me get the timer going. You will have three minutes, one second.

If you could give us your name and your neighborhood for the record and you'll have three minutes.

[eWg7lyFP5WI_SPEAKER_12]: I'm Leslie Kramer, 10 Adams Street, Medford Hillside. I'm very excited to have the city council be thinking about this and excited about this. We've had a number of meetings about it and my guess is that you, I know the mayor is basically in charge. And you've got a whole bunch of folks who are sitting here tonight who are eager and happy and willing and filled with ideas about how to, because we're so directly impacted by Tufts on the hillside, how to participate and how to participate respectfully and with many ideas. Some of us have lived on the hillside for over 50 years.

And so we understand some of the dynamics. And we, I think some of us also have a pretty good relationship with the mayor, which also helps. And hopefully with some of you folks sitting around here. So thank you for taking this up and have a good evening.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Seeing no hands on Zoom, we'll stay at the podium. If you could give your name and your neighborhood for the record and you'll have three minutes.

[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Nick Giurleo, 40 Robinson Road. I am very strongly in favor of this resolution. To put it simply, my alma mater, Tufts University, is ripping Medford off. As tuition approaches nearly $100,000 a year, Tufts is not providing enough in community benefits, including payment in lieu of taxes. To Medford residents, we've done a lot to accommodate and show goodwill to the university, especially with regard to its development plans. I think it's time to be tougher on Tufts. The city's last pilot agreement in writing lasted until 2018. After that, I learned through a little bit of digging that while the city extended the deal by handshake agreement, there's no written document memorializing the transaction. This is really stunning given the large amount of money at play. The last pilot in writing was a promise to pay more than $1.3 million over a five-year period. Imagine entering into a contract with somebody to affect a million-dollar transaction and not even having a piece of paper to document the deal. This not only calls into legal question the enforceability of the agreement, but also provides yet another example of this administration's failure to keep adequate and basic legal records, and this council's failure to hold the administration accountable for the neglect. I would like to see a future pilot agreement that provides Medford with significantly more, both in pecuniary and in in-kind benefits. That begins with a significant increase in the annual payment that accounts for the profit margins Tufts is making and a greater student enrollment thanks to new housing. I'd also like to see benefits that give Medford residents greater and easier access to university resources, more application privileges for residents who apply for admission, and pledges that guarantee that Tufts and its community be good neighbors to residents who live in the vicinity of campus. I'd also like to see covenants that Tufts will be more transparent about its development plans, including disclosing well in advance when it tends to move forward on a project. Too many residents are ambushed by the university announcing that it is going to build something. That cannot be acceptable to our community. That all said, my only complaint about this resolution is that it was not put forward sooner. Negotiations with the university need to begin immediately. We need a pilot agreement that is much fairer to the people of Medford. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_20]: We will stay at the podium. Name and neighborhood for the record, and you'll have three minutes. Sure. Mike Kesselman, 499 Main Street.

[Micah Kesselman]: So the previous speaker was absolutely correct about the fact that the lack of memorialization for this ongoing agreement is absolutely absurd. I mean, what proof is there even that there wasn't an agreement at all? They should be paying taxes. There's no agreement. I haven't seen it. Can anyone attest to it? Was anyone there? Who was there? There's nothing evidencing an actual agreement as far as I'm aware. So they owe a crap ton of back taxes as far as I'm concerned. The other thing I urge everyone to keep in mind is that Tufts is going to post an operating surplus of over $30 million this year. They posted an operating surplus of over $30 million last year.

They are not for lack of funds right now. They're not in a tough financial position. So the fact that they're dealing like this with our city is crazy. The fact that they deal this way, they act this way when dealing with their unions, crazy. The fact that they act the way they do towards their students, even, crazy. They're a terrible neighbor. So I mean, as far as I'm concerned, I mean, I know Councilor Lazzaro mentioned earlier that we don't want them to, we're not trying to say that they, we don't want them to leave. But as far as I'm concerned, why? Who cares if they stay or leave? Like, what are they doing? What benefit are they giving to the community? They're barely giving a benefit to their students half the time. So that's just my thoughts.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll stay at the podium. If we could have your name and neighborhood for the record and you'll have three minutes.

[SPEAKER_21]: My name is David Anderson and I live on Capon Street within sight of Boston Ave. Boston Ave is already backed up at periods during the day to the point where I can literally watch people flying up Pinkham Street, trying to cut the corner where there's a traffic light. So let's take the worst case scenario. Airline wants to build an eight story building, housing approximately, 630 individuals. Walkland Court is adding approximately 200 beds. Tufts has already bought the old hillside hardware store and several other buildings and are planning to put a four-story building there. And they have already built an eight-story building but up against the sidewalk next to the power plant.

And not one square inch of pavement has been added. I wish I had it with me, but I don't. Boston Globe did a study and waved a red flag about 25 years ago that says, is anybody paying attention to the Wellington area? And the answer was no. There were six major construction projects underway, thousands of new apartments and condos, several major huge shopping centers coming in, large parking lots, not one square inch of new pavement. And now what happens is you can sit there in traffic. Last time I shopped at Everett Mall, I literally spent one hour traveling about 400 yards, even with the help of two state troopers on Route 16. And that is what you have to look forward to in about three years' time. How do fire engines, police cars, or other emergency vehicles get through Boston Ave when it's only one lane each way. So this is the worst case scenario. You ban parking from Winthrop Street to Route 16. You make two lanes with a dedicated left turn only for traffic getting onto Winthrop Street. And the right lane is for buses only. They've already done it with Mass Ave in Cambridge. What happens to the people who live on Boston Ave? Well, Tufts generously leases all that parking in front of 200 Boston Ave, the Cummings building. Because if you go by there, most of the time, day and night, half that parking garage is empty. So that takes care of your parking. Well, who wants to walk two blocks in the middle of a snowstorm or a rainstorm just to get to their car? That's a small price to pay for having the pleasure of having Tufts pull off what really is nothing more than a land grab.

So I've been here since 87. They got me.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: That's your time. You can finish your sentence.

[SPEAKER_21]: The other issue is if affordable housing for residents is really important, would you please finally recognize that this is the third decade of the 21st century and the concept of the two and a half family is it's 20th century, it's over. We have a two and a half family. I live on the second floor and when I go in the attic, I have exactly seven feet, four inches. If I walk right down the middle, if I step one foot to the left or right, I crack my head on it. Now, if we raise the roof, we have a full third floor. But that issue was raised almost 20 years ago and it was shot down because people were afraid, oh, they're going to turn it into a separate condo and where are all these cars going to park? Well, no. You turn it into additional housing for the people who live on the second floor so that the 65 or 70-year-old grandmother doesn't have to go into senior living at a friend of ours just did it and she's paying $6,000 a month.

Well, in two years' time, that'll pay for raising the roof right there. So stop with the two and a half family. It doesn't work. Use that empty space and you've got yourself a sort of affordable housing you don't have now. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Seeing no hands on Zoom, we will stay at the podium. You'll have three minutes. Name and neighborhood for the record.

[Anita Nagem]: Anita Nagum, Norton Ave., Medford Hillside. I strongly support this project to push Tufts on a pilot. I did some rough calculations. BU just signed in July a pilot with the city of Boston. The total value is almost $67 million over five years. That includes $6.7 million in cash payments per year, which will increase over the term of the five years, $12.7 million in community benefits during the first year, which will also increase to $14.5 or something like that by the fifth year.

BU has 38,000, approximately 38,000 students. Tufts has about 13,600. So Tufts has an enrollment of about 36% of BU. Rough calculations, that would mean that if the city of Medford had an agreement comparable to the city of Boston's, Tufts would be paying 2.4 million in cash per year. And it would be paying 4.6 million in community benefits per year for the first year of the five year term. The city really needs to push on this. I highly support the idea of a community group or a working group.

You also need a lot more publicity. You need to reach many more people in the neighborhood to put pressure on the mayor. This needs to become a movement, not just a small working group that does things quietly and works on the side. A lot more publicity is going to be necessary. And I think if you reached out to the Hillside neighborhood, you would not find much objection. When I moved here in the late 80s, you used to be able, residents could use the Tufts track. Well, that's all closed off now. You can't do anything. When my son was in high school, he used to use it. Well, forget that now. Tufts really gives almost no benefits back to the city.

not to individual residents. They may do things like the community days, but certainly not for people who just live nearby. I would also, even though it might be difficult, I would suggest that some agreement be made about the number of students that Tufts must house of their own students on their own campus. If they increase their enrollment, there should be a percentage It might not be legally binding, but certainly it should be discussed. that need to be housed on the campus, because Hillside is being taken over already by tough students.

And the last thing I'll say is that the City of Somerville's agreement, it pales in comparison to the agreements that BU and Northeastern and other universities have come to recently, and I think you need to use those as a model, even though the Somerville experience might be helpful. You need to set the bar a lot higher.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Anita. No hands on Zoom. We'll stay at the podium. If you could give us your name and neighborhood, and you'll have three minutes. And just make sure to speak into the microphone, please. We're not going to be able to hear you if you don't speak into the microphone. Okay. Thanks.

[SPEAKER_17]: All right.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm going to reset your time.

[SPEAKER_17]: Go ahead. I'll introduce myself. I'm Jim DiIoguati. As a hillside neighbor in 11 Emory Street, We are a major abutter to a well-recognized hardware store on Boston Ave, now vacated and owned by Tufts. I might add that I'm a major abutter to their property, major abutter. I live one foot away from their property line. The Hillside Hardware Store was community-based for the neighbors and grew to be a valuable resource, a conduit to the Tufts community. We believe Tufts people, department, and facilities could use the location as a grandfathered hardware store and not as a four-story dorm, lab, et cetera, and causing parking to be more chaotic. Hardware store needs to remain a hardware store with a special permit because of its hillside location, and loved by well-recognized neighborhood communities, and an asset to Tufts. And as of Major Roberto, we oppose this location to be a dorm, a lab, or anything else other than a hardware store. Secondly, Grant Park, owned by the city on the corner of Boston Ave and Winter, is directly across from Emory Street. sits there unoccupied, unaddressed, and not attractive to the community, Tufts or others, is an ideal place for a pop-up marketing park, or a method pop-up marketing park, a place for artists to set up under a special permit where they can sell and market their goods. Grant Park is directly across the street, adjacent to stores in front of Boston Ave, businesses, and a majority of bus lines, Davis, Harvard Square, downtown Boston, et cetera. It'll be an economical boost to all businesses on Boston Ave. Tufts saw this and made it happen with their new construction. They saw the opportunity, and likewise, the city officials should grant the opportunity as well to this pop-up pilot marketplace, should be a pilot project that possibly can be expanded to all method parks for residents to utilize. It'll be a prop for a proper artist artistic ability to give artist exposure along with cultural aspects that Medford residents have. A petition should be started to make this happen.

And off the cuff, I've been in business for 54 years. I had licenses in Newton, Cambridge, Boston of course, because I've been at Fenway Park for over 50 years. The very sophisticated and intricate procedures that they put us all through. And I think that Somerville is on the graph of possibly introducing something to us here in Method. Because a lot of students support Somerville, but they don't support here in Method. That's all I have to say.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Jim. Hi. Name and neighborhood for the record. You'll have three minutes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hello. Charles De Palma. I'm on Woodbine Road, so right near the cancer center. I'm a lifelong Medford resident here. I've been here 24 years. I went through the Medford public school system, and then I went on to Tufts. So like a couple other people here, I'm also a Tufts alum, and I've seen the system a little bit from the inside. I have to say, despite graduating from there, not the largest fan. of tufts. I don't know if that will color everything too much because I think I've looked at things pretty dispassionately, but clearly we need greater pilot transparency. I think I affirm what a lot of people are saying here and that we're kind of getting ripped off. Perhaps more importantly, the fact that so many Metro residents are in the dark about this, this entire system, I think is very important and I think we need to ensure that perhaps by some mechanism, or at least calling this out, everyone in Medford is aware of the general circumstances and the general nature of the relationship that Medford has with Tufts, because I didn't, even when I was attending, even though I had lived here for so long. So I want everyone in Medford to be on the same page. I'm concerned that The efforts to impart leverage against Tufts are going to turn into relatively small groups of Medford residents with an agenda who are going to have disproportionate leverage against Tufts. They could make unreasonable demands. Maybe they will be in the pocket of Tufts. Maybe they will be the opposite. They will be unreasonably demanding of Tufts. But I would just like to request, as a general philosophy, this is something that is diffused among the entirety of Medford and not left to a small number of residents. And I'd just like to briefly ask, what are the proposed leverages that we can effect against Tufts? Are we threatening to kick Tufts out if we don't like their pilot proposal? Are we threatening to retract some benefits that we extend to them? I'm not clear on what our leverage is against Tufts, especially as citizens who would be involved in this process.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment, and you know, you bring up a fair point, which is Tufts has a significant amount of legal authority and the city has limited leverage. So part of this process is determining what are our best leverage points, how can we engage residents in that argument. You know, as Council Vice President Lazzaro was talking, you know, I've had a lot of conversations about this over the years since I first introduced this matter. And there's a lot of people who work for the city who have done research on this as well. I actually remember before I was even on the city council, I organized with neighbors, some Tufts neighbors, some folks from around the city, not just folks in the immediate vicinity, a forum with Mayor Burke at the time about Tufts pilot and trying to, get to the next agreement and get a better deal from Tufts because eight years ago we didn't have a good deal from Tufts.

And something I've learned over that time, at that time we had the assessor do an analysis of what Tufts would be paying in taxes if they paid property taxes and weren't exempt. And this is now like 2018, 2019, it was $8 million a year. That would be, you know, almost nearing a 5% increase in the city budget. We had a demand at the time that they should pay 25% of that or $2 million a year. And there's some legislation at the state level to try to move that forward. Tufts is part of an organization with many private colleges and universities that hires lobbyists to kill that legislation every two years at the state house and to stop ideas like endowment taxes and stop ideas like Dover amendment reform and other things. So I think that's a factor here as well. But when we talk about leverage, something that I think we really need to think about more and more of, it's not so much the police, but we send a lot of fire trucks up to Tufts. And we send a lot of EMS services up to Tufts. And just an off-the-cuff analysis of someone I was talking to in the fire department is that maybe as much as like 10% of the calls that that department receives are going to either Tufts properties or private houses associated with Tufts in some way. That would be 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 million dollars a year.

And I think it seems to me there's about 35 people, I bet we could get 100, who are willing to walk up to City Hall, and I'm sure if a mayor was behind them or a city councilor, and start by delivering them a bill. So, you know, it's not real leverage in the sense that we have a law that we can enforce on them, but I think it would get folks' attention if folks from Medford and Somerville and the leaders from Medford and Somerville went up to Tufts and called the news to be there and said, This is how much you're costing us every year. You're costing us just over a million, maybe a million and a half just in fire services, and you're not even giving us half of that back in pilot. So we can start the conversation there.

All right. No hands on Zoom, so we'll stay at the podium. If you could come to the podium. If you could give your name and neighborhood, and you'll have three minutes.

[Angela Murphy]: Angela Murphy, 16 Carding Street. The city of Medford in past years has kept Tufts on the perimeter of the Hillside neighborhood quite effectively. We have lived with many students residing in our neighborhoods in two and three story homes with homeowners who are ever present and monitor the property. No problems in 70 years that I can recall that was very You know, bad incidents, nothing at all. And I've had many students as neighbors. Sadly, in the last few years, Tufts has managed to cross into the Hillside neighborhood with the acquiring of Sacred Heart Church, the Dame School, and Hillside Hardware, among other properties. It would sadden me to see the Boston Ave corridor turned into University Row with dorms, whether privately owned or owned by Tufts. The Boston Ave corridor should belong to the residents who live in the hillside community and benefit the neighborhood. It was and can be again an asset to all that reside in the hillside, providing shops and services that would benefit all and return to its quaint suburban historic identity. I hope the City Council can be as effective as in the past to monitor Tufts and keep them at bay from robbing the hillside area of its identity and infiltrating a community that was built by proud homeowners who moved here for one reason, because we are Medford, we're not Somerville, we're not Cambridge. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right, come to the podium. Name and neighborhood for the record. You'll have three minutes.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you, Councilor Bears. I appreciate your time. First, I want to say thank you to Councilor Lemon for serving the United States military. Welcome back. Hopefully, you're in good shape. Thank you very much. Mr. Council President, how much is Tufts paying in real cash? in lieu of real taxes presently, per year?

[Councilor Zac Bears]: You'll have to do the comment and I'll try my best to answer at the end, but about 600,000 is what we think. But for the rest of it, if you could just continue your comment and I'll try to keep down what you've asked.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Okay, you said 600,000 approximately, that's what they're paying now. In reality, if they didn't have tax exemption, they would be paying about 8 million, I guess. Okay, in lieu of this taxes of the 600,000 that they are paying, it would be a lot better if we, the taxpayers, received a third of the real estate tax that we are losing out on from TUS, period. A third of 8 million would be over 2 million, at least. Maybe 3 would be better. Thank you for listening.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Take you at the podium and name and neighborhood and you'll have three minutes.

[Jennifer Yanko]: My name is Jennifer Yonko, and I live in West Medford. Welcome back, Matt. It's good to see you. This just seems like a no-brainer to me, and I think there's no objection to moving forward with this among neighbors and residents. It seems like a no-brainer to me, because if nothing's demanded, nothing's going to be offered. I mean, if I didn't get an electricity bill, I wouldn't offer to pay it, you know.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: And we're not— If you didn't get an invoice for your ambulance services, we— Sorry.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Right. But if you don't—if no one's demanding it, then you're not going to get it. I mean, you may have to negotiate after you demand it, but we're not asking anything. And I think that in terms of leverage, public opinion is going to be a big leverage point, because everyone knows that MIT supports Cambridge, along with Harvard, Lesley, and I'm not sure what other universities are there. And again, I don't know what Somerville's arrangement is with Tufts, but that's certainly worth exploring, because I would imagine that it's probably a better one than we have. So I, I really think the public opinion will come down very strongly in favor of our demanding what, what to do. Just in, just in order to pay for the services. This is no contribution. This is just paying for the services.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yeah.

[Jennifer Yanko]: So, thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Yeah, and I, and I agree with you 100%. And I was, I think, trying to link the issue back a little bit. You know, the city. There's a number of areas where the city has not made any demands but has then expected something or has not made any demands and doesn't expect something. And I think this is an issue where the vast majority of people with significant political disagreements on other issues, even one we may just talk about now in about five minutes, agree that Tufts needs to be doing better and we should fight for that. So thank you. I'm seeing no further comments in the room and no further comments on Zoom. Is there any further discussion by members of the council?

Seeing none, give me one moment. On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Tseng to refer this to the Committee of the Whole for further discussions. All those in favour? Aye. Opposed? The motion passes. All right, we're gonna move now to paper 26-093 submitted by the mayor. Veto an objection to amendments to the Medford Zoning Ordinance, Boston Avenue Neighborhood Corridor District. Whereas at the 15th regular meeting of the Medford City Council on September 15th, 2026, the council voted to approve the amendments to the Medford Zoning Ordinance, Boston Avenue Neighborhood Quarter District as follows. There was a motion to adopt the Community Development Board recommendations removing footnote six regarding the step back for North Street amending section 94-9.8.53J to read, quote, up to 20% of total residents may be non-students.

The management team shall document these residential categories at the start of each semester and a report to the city upon request. All the residents shall be enrolled at an educational institution. And there was a further motion to amend the motion of Councilor Scarpelli on the main paper to change the purpose built student housing in the BA3 sub district from special permit to buy right made by Councilor Leming. And that was approved by a four to three vote. And then finally there was a vote on the amended original motion which was to approve and ordain the Boston Avenue Neighborhood Quarter District Zoning as amended. And that was approved by a unanimous 7 to 0 vote. And whereas on September 23rd, Mayor Lungo-Koehn issued a veto of the Boston Avenue Neighborhood Quarter District Zoning Amendment with objections related to purpose-built student housing by right use in the BA3 subdistrict. Now therefore be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we will review the Mayor's veto of the Boston Avenue Neighborhood Quarter District and the specific objections to the ordinance submitted by the Mayor to the City Council. So that's why we're here. That's a short history of everything and largely I think what I hope we can move through tonight is that there is a substantive disagreement here on an issue, which is whether the private purpose-built student housing use should be allowed by right or by special permit in the BA3 subdistrict. So that was a disagreement. There was disagreement both on the council and the community development board on this question. The CDB voted on September 2nd by a four to two vote to retain the special permit. The City Council subsequently voted on September 15th by a 4-3 vote to change to a by right requirement. And these were both after the agreement that we had worked out with the Community Development Board in June. So these issues came up subsequent to that agreement. But before we get into the substantive issue, I really do have to address a number of serious issues around the process here. Frankly, I think the response from the mayor, who has every right to veto something she disagrees with substantively and provide objections, but the process has been, I think, a circus.

Number one, the form of her veto was illegal. We received a legal report back from KP Law that is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read, and I'll get into that in a minute. And secondly, the mayor did use the taxpayer communications to spread objectively false information about what happened at the council meeting on September 15th. Even my friend Mr. Jarleo here noted he was present the whole time that the person that the mayor said was here and influenced the vote and is, you know, influencing the council. He was not in the room when the vote was taken.

And frankly, I think that the mayor has really poisoned the well here. just spreading false and defamatory information about Councilor Tseng, who has stated very clearly what his rationale was. I have asked the mayor a number of times to remove the false information that she has put on the city website and spread by email. She has refused to do so. I don't know if she's talked to you, Councilor Tseng. I've requested multiple times that she speak directly to Councilor Tseng. She has refused to do so. So, that's part of what has gotten us here. I would ask my colleagues at some point during this to propose a resolution that we all request that the mayor take down the false information and defamatory information that she has posted online and use the taxpayer communication resources to spread. So, that's one thing. Secondly, the form of the veto.

The mayor has asserted that she is able to veto part of an ordinance. She disagrees very clearly about the student housing question about by right versus special permit, but she did submit a veto, essentially asserting that she has a line item veto, a partial veto, and she's only vetoing this part of the ordinance that is, Just objectively not true. We got, I requested immediately, like within 30 minutes of getting this document, some sort of legal memorandum from KP Law. We got a memorandum from KP Law back that disagrees completely with the case law and the appellate court law, essentially saying that the mayor could veto any internal vote of the city council whenever she wants. that she could veto a part of an ordinance that would mean that something would become the law that the council voted against. It's really quite ridiculous. I just very quickly want to note a couple of things from case law. So there is really clear case law here from a number of communities, but especially Where are we? In Malden. So Malden City Charter has very similar language to the Medford City Charter, stating that every ordinance, order, resolution, or vote shall be presented to the mayor, and if they approve, signify approval by signing, or if not, they will return that with objections in writing. The appeals court critically said that the phrase order, ordinance, resolution, or vote, and I think our charter says something like ordinance, resolution, or vote, there's one different word there, means that only the final completed legislative measure standing alone is subject to the mayor's veto or not, not some internal procedural step.

There's also case law, Doherty versus City of Woburn, Scali versus Board of Registrars of Voters of Woburn, Doherty versus Mayor of Everett, City Council of Boston versus Mayor of Boston that say very clearly that what the mayor tried to do is not allowed. So, that's where we are. Given that I don't really want to have further argument, I'm going to rule as the chair here that the mayor has vetoed the entire ordinance and that is how we're going to address this. So that is what we are moving forward under.

I am going to say this as a process as well, because I think it will just make it clear for everybody tonight. Even though that is true, there is still an opportunity for us to treat the mayor's response as it should have been submitted to the council, which is as objections, a veto of the ordinance with her specific objections. Her objection is to purpose-built student housing by right in the BA3 subdistrict. So we will start tonight hearing from any other city councilors on this matter. If there's a representative of the administration who wants to speak to the mayor's veto and anything else related to this, they are welcome to speak. At that point, we will hear from members of the public who want to speak on this issue. And then any Councilor may propose an amendment to the September 15th ordinance. So for example, if someone wanted to propose changing it from by right to special permit, they could propose that amendment. They could also propose any other amendment on any other issue, keep us here much longer if they wanna do that. So we will consider all of those amendments. And then once that is complete and we have an amended ordinance or not, then we will take a vote on overriding the veto. So that's how it's going to go tonight. We're going to hear from Councilors. If there's an administration representative who wants to speak, we'll hear from them. We'll hear from members of the public. We will consider any amendments, and then we will vote on either an amended or an unamended ordinance to override the veto. Any questions from members of the council on the process?

Does that mean we do? We get it? We're good? All right, thank you. All right, with that, I will start out with members of the council who'd like to speak on this issue. Anyone who'd like to go first? Councilor Scarpelli.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: Mr. President, I think that this has been a very difficult week because I think that we're The crux of this process, we're hearing so many negatives and so many mistruths that I think that I concur with Council President that we, as a form of a motion, ask the mayor to take any of the information that wasn't true off any of the city site. Because whether we like it or not, the process that Council Tseng followed was a legal process that we've done many times in this council. Whether you're for something or against something that he suggested, that's not the point. I think that we have to understand that we as a council have the right to move that way.

The mayor's veto really confused a lot of different things. I get phone calls saying, did we veto the whole thing? It's just portion, can't you do that? And again, I'm going to bring this up most of you here at the beginning of the meeting. Without a city solicitor, it is very difficult for us to do our jobs as efficiently as we would hope to do, because we don't have that communication. You know, I will say that, you know, this was a long process and we had many, many meetings with the Community Development Board. I thought that working together with the Community Development Board really lent a lot of open discussion that went back and forth and really shared a lot of insight with both the consultant and professionals on the CD board that we really took a lot of the information and sharing that to make the best decision for our community. I, for one, I would support a dorm style facility. I look at the process and have a lot of checks and balances in that really effect that would protect our neighborhoods. That's why I would make the motion tonight that I think that I would support the not by right by special permit. And that's what I would put as a form of a motion that we look at this process and have that extra layer for our residents and another board that would look at this process to make sure all those checks and balances are in. Now, that might not pass, but this is something that I'm going to stand with and I think that I've been pretty consistent with a lot of the zoning. when it came to this process asking for the special permit because to me it led to that other set of eyes and another form of sharing information. But I firmly believe that the mayor vetoing this in the way that it was done was out of line.

I don't support the process. I think that we're seeing a lot of divide and we're seeing a lack of leadership in our community when it comes to situations like this because all it does, it doesn't lead to finding a common solution. It brings more of a divide in our community. we're seeing that tenfold. And I think that what we're seeing right now, especially even the banter going back and forth that normally the good and evil, whichever side you're on, that good and evil are now working together to try to get to some sort of resolution so we can move our city positively forward. And we're hearing that banter that, you know, whether you love Councilor Scarpelli and you didn't like Councilor Bears, that that was a comfortable divide, or vice versa. If you didn't like me or you believed in Council President Bears' philosophy, that I was evil. And I think that it led to such divide and questions that I think this veto did the same thing. That's what we're seeing. And I don't think it's good for our community. There are so many, you know, questions out there, like I've still fielded a few calls this week saying, this is Tufts again. This project has nothing to do with Tufts University. This project isn't, Tufts is not involved in it at all. And even that point alone that has to be shared and I think had to be said tonight. So I think that I would move with the motion again.

at a reasonable hour. Believe me, we would we would like to get all of our resolutions and all the all the information out on a timely manner. But, um, as you saw, we had a meeting beforehand scheduled 6 30 and it lasted what? 45 minutes longer than it should have. And, uh, we're trying to get the city's business done. Is it ideal? Probably not, but we're doing the best we can. So I would move with that motion, Mr. President. And with that first, and I know my colleagues might have something to say, residents have something to say, but I think that how I stand is moving forward what I believe in the special permit. But again, not supporting the veto. I think that's something that crosses the line. And again, without the legal representation that I feel comfortable with, Mr. President, because I didn't even see anything from KP Law. I didn't receive anything. So I would not move forward with it, as I've done in the past when there were issues and concerns. So thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. So what I'm going to do, and I do see three other Councilors, is first I'm going to take Councilor Scarpelli's two motions. We'll get seconds on them, and then I'll add them to the list for step four, which is we'll consider those after we've heard from Councilors, the administration, and the public. So I have Councilor Scarpelli's first motion, which is send a B paper request to the mayor to remove the false or inaccurate information from the city website. Is there a second? That's seconded by Councilor Mullane, so we'll consider that after we have all the participation. Then we have a motion from Councilor Scarpelli to amend the Boston Avenue Neighborhood Corridor District so that the purpose-built student housing is special permit by the CDB in the BA3 subdistrict. Is there a second on that? Seconded by Councilor Mullane. So those are two motions we'll consider after all of the input. I will go to the rest of the councilors. If there's any other motions that you would like to make, we will consider those as well after all of the input. We'll go to Councilor Tseng and then Council Vice President Lazzaro and then Councilor Leming. Councilor Tseng. Thank you, Mr. President.

[Councilor Justin Tseng]: Before public comment, I want to explain where my thinking was, and then I want to stop and listen. This issue has kept me up at night past 3 a.m. for almost every single day over the last few weeks. I've reread the ordinance. I've learned it, you know, I've studied it line by line. gone to neighborhood meetings. I know there are a few that I was busy doing filings for housing court, so I wasn't able to make it. But I've gone to the street and asked people off the street, students and residents alike, what they think, trying to present it neutrally, and then seeing where that discussion lands.

So forgive me for a really long prepared remark. That's more for the council than anything. I know you guys have likely heard me kind of reiterate these points before, but it's going to take some time because I want it to be as comprehensive as possible. I, first and foremost, I understand the frustration with my late reconsideration. Even though that was permitted under the rules, I understand the frustration and I, you know, I want to give you an explanation for that. I've lived in Medford almost my whole life, including in the hillside neighborhood. I've walked to Tasty and to Danish Pastry House in Tamper for breakfast. That was my life at one point.

And I'm very, very familiar with that walk to Medford Top Station. Being someone who's grown up here, grown up of my generation here, I've watched people who grew up here move away because they couldn't afford to come home. They've moved places like Manchester or New Hampshire. They've moved to places like Worcester. And I've talked, and I know a lot of my colleagues here have too, I've talked with families who are staring at Section 8 housing waiting lists thousands deep. They're, you know, they end up at the end of a list that's thousands of names. So for me the character of Medford and the character of Hillside isn't just its building it's in its people as well. A neighborhood can look exactly the same and still lose everything that made it feel like home. At first keeping the special permit sounded safer. I thought more review sounds like more protection. But the more I looked at the ordinance we had actually written and the legal standards that are applied to what a special permit versus by right meant, the more I questioned what that extra layer was accomplishing.

Throughout this whole process, we've had residents show up. We've had joint meetings with the Community Development Board, where the CDB and us, we've all listened. And that process changed the zoning. We wrote height transitions, buffers, sunlight protections, management requirements, and operational standards into law. And a lot of this isn't even, it's quite an aberration from normality for purpose-built student housing. It's not that public participation disappeared. It actually became the zoning itself. So my vote to switch it to buy right did not make any potential building taller or larger. It didn't erase any of those protections. It didn't eliminate public review. A major project like this would still have to go through site plan review before the CDB at a public hearing where the board would review the actual project and whether it fits in this neighborhood and they can impose reasonable conditions on traffic, lighting, trash, loading, access, and other neighborhood impacts.

It's really important to say that buy right doesn't mean review free. It's kind of like, we've had a lot of conversations about free money and the fact that free money is a bad name because free money is not actually free money. It's the same thing with buy right. Buy right doesn't mean that you get to, a developer gets to come in there and build anything they want. Site plan review says, this use is allowed, now let's make it work on this site. A special permit asks, should we allow the community development board to deny this project on arbitrary reasons? That's the difference, is that with special permits, We give so much leeway for the Community Development Board to be arbitrary. And I trust them, I trust that they'll do the right thing when it comes to site plan review. But that broader layer of discretion, especially after months of writing something unusually detailed for this use, didn't sit well with me. I just came to believe that there was more discretion than this use on this site than was needed. I believe that the guardrails were there.

This all goes to, you know, making sure that the rule of law is something that we can all predict. I don't think that predictability is a gift to developers. I think it's a basic principle of fair government. Residents should know what can be built next door. Applicants should know the rules before investing in a project. If we want stronger protections, we should write stronger protections. That's here. We shouldn't confuse uncertainty with accountability. I also understand why the people closest to a development or a potential development care so deeply about these protections. Family next door doesn't experience this as just an abstract debate about housing supply. They experience sunlight, traffic, construction, noise, and those concerns deserve enforceable protections. That's why the rules that we wrote here matter, and that's why site plan review matters.

I've also heard the complaints from hillside residents, and this comes from knocking on doors over years in the neighborhood. I hear about noise, about overflowing trash, about rats, parties, chaotic move-ins, absentee landlords, who are nowhere to be found when something goes wrong, and how this ties in with student housing. Those problems are real, but students don't just disappear because we decline to build student housing. Too often, they compete with families for the same two and three family homes that regular families want to live in. Purpose-built student housing gives us another option. It gives us a professionally managed housing development with enforceable rules for noise, security, trash, loading, parking, resident conduct, and someone accountable when things go wrong. That's something that we're deeply missing today.

I'll acknowledge, some students will still choose houses, I'm not pretending otherwise. But the question is whether students should have another good option besides competing for bedrooms in the traditional rental market. We don't need every student to choose purpose-built student housing for it to relieve pressure. We also do need more smaller apartments for seniors who want to downsize, for young adults and for multigenerational families trying to stay close to one another. And that's in the zoning that the mayor vetoed. But that's another reason to reduce competition in the conventional housing market. We need more kinds of housing, not fewer. So every group is not fighting over the same limited stock that we have in the city.

The way that we have things set up right now pits people against people when we don't need it to. Housing also works a little bit like the car market, right? Like most people can't afford to buy a brand new car. But if we stop building new cars because they were expensive, used cars would become scarcer and more expensive too. New housing doesn't have to be affordable on day one to matter for affordability. When people who can afford a new unit move into it, they stop competing for an older unit. that older unit becomes available to someone else, and in effect works its way through the market. Now, I also deeply believe that this doesn't replace inclusionary housing. We still need deed-restricted affordable units. But it's a mistake to think that housing only helps affordability if the new unit itself is subsidized.

If a student who would otherwise rent a bedroom in a two-family house chooses a purpose-built housing instead, that bedroom becomes available to someone else. It becomes available to the families who want to stay in Hillside. It becomes available to the families who want to live and move to Hillside. So yeah, we should absolutely care about affordable housing requirements, but we should also care about reducing the number of people competing for the same limited stock. Now let's take a look at this site. It's a vacant lot right now, besides two enormous office buildings close to Tufts and roughly a block from the Green Line, a distance that most students I've talked to are happy to walk and most students don't own cars.

We should be aware of the vacancy point. Vacancy or the status quo is not a neutral choice. That lot currently houses no one and supports no nearby businesses. If purpose built student housing belongs anywhere in Medford, it's difficult for me to imagine many other places better suited for it. If we can't allow it here under strong rules, where exactly do we expect it to go? And yes, Tufts should build more housing for its own students on their own land. I support pushing them to do exactly that. But Tufts has roughly 6,800 undergrads and only about 4,000 university housing beds today. So that's excluding grad students, even after its new dorm opens. there will be thousands more students than Tufts has beds for. So this isn't an either or. I think too often we fall into that dichotomy. It's not either Tufts builds dorms or private student housing exists. We do need both.

I've also heard the concern that a private developer could simply build this and sell it later to Tufts. Under this ordinance, purpose-built student housing is specifically defined as housing not owned or operated by a university. So if Tufts bought the property, it would no longer qualify as purpose-built student housing. A university-owned dorm is a completely different zoning use. And in BA3, that use would still require a special permit. So it would still undergo review, and we would still have a community conversation about that.

This discussion about Tufts is why earlier tonight I brought forward the piloting community benefits resolution. If we're concerned about Tufts' growth, future acquisitions, housing, transportation, neighborhood impacts, we should address those questions directly and publicly, not through one permit on one private property. I've also heard what I think, for me, was the strongest argument against my vote. to keep the special permit as leverage to encourage conventional apartments with affordable units instead. So I take that argument seriously, and I would welcome that outcome. But leverage is not the same thing as an outcome.

A special permit gives us more discretion over whether to say yes to student housing, but it doesn't guarantee conventional apartments get built instead. The result could be a delay, it could be another use, it could be a sale or nothing at all. If we want a different affordable housing requirement, let's debate it openly. And there's a larger question. Can the city carry out the future it has planned for itself? That is the driving question, was the driving question for me at the end of that meeting.

An empty property houses no one, it supports no nearby businesses, it does little to expand the economic base that pays for our schools and services. We cannot spend every budget season debating scarcity while treating growth as inherently suspect. I'm tired, and I know other councilors here are too, of sitting at our desks and voting on yet another budget where our schools and libraries don't get enough, where we don't have enough money to pave our roads, and where we have to cut staffing for essential city services. That's the reality we face, and that's the reality we would face if I hadn't changed my vote that night.

That's that's the reality for my conscience right. I think part of my job is to step back and make to look at the big picture and to see if there's a vision if there's a plan for the city. We cannot cut our way to the city we want. We have to also build our way there. And let me address the kind of elephant in the room. The mayor has insinuated that my reconsideration was driven by a developer. That's false. No developer ever asked me to change my vote. No developer influenced it. To the best of my recollection, I've never ever spoken with that property owner. The mayor could have picked up the phone and asked me why I changed my mind. She could have picked up the phone months ago, brought people together, proposed an alternative project here, and helped shape a better outcome. And she did none of that. Instead, she chose to manufacture suspicion, a Trumpian tactic that substitutes insinuation for substance. It's much easier to tell people what you're against than to tell people what you're for.

What is this mayor's vision for housing? Where should students live? How does she propose to manage Tufts' growth and vacant properties? What is her plan for revenue? What's her plan to make sure that in months time, when we're back here debating the budget, that we're not dealing with cuts to city services, with cuts to departments? Because we've already been warned beforehand that that is what we should expect for the next budget. A press release is not a housing strategy. A ribbon cutting is not a governing philosophy. And a headline is not a plan. You can't govern the city from behind a Facebook post. Where we need direction, we have drift, dither and delay. We have plans as a city for housing, for climate, for economic development, and for the future of Medford. And at some point, that blueprint has to become something we start building. I am just tired that this council tries so hard to take action on those plans that At this point, thousands of residents have contributed to, have helped craft, and then at the same time, we're being thrown under the bus because the mayor refuses to execute the plans that she paid thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, to get written in the first place. So I have a view tonight, and I've tried to explain it.

I understand I've spoken for a long time and lots of people here have ideas. So I'm going to stop here. I'm going to listen and I'll see if I have comments after. Thank you, Councilor Tseng.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Vice President Lazzaro and then Councilor Leming.

[Councilor Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Councilor Tseng put it really, really well, but I do just want to highlight that we, this This really is like a quibbling issue that the mayor has pounced on to try to have a quick political win. And it's embarrassing. So the difference between by right and special permit in this small, it's one parcel, one parcel. that we've talked about for two meetings. And I just so deeply promise you it's nothing nefarious is happening. Because we have carefully written and debated publicly for a really, really long time months. in joint meetings with the community development board. Really stringent rules around site plan review for these types of developments. So it's it was carefully drawn out.

So in order for a purpose built student housing to be created we have the same rules, whether it is special permit or by right, the only difference here is that if it is special permit, there's an additional meeting in which somebody in a position that they've attained in city government can decide, even if everything went perfectly, that enough, if enough people in these positions decided, they could just say, no, actually no, I don't think you should, I don't think you should build it, so no, you can't, even though you did it perfectly right. You're not allowed to, even though people have carefully written these rules, and you followed all of them, you still can't, because I don't want you to. And I don't think that that is appropriate. I don't think that that is fair. And I think what we should be doing in Medford is building housing for people to live in. And I think that's how you alleviate the pressure on people who are struggling to pay to live in Medford. That's one of the methods that you use to alleviate that pressure. Now, when you do it by right, you just make it so that people have to follow those rules, and then they do follow those rules because there are mechanisms in place for us to affirm that they've followed those rules.

But they don't have to have the up or down, up or down vote. That's the only difference. When it's special permit, then they go before the Community Development Board and get an up or down vote. It's an additional meaning and they never know if it will pass muster and some, you know, there could be some campaign reason that somebody says, oh no, actually at the last minute, I think you shouldn't be able to do it. I don't think it's fair, I don't think it's right, and I think we should be encouraging housing to be built in Medford.

Just the same way I think we should be encouraging people to open businesses here, I think we should be bringing money into the city in a way that is authentic and organic and not, you know, just spending money. There are a lot of ways that we can bring revenue into the city and this is one of them. When you build housing, it brings tax revenue into the city. And we can use that tax revenue for services, for elders, for children, for schools, for fire, for police, for roads to fix potholes, for people who can't pay their rent for us to develop programs to help them, support them so that they don't fall through the cracks. For people with substance use disorder, have more than one part time recovery coach maybe we can support our connectors and our community liaisons and not have to pay them with a grant that we can lose.

And all of this happens because we say yes to people building housing, yes to people who are coming into Medford and they don't want to be hamstrung by our rules and regulations and by somebody having a whim and deciding that they want to say no at the last minute. We, I believe, that I want in this city for us to allow people to come in and build the things that they would like to build for the people that want to live here. I want to say yes to people wanting to live here. They're coming anyway. Let's make it a hospitable environment. Let's be good neighbors. And let's allow the things that are already happening to happen in a way that we can help to regulate and help to be the best possible scenario for everybody.

Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Leming.

[Councilor Matt Leming]: Thank you. I think that my colleagues did a very nice job of explaining their positions on the special permit versus by right issue. I'm going to take a slightly different approach and I'll ask for patience for everybody because I'm severely jet lagged right now. So if I'm not a bag of laughs. Sorry about that. But I'm seeing a lot of people in the audience who I've seen at many previous meetings. I'm also seeing a lot of new faces. So I think it would help just for a little procedural overview of what's happening here, like how zoning is formed and sort of the history of this. how Medford, how our system of government is slightly different, how there's little quirks that affect what happens here.

Then the history of the special permit versus by right discussions, as well as the history of this sort of behavior from the mayor, which is not conducive to any sort of good governance. So first of all, Procedurally the way that zoning is changed under Massachusetts general law is the legislative body of a city, in this case the city council, passes it to the planning board, which in most municipalities is a number of people between five and nine appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council. The planning board then gets to review these zoning changes from the City Council, and only after they've had their own public comment process and their own set periods of time for review, they will then refer it back to the City Council with recommendations, and the City Council may then decide whether or not to accept or reject those recommendations. What Medford's been doing this year is having joint meetings with the city council, sorry, Sorry, we've been having, sorry, not joint meetings with the City Council. We've been having, the City Council has been having joint meetings with the Community Development Board because we got feedback last year that people wanted to have meetings where they could present public comments to sort of both decision-making slash recommending bodies. And so that was seen as a bit of a more streamlined way to do it. The other aspect is because there's no council, is that there's no council confirmation in Medford. So Medford, because of a weird history with our city charter where we used to have a city manager, members of the planning board, in this case the community development board, aren't confirmed by council, so there's not really much of a structurally built in preexisting relationship there. So the joint hearings were also a way for the city council and the CDB to sort of communicate. And this is what frustrates me about this because twice now, twice in this rezoning process, the city council has done its legislative, has performed its legislative duties and decided which amendments we want to accept or reject. And both times we've gotten this bomb-throwing behavior by the mayor, which in which a press release is put out, there is this narrative that we're somehow being sneaky about it when it is literally like this is the legislative body of the city. Whether or not you agree with the decisions being made here, the fact that The fact of the matter is when you have a legislative body that is doing its job and both times it's being responded to with this weird negative pressure and odd twisted narrative building, it's not a healthy way to go about any sort of legislative process. With the special permit versus by right issue I wish we would have had more time during the joint meetings to discuss it between the city council and the community development board during the periods we had joint meetings. We had a bit of a. weird issue there where at the end of June, we were running up against a contractual deadline with the consultants that we were hiring because they go on three-year contracts. And after the end of June, they would have just been gone. So we wouldn't have been able to refer to them for help.

At all, we did, and so what I wanted to do was sort of get that, get the rezoning done, at least the major decisions that we had done by that deadline. And frankly, we also had, I also sat through something like 20 meetings about Boston Avenue alone, just between our internal working group meetings, the joint meetings, the CDB had its meetings, and the city council. had its own meetings on this as well. So there was a pretty robust process around this.

At the June 24th meeting, which was the last joint public hearing we had, if you look at the transcripts, we didn't really discuss the special permit versus by right issue a whole lot. It was It was mentioned once by Member Began who drafted the definition that he introduced at that meeting. My colleague, Councilor Scarpelli, mentioned that he favored it during that meeting, but otherwise there wasn't any discussion about sort of what was the merits of special permit versus by right for purpose-built student housing. And it was only at the CDB's own meeting on September 2nd where they actually did have more of an issues-based discussion about it. There is a period where they're even asking themselves, should we refer this back to the City Council and sort of let them decide on it? They ultimately decided to not do that, but the fact of the matter is that they're discussing a lot of new information that we didn't really have at the June 24th meeting, and that made me think, okay, well, City Council at our September 15th meeting probably needs to have a similar discussion about specifically a special permit versus by right issue, which is what we did.

And, again, it was, it's one of those things where it was, where we had a discussion, we decided to change it from special permit to byride, and it was, all things considered, as I saw, a relatively minor change, and there were other changes made that night. that was within our legislative prerogative to do. And then the mayor responded to that by just bomb throwing. You know, we didn't get We didn't know, like, there were Councilors who met with her earlier in the day, didn't mention anything about the press release, didn't get a phone call about anything like that, but then suddenly open up her inbox and this happens again. And this happened last year. What happened last year was we made a similar amendment to zoning that we received, and the mayor then basically put an ultimatum in front of council saying that she wouldn't renew, she wouldn't continue the rezoning project at all. And she wanted us to like, she was like trying to make this whole thing an elections issue, like pretty clearly.

If we didn't change this one, change that we made this one other parcel in the city. And here's the thing. I understand when people have disagreements about these particular issues, think what you want. But I would also ask folks in the room to recognize that this pattern of, this pattern of like, okay, one thing didn't go my way, I am going to hurl a grenade at the process until these people do what I want them to do, is not a good way to do business. Like, I'd prefer a phone call, I'd prefer a text. You know, I would prefer just like somebody saying like, hey, just do something differently. But, you know, I mean, I get it. The mayor spent. 18 years on city council, you don't, being in this position, it's sometimes, depending on your style of politics, it incentivizes you to do bomb throwing instead of collaboration. And, you know, just because you're elected mayor doesn't mean you suddenly become a more collaborative person. So, you know, I understand we're going to, we are going to hear folks talk about this. I completely respect disagreements on these issues. What makes me more upset is the procedural aspect of this more than anything and the narrative spins that I've been seeing all throughout the community.

That's all I have to say. about this, and I look forward to any public comment that we receive. And I thank folks for coming out and staying this late and listening to your local elected officials talk too much again.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. I appreciate your comments. It did remind me that I, the day we got this email, I was in a phone call with the chief of staff, the mayor's chief of staff, and I'm in the three o'clock hour, and it was about what's gonna be on the agenda next week. And I said, anything else we should be expecting from the mayor's office about what's gonna be on the agenda next week? And the chief of staff said directly to me, no. And then about 15 minutes after that call ended, I got that press release in my email vetoing the ordinance, which means either left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing or she lied to my face. So that was a fun one. Do we have any further comments by members of the council before we move to public participation?

All right, seeing none, if members of the public would like to speak on this matter, they can come to the podium or raise their hands on Zoom. If we have folks on Zoom, we will alternate between the podium and Zoom and folks will have three minutes. Folks can provide their name and neighborhood for the record. And Ralph, I'll start with you.

[Ralph Klein]: Ralph Klein, I live in the Glendale section of Medford, I just learned that about a year ago. I support the special permit. It adds another layer for the residents to voice their opinion. By right, just gives them, okay, if they're going to build these buildings, they're going to put them up no matter what. If it takes an extra week, all the stuff we went through on Salem Street, you mentioned it, the mayor threw a bomb then, okay. But the building they tried to put up at 300, it had eight pocket spaces for 14, undue on the neighborhood. It finally went through, they found the space. Saying it's a minor change, if it's that minor, why override it? Why not leave it in? I mean, the city is saying, okay, we're going to build all this. This is student housing, it's residential. Okay, we need to build up the residence. We need commercial to generate more income. That parcel could be a great piece to build on, not just for student housing, commercial in there. We keep going, oh, residential, residential, 300 students, OK, great. What do we need, another bank, another nail salon? Let's get some real commercial in the city. Let's start looking at this and buy right. If they're going to build these things, they're going to build them. If they take an extra step, if you were offered $35 million and turn it down because you want $40, Come on. Where's the lie there? You'll wind up getting your 40 or you'll get your building in. Let's stop the smoke and mirrors. I don't stand with the mayor on everything. I stand with, you should have taken the vote and stood with the first vote and then put it to the next meeting. Not take it late that night when everybody goes home. We're in the 11th hour. You took the vote in the 11th hour. Pun intended. It was late. Why not put it off to the next meeting when people spoke? could have their time to re-speak. Why vote on it that night? So I'm going to ask this council to revert to the first vote, don't override the mayor's veto, and let's put forth a resolution where it works. Work it out. Don't take a vote late at night when everybody goes home. The 11th hour votes don't work. It doesn't have to be right. It has to appear to be right. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right, we will go to Zoom. I have Maria Elena Darian on Zoom. Maria, I'm going to ask you to unmute and you'll have three minutes.

[SPEAKER_28]: I thank you so much. My name is Maria Elena Darian. I've been at 88 North Street here in Medford for 26 years, homeowner, and really enjoyed this neighborhood, both my kids here. I do want to say that I also support the special permit in this instance, because I live just like 200 yards from where this new building and where this new proposed student housing is supposed to be, I have real concerns around that particular use. I don't have concerns over mixed use development and residential housing or commercial housing going in. but I do have big concerns about making it just student focused and centered. It would affect my quality of life quite a bit. So I do and would appreciate the extra barriers that the special permit would afford. Thank you so much.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right. We will go back to the podium, name and neighborhood, and you'll have three minutes.

[Nick Giurleo]: Hello again, Nick Giurleo, West Medford. Tonight, I'm going to speak in strong support of a special permit requirement for purpose-built student housing. Before I get to the why, I just want to begin by addressing the circumstances of the veto. I strongly agree that major zoning decisions should not be being made at a late hour when residents are not likely to be available for public participation. This is especially true when that vote is to contravene a recommendation of the Community Development Board. Now, with regard to the legal interpretation of what exactly was vetoed, I would respectfully disagree with the chair in the ruling that the entire zoning was vetoed. I believe the mayor has the right to, under our charter, to veto specifically a vote. It says in our charter the mayor can veto, quote, unquote, a vote. So I believe, based on the decision of the, based on the veto letter, that only that vote was vetoed so I'd hope you'd reconsider that. But regarding the zoning itself this is a major zoning decision and I know some have said that site plan review is an adequate substitute for the community discretion that a special permit would provide but I have to strongly disagree with that because site plan review is not the same or even comparable. to the special permit process. Our zoning ordinance says specifically that site plan approval can only be denied based on a developer's failure to provide information. It cannot be denied based on how a project may impact the community. That is where site plan review is different from the special permit. A special permit in contrast can be denied when the adverse effects of the project are cumulatively substantial. And those factors can be things that everybody talks about all the time when they come up here, traffic, safety, impact on public services, impact on the environment. and others that are listed explicitly in our zoning ordinance which all of you can take a look at. And moreover, the conditions upon approval are different between site plan review and the special permit process. They're not the same. Special permit conditions have much more teeth than site plan review conditions. So those differences in mind, this is why I support a special permit requirement for purpose-built student housing. I don't deny the compelling nature of the argument that, you know, we don't want this property to be sold to Tufts and we would lose the tax revenue. But I think when you weigh that, with how, it's a mouthful, purpose-built student housing, how that might impact the neighborhood. I think we need it. And the neighborhood, we're already seeing, it's going to be overburdened by the impact of a really large university-owned dorm that's being constructed to the sky. We're also looking at hillside hardware as a possibility for more housing. neighbors are concerned, I encourage you all to listen to them and think about what we've seen from public participation so far. There's a petition online that's been circulating. Last time I looked at it, 350 residents signed it in support of the special permit requirement. You can contrast that to a petition that was signed by about 115 people put forward by the developer. in favor of no such requirement. There was a community meeting at Hillside Church where residents spoke overwhelmingly in favor of the special permit requirement. I think that Hillside residents deserve a right to present evidence on the impact of a development project like this before the special permit granting authority. I think that would be fair. I would really hope you all listen to not only what I have to say here but what others have to say tonight speaking in favor of the special permit requirement. Thank you very much.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, and Nick, just really briefly. And this is mostly because I know you are a student of this kind of stuff. On the veto question, Chappellas v. City Clerk, 1973, and Doherty, City of Woburn, 63, Doherty v. Everett, 82. It's almost exactly the same language in our charter, order, ordinance, resolution, or vote. And that precedent is very clear that it's for the final instrument, not amendments that are folded in. So I would say this after the meeting.

[Nick Giurleo]: I'm very glad you have case law. I think that's helpful. I'm going to take a look at those cases.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: I'm asking if you want to take a look at it and email me.

[Nick Giurleo]: Absolutely. I'm just basing it off the plain language of what our charter says. It says, quote unquote, vote.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: That's what KP said, and the Doherty case says, vote refers to distinct council actions such as accepting local option statutes or authorizing specific. So it doesn't mean any vote. It means vote in the context of like a, so.

[Nick Giurleo]: And I'll give it to you. I think it's arguable. I definitely think it's arguable, but I told you my interpretation. You have yours. I think that it's perfectly reasonable the way you're reasoning it with these cases.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: I'll take a look at those cases. I expect we'll be here for about an hour or two after you're here, so I wouldn't have had the chance to ask you. If you take a look at it and want to email about it.

[Nick Giurleo]: I will, yeah.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yeah, great. Thanks. All right, I'm gonna go to Paul Garrity on Zoom. Paul, if you could give your name and neighborhood, you'll have three minutes.

[Paul Garrity]: Hi, my name is Paul Garrity. I live in Cedar Road here in Medford. And I would like to just make an observation. And the city's in the process of making major policy decisions this year on a whole swath of issues that we're facing with. So I would like to offer that In the interest of city unity in the future, if a councilor or a school committee member is not certain on how to vote on a given issue, and there's going to be some big ones, that they simply employ the absent position on the vote, just abstain. And then I think any of this concern about the Honesty, legitimacy, I believe there are all good people working around here, but just to eliminate more noise that we don't need, take the absent position on the vote. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right. We will go back to the podium. If you could provide your name and neighborhood, you'll have three minutes.

[Laura Longsworth]: Hi, Laura Longsworth, 94 North Street. This meeting has been revealing, maybe not in the way you intended. You guys spent a lot of time talking about your issues with the mayor. Well, I think our neighborhood feels a little unheard on this whole issue, but maybe unseen tonight too, because there were like 25 of us here for two and a half hours. So I, just don't really want purpose-built student housing built. I think we would be much better off with housing for everyone. If we could build apartments or multi-use housing, that would be great. And I feel like we've been saying that. And there is a petition out there. And I think the petition at this point is about buy right versus permit because we just ended up here. But I don't think the neighborhood supports it. I don't know.

Anyway. And I do think that if we go with purpose-built student housing, we're basically saying, okay, Tufts boosts your enrollment and we're putting the campus here and purpose-built student housing here and Hillside's going to kind of just get filled in. I don't think it is going to fix the problem that you're trying to fix. If you're going to do it, I definitely think we should do it by permit. And that's partly because of some things that have happened. And one of them is, I know procedurally you can do it, but a late night vote where most members of the public have gone home is not, doesn't feel like a very fair move. And then also just previously, I believe the public comment period was closed or the public hearing was closed before purpose-built student housing was totally defined. I'm going back to June maybe. So it starts to feel like things might just happen and we won't have a chance to weigh in. So that's why I would vote for if we're actually going to do this to go with the permit. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. No further hands on Zoom. We'll stay at the podium. If you could give your name and neighborhood and you'll have three minutes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Zoom first. Go ahead. Hello, I'm Charles DePalma. Once again, I'm from Woodbine Road, lifetime Metro resident right next to the Gantra Center. So I actually want to state that I support Tufts receiving by rights status for this construction. I really oppose all of this special permitting debacle and making it necessary for that permitting process to go through. I'm hearing a lot of people complain that they're not having any opportunity to raise their voice and speak up against the construction of this building and that the special permit process is what's going to allow for them to do that, to which I want to say, what are we all doing here tonight? We have had no end of the debates and the public commentary about the construction of this building. It's probably going to go forward. There's very little that I think can be substantively added to this discussion. We have an enormous swath of regulations that already exist. The distinction between by right and special permit is fairly limited compared to all of the things that Tufts and the developers are already being asked to do and all the things that already impede them from constructing this building in the first place. We have shadow studies, we have safety studies, all sorts of these different things. We've very clearly delineated the area that this thing's going to get built in. It's really obvious. It's this giant orange shape that we've all seen. It is not giving Tufts carte blanche to whatever they want, or build whatever they want, or carte blanche to the developer to construct whatever they feel like. It's quite straightforward, and it's quite specific.

And the necessity for this is incredibly clear. I was a Tufts student. I was a Tufts student as recently as a few years ago. I was there when Tufts had to house students in the Hyatt, right over there. We didn't have enough beds to put students in. They had to walk all the way into Medford Square and back. They didn't feel safe. We had countless complaints that they were going to get hit by a car, something else was going to happen. It was an embarrassment. It was an embarrassment to Tufts. It was an embarrassment to Medford that we couldn't house all of these students ourselves because we don't have enough housing.

And we see exactly what happens when we can't accommodate this. We have students who swarm the neighborhoods. Residences fill up with Tufts students. Many of these Tufts students are wealthy enough that they can displace renters, and they can demand or offer higher rents, and that means that people like myself, others, my friends who rent in this area, who are just working honest everyday jobs, they watch the rent go up and up because of the threats of tough students who want to live right near campus.

I lived right near the Cummings Center when it was constructed. It was fine. I can't think of a single significant substantive complaint. We negotiated to move the site of a staging area from a large field into a gravel parking lot area. Beyond that, it worked perfectly fine. And I'd just like to very briefly close by saying that I think, at best, this is a delay tactic. At worst, I think this is a pretext for shutting down the project in order to preserve people's property taxes. And that comes at the expense of many students at Tufts and many renters, disproportionately young people who can't even show up due to scheduling issues. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Quickly, Planner Evans, do you wanna speak as a member of the public or as a city staff? And if it's city staff, I'll recognize you after we're concluded with public participation.

[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Yes, thank you, President Bears. Yes, I just wanted to raise my hand to speak after all the public.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Great, all right.

[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I won't speak as I'm also a resident, but I'm not speaking as a resident.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right, gotcha, okay. All right then, we will stay at the podium. Judy, name and neighborhood, and you'll have three minutes.

[Judith Weinstock]: Hi. Good evening. Thanks guys. Judy Weinstock. I live in the hillside. You all know me whether you want to or not. So I'm just going to follow up just real quickly. I do have a note to read. I promise you it's not more than 10 pages. The person who mentioned it's really hard as a community member to sit in the audience and see this incredibly antagonizing relationship between the council and the mayor. I'm not trying to minimize what you all feel and what she may feel, but you got to know that when it comes out in front of the community, it begins to feel like that's the focus, and I don't want this vote to be about that focus. I want to take it out of the realm of the mayor's office, and I want you to be sitting as objectively as possible to listen to the comments that are coming before you around special permitting. My understanding about special permitting is, in fact, it is not arbitrary. And, in fact, I don't know whether any of you know how many special permitted projects were turned down by the city just arbitrarily. I'm guessing there were none, essentially, or very few. So I'm going to read my comment. It is about special permitting. I have mixed feelings about purpose-built student housing. I don't know that it's really the best use for that parcel, but I don't own that parcel. I sort of wish I did, because it's not what I would put up. Because frankly, I think managing a purpose-built student housing is actually very different. It is a novel housing type that Medford has no experience with. It is complex. It is intense. It is going to be young people in large, large numbers.

And it is a complex type of business to run. And so if somebody tries to come in and manage it without the requisite experience to manage student populations, there probably will be a lot of backlash. And that is one of the reasons that I think a special permit is absolutely required. It does allow the Community Development Board to establish other conditions that would be enforceable beyond a basic buy right. So yes, it adds a layer, but it's a layer intended to protect not just the community, but the students who will be living there as well. It does not preclude, all the mixed feelings about Tufts, yup, I live in the hillside, I live with all that construction and have for the last, actually 15 years, it's been remarkable. There's not been a year go by where there hasn't been a major construction project in the hillside for about 15 years. So I'm going to read this now. I'm getting off my soapbox. So.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Judy, you've got about 15 seconds.

[Judith Weinstock]: Oh, no. Are you kidding? I'm sorry.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: But I could take you back at the end of everybody else.

[Judith Weinstock]: Yeah, if you kid you. All right. OK.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Is that OK? Sorry. Yeah. It moves quick. No hands on Zoom. Leslie, you're next. OK.

[eWg7lyFP5WI_SPEAKER_12]: I'll be quick. Leslie Kramer. I didn't move. I'm still at Adams Street Hillside. So I'm speaking in favor. If I could turn back the clock, I'd say, what kind of a development is this? This is nuts. 600 beds on an already crowded Hillside Street. I would have just said, nope. Show another one, please. But it sounds as if we're in for it for now, and so I want to speak in favor of special permitting. We need guardrails on this process to say let's just do it by right, to offer a by right permit.

It sets a precedent in a city where housing is really at a premium in more ways than one. We are not against housing the hillside as dense as we are. Not up here, but as dense as the neighborhood is. We welcome more housing, but not more student housing. That's Tufts' job. I don't want to do Tufts' job. Tufts should build more housing, more dormitories on their campus. I went to a college where I had to live off campus because I was a transfer student. I walked a mile to get to classes. Imagine that. I didn't have a car, but I realize that's not done anymore. So what I'm speaking for is by permit use, not a free-for-all, but not by right, because this is not just the Hillside neighborhood. a Medford neighborhood, and we really, as you can see, we're very passionate about it. We had 36 people at least show up, and it was partly because my friend, my neighbor friend and I went around and stapled these to telephone poles, and people saw these notices and said, whoa, it said an information meeting, a zoning information meeting. There was no propaganda about it. No name, no contact, but people showed up and we had this meeting at a church. It was incredibly successful. That's the kind of communication that I hope the city continues to or starts to and continues to offer citizens, oh not citizens, residents, just the way we did. It works. People really, I don't want to hear about the, the arguments between the, I know they're real, between the mayor and the city council, and it's very frustrating to get things done.

But this is almost a no-brainer. We need, by permit, we need guardrails. We need information. We need to slow the process down. If you've driven through Cambridge lately, you know that people in Cambridge are freaking out because there's almost unbridled development. So thank you very much. And please listen to Hillside Residence. Thanks.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll stay at the podium. If you could have your name and neighborhood, and you'll have three minutes.

[Anita Nagem]: Anita Nagum, Medford Hillside. I strongly support changing this to special permit. Over the past few years, but definitely in the past year, I have knocked on virtually every door in Hillside because of the bus petition. There is overwhelming opposition in the neighborhood to having a dorm. at that location. It is unrealistic to think that students in off-campus apartments are going to move into this private dorm. The students in the off-campus housing, the two and three-deckers, like their independents, they don't want anyone lording over them. They want their freedom, to put it mildly.

You need to think about the long-term consequences of putting a dorm at that location or allowing a private dorm at that location. That is about a mile from Tufts. That is going to create a corridor, which will be filled in by Tufts long term. It will allow Tufts to increase its enrollment, a free pass to increase its enrollment, because there'll be 600 more beds. They can just go 600, and new students would probably move in, 600 more students for them to collect tuition on.

And you have to also consider that this would create hundreds of students going back and forth along the Boston Avenue corridor and the neighborhood all day, all night. Students don't travel like commuters do. They go back and forth to their dorms. It would fundamentally change the neighborhood, not to mention the specific traffic issues at that intersection and in that neighborhood. So I strongly oppose allowing bi-rate zoning at that issue. It should be by special permit only.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_20]: All right. We'll stay at the podium. Name, neighborhood. You'll have three minutes. Micah Kesselman, 499 Main Street. So I'm on Winter Hill.

[Micah Kesselman]: I don't really have a dog in this fight. But I am concerned because there seems to be a really deep misunderstanding of what it means to be bi-right and bi-permit. Bi-permit, yes, it is not supposed to be arbitrary, but that's actually what makes bi-permit very challengeable, and that is really problematic. Effectively, by making a whole bunch of stuff by permit, you are opening up the city to a lot of litigation, versus by right, where you can just sit there and create your actual rules that define that right, and they're articulable, clear, defined, and effective, and it just goes through that. One of the other issues with special permitting is that One of the reasons you absolutely cannot deny a special permit is because of generalized community dislike for the entity. So we just had an entire discussion here about how much everyone's really pissed at Tufts. What do you think's gonna happen when a Tufts-related building is denied a special permit? Do you think they're going to say, oh, it wasn't arbitrary. It wasn't based on just people having a bad vibe. It was based on real articulable bases. You have to understand that. So by right, by permit, whatever, I think there's good reasons for both. But I also think that the people in the impacted neighborhood need to really understand what that means. By right does not rule us. It's literally the opposite of lawless. By right is well-defined, articulable, and structured rules for what allows you to build certain things in a certain place. By permit is going to get the city sued and probably make us lose because based on what KP law has shown so far, they don't know what the hell they're doing. So you really need to consider that.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll stay at the podium, name and neighborhood, and you'll have three minutes.

[Maryanne Adduci]: The way I look at this, if this project is so good, then why are you afraid of the special permit? I mean, it's just another little procedure you have to go through. So, it's to me, you're making a big mountain out of a molehill. If this is a good project and you're not gonna have any problems, it'll just pass through. I live on North Street, where this 600-bed dorm is supposed to be. Right next door, as I said to many people, Walkling Court, the senior housing complex, is now beginning construction. When it's done, there will be room for 350 people there, which is just next door to where this 600-bed dorm is going to be. On this corner, we're talking about a neighborhood corner here, there'll be 950 people.

coming and going all day long, cars, pickups, the senior housing will have visiting nurses, home health aides, the ride, the students will have pizza deliveries, their own cars coming and going. It is an awful lot for a neighborhood. So it seems as though this project will go ahead. So why not just put a little bit of, you know, another second look at this with the special permit? That's really all I have to say.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll stay at the podium. Name and neighbourhood, and you'll have three minutes.

[Angela Murphy]: Angela Murphy, 16 Cardiff Street. First, I want to say I want to applaud the Mayor for vetoing and putting it out there. And I'm sorry if it offended you she threw a monkey wrench in what you did, Councilor Tseng, by changing your vote, which I feel was... Please address the Chair.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you.

[Angela Murphy]: which I feel was totally inappropriate and disrespectful to the Hillside neighborhood and the residents of Medford, because we're not opposed to change. We're opposed to the change that you're proposing that will affect our neighborhood in a negative That's all I want to say. It's not the right fit for the Hillside neighborhood. Even the six-story building you're proposing to build on that site, or the developer, or the owner, or whatever wants to build, is not a good fit on that corner. That's all I want to say. The Hillside neighborhood is opposed to what is being proposed, not to change if it's done right. And I applaud the mayor for putting a monkey wrench in that. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right. Technically, you only get one more, but I'll let you read the whole thing. You only get one more minute, but I'm sure it'll take a little bit longer, so thank you.

[Judith Weinstock]: I did send this in, but so you know that I'm already in favor of the special permitting process. Not long ago, the Hillside residents were confronted with a project from Tufts. Now, because Tufts was the 10-story dormitories, Because they're Dover protected use, it didn't go through anything other than site review. Had it not been a Tufts building, it probably would have gone through special permitting. And I don't think that this building actually is different than that. And that's why I think this building requires a special permit. It's a novel use. It's an untested use in the city of Medford. No one has developed this type of housing before. Even though the Community Development Board put some guardrails in place They can't know what they don't know, and you can't know it either. And until at least one project has been put before the Community Development Board, gone through both special permitting and site review, everybody will be educated. You know what, if it turns out two years from now you don't really need a special permit for purpose-based student housing, fine, change it then. But this is an untested, untrialed type of housing in the neighborhood. And you can hear that there are really, really deep concerns. The special permit will allow the Community Development Board to put into place some additional enforceable conditions that might not have been anticipated without the benefit of seeing an actual plan in front of them. They did the best they could to put guardrails in place, but you don't know what you don't know. And so I would implore you that for the very reason, it's not just for the community, it's actually for the protection of the students who may live there. So the CED board can think about both things. They can think about community and they can think about the students who are going to inhabit that building. And a special permit will protect both of those groups better than a by right will, a by right review will. So please, you know, reconsider and wait until you've had at least two or three of these projects roll through before you decide it should be a by right project. Thanks.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right, name and neighborhood, and you'll have three minutes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Brigine McFadden, 66 College Ave. I just wanted to speak out as well in support of the special permit, and I just think that we need the extra guardrails and evaluations about, you know, traffic safety, parking, public utilities, all the rest. And I wanted to just remind everybody about the 350 neighborhood residents who have signed the petition asking for the special permit to be reinstated. And the residents of the neighborhood will live with the consequences of this decision for decades to come. And many people feel as though they've only just learned about the proposal and it already seems like it's a done deal.

So we're not against progress, but decisions with such lasting consequences deserve careful planning and meaningful input from the people most affected. A couple of other things quickly. I know there's like approximately 600 empty apartments in Medford right now. So this idea of freeing up apartments, I don't think that that's necessarily gonna answer the housing problem. It's the price of the apartments that people can't afford. And one other thing, this is the last thing. Before removing the special permit requirement, can you identify comparable Massachusetts communities where privately developed student housing has operated successfully under by right zoning and for how long? Okay?

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Are there any members of the public who'd like to speak on this issue? Seeing no hands on Zoom, no hands in the chamber. Anyone else who wants to speak on this? This is the last chance. All right, the public participation is concluded on this item. I do see three Councilors have chimed in. Do you want to hear from Planner Evans first or do you wanna go first? Okay, great. Vice President Lazzaro and then Councilor Callahan and then we'll hear from Planner Evans.

[Councilor Emily Lazzaro]: I want to clarify a few things as a point of information. First clarification, it's not Tufts building this. This is a use that would be a privately owned and operated. student housing for students. There are all these rules and regulations in what we've worked on in the planning and permitting committee. But it's not Tufts. So it's not we're giving this land to Tufts. It's owned by somebody already. They may develop it themselves. They may sell it to somebody else. Item number two as a point of information. None of the people in this room get to decide what actually gets done with this parcel because we don't own it. So all we can decide is is what is allowed in the zoning and how how we can regulate it as a city but.

Just because we may not want somebody to do something in the neighborhood that we live in doesn't mean that we can dictate how somebody will behave or build or not build or sell or not sell their property that they own. So the important thing to remember about zoning is that its purpose is not for every individual who lives near the property to say, I want it to be like this, I want it to be like that, because everybody is going to have a different opinion.

Some people were saying in the public comment, like, oh, if it was, if I saw this plan, I would have tossed it out. You can't, you don't, there is, there's item number three. There's no plan. There's no 300 beds. There's no 600 beds. Nobody's made a plan. There is no plan. We don't have anything. Nobody's doing any projects. This is just what would theoretically be allowed at some point. So whatever rumors have been happening about the number of beds in a theoretical future project, there is no project happening. Another thing I would like to clarify is that one more thing I will say just about like if you don't like something, it doesn't mean that you can say nobody's allowed to build it.

Because that's where it gets really tricky. That's where it gets to be something like, oh, well, I don't like that kind of person to live near me. I don't want that sort of neighbor. I don't want that kind of business. You know, we say that a lot, actually, in zoning. I don't like that kind of business. I don't want a strip club here. I don't want a weed store here. We can do those regulations. But when we start to get too particular about what we don't like because we live there, we think that we're controlling.

everything about our neighborhood and that's not necessarily what zoning is for. And the final thing I want to say is that we can listen and we can have opportunities for public comment and we won't always agree but it doesn't mean that we're not listening and taking in the information. and trying to balance that with the needs of the whole community, including the people that can't always make a comment or who can't, you know, come to the meetings or can't speak up or don't know that it's happening. And even as it feels that it's just started happening to a lot of the people in this room, I mean, it feels that way. I mean, some people still don't know it's happening, but we've been working on these projects for many months. So it is. and not for lack of trying to communicate that these conversations are going on.

We're doing our best to be part of a representative democracy where people vote for us and then we try to do the absolute best that we can for everybody all at the same time. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Callahan.

[Councilor Anna Callahan]: I just quickly wanted to say a little bit of something about public hearings and about public comment. So a public hearing is an actually legally defined state requirement for certain things, but functionally the point of a public hearing is to ensure that the body, the CDB, the city council, whoever it is, allows people such as yourselves to speak. And the reason it's required by the state is because in most cities, the opportunity to speak around the country and across the state, the opportunity for residents to speak usually is like at the beginning of the meeting, you get two minutes, you speak on whatever you want, on the agenda, off the agenda, it doesn't matter, and then the city council gets to get its work done. People don't get to speak on every item, they don't get to speak twice on every item. The way that we do it in Medford is extremely public speaking friendly. So the idea that a public hearing has been closed in June or July, prevented you from being able to speak to the body that mattered, that doesn't actually exist in Medford, in reality. Because we let you come here and speak for three minutes, and then for another minute, and that's on every single item on the agenda, not just at the beginning on an item, on something. So that's the first thing that I want to say, is public hearings, Like, we allow the public to speak at every single meeting on every single item, which is very unusual. And then I do want to say a little something about late night votes. You know, as I was just explaining, the vast majority of city councils across this country allow the public to speak at the beginning, and then they get their work done.

The item that the vote change was on was on the agenda. Many people spoke about it. the fact that there was a change doesn't change the fact that the public was heard. So I understand that this is a talking point in the community that like, oh, these late night vote changes or something are somehow in some way bad, but it doesn't change the fact that the public was heard on that item. There's nothing in terms of public comment that would change if that late night vote had not happened. There's no difference in terms of public comment. The public was allowed to comment on that item. It was on the agenda. Everyone who was looking at the agenda knew that that item was going to be talked about. It was going to be discussed. It was going to be voted on. And the public was allowed to comment. So I just don't think that functionally there is a difference.

between a late night, you know, something happening later at night. And I understand if a thing is discussed late at night that some people may go home. But what we're talking about is something that was in fact discussed earlier, but then there was a vote change later. that doesn't change the fact that the public was heard on that item. So I just, I'm hoping that this, you know, if people have heard this talking point and are repeating this talking point, can kind of think a little bit more clearly about whether that changes anything about the way that the public was heard, the fact that it was on the agenda, the fact that it was in fact discussed earlier in the night. Like, I think that all of those things happened appropriately and then there was a vote change according to procedure, right? So I just hope that people can sort of rethink a little bit about this, the commentary that like, oh, the public hearing was closed in June or closed in July. Like, it doesn't mean that you aren't able to speak and be heard, which is the true functionality and the only reason why the public hearings are mandated is because Not every city has our public comment process where every person in the room gets to speak on every single agenda item, which is very unusual. So I'm hoping people can kind of rethink these talking points and realize that there's no functional difference between the two.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thanks. Thank you. Any further comments from members of the council? Seeing none, Planner Evans.

[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Good evening, I'm Daniel Evans, senior planner in the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. I just wanted to speak because one thing is we would have brought this up at the meeting when this was voted on, but we didn't want to belabor the discussion around special permits because it sounded like it was the motion had originally been to discuss whether the special permit was necessary at like a cleanup phase. And so knowing it was a long meeting, Director Hunt and I were like, we're not gonna, you know, pipe up about this. This is something that's being kicked down the road. We'll take it up then. But our position is that we do feel strongly that there should be a special permit for this use.

Site plan review, it's very limited in what we can require and request from developers. Fortunately, we have a lot of really great developers that we work with that take recommendations from staff and the CD board, even before that they apply for things. You know, to mitigate any adverse effects, but there's some that. You know, aren't as cooperative or want to have a good project and so we. Sort of need to put in some, um. Defenses against, you know, a bad developer not saying anyone's bad and. The BA3 is more than one site, so I know people keep talking about the one property, but it's allowed in all of the BA3. We weren't zoning for just one particular property owner. It's that whole BA3. So I just want to make that clear.

One thing that does worry me is that, so site plan review is really a creature of local government. There's nothing in mass general law that controls how site plan review works and what cities and towns are allowed to do. But there is a bill in the House right now that would really significantly change how we do site plan review, would really water it down. It would really erode the kind of performance standards and requirements we can have.

One of those is not being able to push back on design, saying you need to shift the building this way or have a larger step back here because of shadowing concerns or looming, because you're not allowed to require anything additional or anything more restrictive than what is spelled out in the dimensional table. So with the BA-3 being the subject, the subdistrict with the most intensified dimensional standards, so up to seven stories, 8% law coverage, only 10% pervious requirements, It does give us pause knowing that we couldn't require the massing to be broke up or a bigger step back. The 10-foot step back does make us really nervous there. It could be a very large monolith. And if it was a deeper step back and there were more detailed design standards, that would require breaking up massing, I think I'd be more comfortable with it. But as it stands now, I don't think that there is a lot of local control in making sure that it's not just a giant box that maxes it out because the uses, it's an untested use. It's a very lucrative use. A lot of investors love it. There's a really high return. If you look at the website of any of these that are in Boston, the rents are crazy.

So yeah, because it's an untested use and we really don't know how to regulate it because there aren't a lot of good examples. I think the consultants didn't find any local ordinances like anything local to New England on it. I'm not sure how they were permitted in Boston. But also they don't. They're not subject to 48. So we just. That's really why we are. We're recommending the special permit and it's not to. be able to deny it, but it's to be able to control for the massing and to be able to impose conditions for some aspects of the operations that we are unaware of because the use and the standards around it were kind of, you know, put together, you know, rather quickly. So that's all I have. Thank you for letting me seek this late hour.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Danielle. All right. Do we have any further discussion or motions by members of the council? Councilor Tseng.

[Councilor Justin Tseng]: Thank you. I've just been taking lots of notes on what folks have said and comparing it against my thoughts that I said previous to kind of just poke holes in my own logic. And to be quite frank, I haven't left my original stance on this. I still support the vote I eventually took at that meeting. But yeah, before I delve into that discussion, because it might be slightly long, I do want to thank everyone who waited and spoke tonight. I don't take for granted the time that you've taken out of your day. And the knowledge that you bring of the neighborhood, the life experience, the years and decades that folks have spent in this community. And I don't mean just Hillside, I mean Medford in general. And the hours of dedication and service and volunteering that folks have given. It is really important. And it's always tough to follow up. public comment when public comment I think mostly goes one way and yet the arguments still don't completely convince you to change your stance on an issue because I think it can oftentimes feel like We're not listening, but we are. And it makes votes like these really difficult. And I think I've been pretty forthright in the last few weeks saying that this is perhaps the hardest vote I've taken on city council before. But hard votes don't mean you don't take that vote. It means that you study the issue, you talk to a lot of people, you keep debating, you stay up all night long, you reread, reread, reread, and then make a decision. And I think that decisiveness is something that residents in this city deserve. It's something that folks who are investing in the city, and I don't just mean investing in terms of real estate, I mean investing their time and wanting to move to Medford deserve as well.

I realized that in my first spiel, I didn't really address what the mayor said was late night vote change. And on this, again, I'll speak with full candor. I took that vote, I think pretty quickly started to regret it. And then over the process of the following paper, which I believe was, was it divestment? It might have been the litigation related paper.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yeah, it was the litigation issue.

[Councilor Justin Tseng]: Yeah, it was a long kind of litigation issue. I started to think about it even more, started to check my notes, and I just, I left with the feeling, or I kind of, closed the window, the browser window, feeling that I'd just voted the wrong way. And that it would be a disservice to the city and a disservice to my conscience if I hadn't changed my vote. And I've since been informed of different ways to do reconsideration. But at the time, the way I had thought that reconsideration worked on this council, because it's the only way we've ever done it, is to do it in the same meeting.

Right immediately after that paper, I moved to reconsider. And this is a personal flaw of mine. I'm actually quite bad with time. I'll go, you know, I'll enter a discussion with a resident or something, and then three hours later I realize I'm still standing in the same parking lot. Like, folks know that that's kind of who I am. And so I just genuinely didn't see that it was that late at night, but also, you know, in my mind, That was the last chance I had to vote motion to reconsider. Now I know, you know, there are different ways of doing it.

And I'm actually, you know, we've said a lot about the mayor and the veto and how we're not happy with the way that the process has gone about. But I actually, one thing I am happy about is having the chance to explain why it changed my mind in full detail. So I'll leave the discussion on the vote change on that. To explain my reasoning a bit, I think that public participation is central to getting anything done with legitimacy in a democracy. And in general, too, this is the reason why dictatorships don't work, because there's not public participation. And as Councilor Lazzaro and Councilor Callahan have mentioned, we've spent many, many, many months on this. integrated I think quite slowly a lot of the worries, concerns, feedback that residents had into the text of the ordinance itself, which I think can get really buried because it's very long, it's very technical, and sometimes I think as a council we don't do good enough of the job communicating the connection between the comments we receive at the podium and the final work product that ends up in a very technical piece of work. And I think I want to take this chance to say that we do listen. And, you know, even if the final vote on an issue doesn't go the way the resident wants it to, more times than not, we have taken those concerns and, you know, tinkered with them in the text of a technical ordinance. So I think we've done the democratic work of writing the rules, and that input in this case became binding protections that we see in the ordinance.

And essentially, I think all the concerns I've heard over the last few weeks and tonight are matters of site plan review rather than reviewing use. And site plan review is still real review. And I know that a bill was mentioned, but that bill has not been very successful. It was in the governor's package last year, and it failed the statehouse. it doesn't seem like there's been much motion on it at the Statehouse, even as its advocates keep speaking out about it. But on site plan review specifically and the types of concerns I've heard, I've heard about, you know what, I'm just going to list out what can be considered in site plan review. You can consider loading, parking, circulation, building bulk, building location, building height, paved areas, landscaping, natural resources and drainage, exterior lighting, fire and emergency access, trash handling. And then there's a whole other set of considerations, too, including lighting and glare, noise, hours of operation, impacts on adjoining properties and site development, traffic, pedestrian, bicycle, emergency access, and off-traffic mitigation, building design, building size, building materials, operating characteristics, neighborhood compatibility, utilities, wastewater, security, and emergency systems. Fiscal impacts, including effects on city services, infrastructure, tax base, and employment. And that stuff is allowed by state law, and it's in the ordinance itself.

And so, you know, when I consider the special permit question, I think it adds discretionary uncertainty, but not necessarily better protection. What it does guarantee is to add over six months of delays when you factor in all the timeline, which can kill investment in projects like this. And it, as, I think as someone mentioned, really, really frequently opens up the city of Medford, cities like Medford, to litigation risk. So I think that's, all of that I think is the reason why I think predictability, certainty, is a good thing. It's a good principle of fair government. And it's not a gift to developers.

The more that we drag on the process, the less informed oftentimes a lot of folks feel because they just don't know what stage that project is at. And I think it's fair to everyone, to you, me, to those investing in the city, to know what can be built and to know what the rules are before people make that investment in their time to show up to a meeting or in their money to fund a project. I think it's also just important to note that students don't disappear and that purpose-built student housing directly addresses problems that hillside residents have already complained to me about, like noise and trash and rats.

I just think it makes sense as a vision for the city, when the concern is so great in the neighborhood, to concentrate what folks see as problems in one building that is professionally managed, that has the responsibility by law to take care of those issues, rather than to leave them strewn throughout the neighborhood and to kind of create this quality of life problem for neighbors. And I think on that note, I mean, this is just me speaking personally. I'm the only student on this side of the rails. And oftentimes, I get where the concerns come from. I just spoke to them.

I'm heartbroken that students are viewed and are impanned so largely this way. I think generations do live differently and there are things that young people do that I think can create problems in a neighborhood. But I don't think that we should be scapegoating or denigrating a whole group of people for the failures of a city administration that hasn't enforced the noise ordinance, that hasn't enforced things like trash on the streets. And that, you know, it's a complex issue. A lot of it's about funding, not having the city staff to go out there to enforce those things. But then to turn down a revenue kind of opportunity, And to keep turning them down throughout the city means that these things won't be funded. It means that we can't tackle the quality of life issues that residents face every single day in this community. You know, I've also heard the concern, I guess, that Tufts will just admit more students. And I think the numbers I've pulled up before show that there's still a huge gap there.

And also that it's important to call it the logical fallacy here. That is a slippery slope argument. I could say that Tufts tomorrow could bring in a million students by just making a small tinker. I mean, I think we have to be aware of the arguments that we're making. and not to shift the goalposts. And that goes back to the special permit process. It's a tremendous worry of mine that we end up just shifting the goalposts back and forth.

Look, as a general note, I think Medford needs more kinds of housing, not fewer. And I certainly agree, you know, if I owned that piece of land, and I'll never be rich enough to, but if I owned that piece of land, I would support building multi-generational housing. I think that makes a lot of sense. I've been candid with that with residents, that that would be my ideal option. But we, you know, as policy makers and as decision makers, we do have to consider what actually is in front of us. And, you know, we can speculate, we can theorize, but at the end of the day, that remains just speculation and theory. Again, it would have been nice if we had someone in the executive office be able to call up the person that owns this property and guide the project and to find a use that more people are supportive of. I think that would have been a great option, but that's not how things turned out.

I also think the particular sites that we're talking about, the BA3 district on the Boston Ave corridor, is just unusually inappropriate for a use like this. Again, I just can't think of anywhere else in the city where this would make sense. It's a block away from a train station. It's a block away from a university. It's pretty much fenced off from a lot of the residential areas in the city by big roads and by train tracks.

And I started to have this conversation earlier in the hall. If we say no to this, then what are the standards in the future when other projects come before us? If we say no to this, then do we have to be fair to all residents and deny every project that comes before us? I think that is a dangerous, dangerous place to be walking into, especially when we're dealing with a housing crisis as big as we are, and where there is policy and political consensus around there actually being solutions to this, and the solutions being by building more housing.

And, and I think I, I wanna speak to another big issue that a lot of us as Councilors have been raising over the last month, or the last few months, and we've taken action on it. But the, you know, vacancy has a cost. And we, we can't afford that. So I'm gonna wrap up just, just by saying that I think that governance means thinking beyond tonight's conflict. I think it requires a vision. Too often, generally, and especially with this veto process, distractions have carried our attention away from that need of a vision for revenue, for housing growth, and turned a policy disagreement into a controversy about motives.

And so yeah, I mean, I think my question to the executive office is, what is the vision? what's the plan to get more city services up and running in our city, to tackle the quality of life issues, to fund the staff that we need for all of this, to tackle our housing crisis and make sure that people have roofs over their heads and that we stop getting phone calls and emails from people who are being kicked out of Medford and who are at risk of being homeless.

There is an easier political choice tonight to restore the special permit and to end the discussion, but I think the choice that creates the least conflict tonight isn't the choice that leaves Benford in the strongest position tomorrow. What I heard tonight does matter, and it's going to continue to affect, you know, how the CDB tackles this project, how they conduct site plan review. Yeah, and I know some of you will leave disappointed in me. I understand that, but I don't think disappointment means disregard. So after listening and reconsidering, I still believe that this is the right option. I stand by my vote. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any further discussion or motions before we move to the consideration of amendments? All right, thank you. So we have two motions by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Mullane. The first is a B paper to send a letter to the mayor to request that she remove the false information about the council's vote and about the process that has been posted on the city website. It's a B paper on a request, so I'm not gonna do a roll call. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion passes. We have a second motion, which is a motion by Councilor Scarpelli to amend the Boston Avenue Neighborhood Corridor District Ordinance to revert the purpose-built student housing use in BA3 back to special permit. So that's a motion by Councilor Scarpelli. to go to special permit, seconded by Councilor Mullane already.

And on that, I'm assuming we want a roll call, so I will request a roll call vote from the clerk. Clerk Siegel, could you please call the roll?

[City Clerk Laurel Siegel]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Councilor Leming? No. Councilor Mullane? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? No. Vice President Lazzaro? No.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: No, three in the affirmative, four in the negative, the motion fails. So now we have the final choice of the night, which is to vote on an override or not of the mayor's veto. The ordinance is unamended, so this would be a vote to override the veto and approve the ordinance as approved on September 15th. Is there a motion? On the motion to override the mayor's veto and approve the ordinance as approved on September 15th by Councilor Tseng, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Clerk Siegel, please call the roll.

[City Clerk Laurel Siegel]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Mullane? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. President Bears?

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The veto is overridden and the ordinance is approved as it was ordained on September 15th. Thank you. All right. We got some stuff here. 26142B offered by city council. This is the city council response to paper 26142. I think we should probably just table this to the next regular meeting. Is there a motion? On the motion to table by Councilor Tseng to the next regular meeting, seconded by Councilor Leming. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes.

On paper 26-179, this is the city charter. I think this is actually probably, in my opinion, the most important thing on the agenda tonight. But I don't know if we wanna do it at 1130. No, we need to talk about it. No. All right, Councilor Tseng, do you wanna? No. It doesn't need to be discussed in committee.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: But I think it's something that there's a lot of questions for the public. With even this vote we just took. Okay, so.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Can I talk about this? Sure, Vice President Lazzaro, Vice President Lazzaro, sorry.

[Councilor Emily Lazzaro]: Hi, hello. I'm Vice President Lazzaro. Thank you for acknowledging me. I think that this is a very important issue, but I think that it would easily get lost in other things, other emergent issues. I motion to discuss this in a committee of the whole in a future meeting prior to a regular meeting so that we could give it the full attention it would need. you know, at a 6 o'clock meeting because there was a meeting between Councilor Tseng, who was the Chair of the Governance Committee, President Bears, and the Mayor, at least, and maybe the Collins Center, somebody like that.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: And Vice Chair Graham and Secretary Rousseau from the School Committee. Okay. And the Mayor. Jenny Graham, Vice Chair of the School Committee.

[SPEAKER_20]: And Lauren Goldberg from KP Law.

[Councilor Emily Lazzaro]: And KP Law. And folks were advised to start implementing the Charter. now and that has not been happening. And again we're running our heads against a brick wall. So I think that we should talk about this but it's late. And my suggestion is that we discuss this in Committee of the Whole. I'm happy to hear why we shouldn't but that's my motion is to discuss this in Committee of the Whole.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right. Councilor Tseng and then Councilor Scarpelli.

[Councilor Justin Tseng]: Thanks. I would normally be really happy to send things to committee, get it off the agenda. But I actually think for this, because it implicates basically the constitution of the city, we should have this in the full view of the public. And we just get so much, to be completely honest, so much more audience participation and viewership when we do this in general session than And I think that democratic dialogue is actually really important for the Charter.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: I understand what Councilor Zia was saying, but I concur with Councilor Zia. I think it's important that we'll get more people, and I think it's so important that people are really confused about about what our charter is and where we are and what's passed and what hasn't passed. So I think that going to a regular meeting, presenting it so it starts a dialogue so people as an audience and that can understand that we're putting it forward then go to committee of the whole. So I agree. if we went that route.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. And I think we can have the committee of the whole after we've submitted this to them and get a response. Yeah. And then we can actually have the discussion assuming that we get a response. On the motion to table by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Tseng to the next regular meeting. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion passes. McCormick, do you want to also table to the next?

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: Yeah, let's get to the exempt point.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to table, seconded by Councilor Tseng. It's the next regular meeting, 26181. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion passes. We did that one. All right, we have the police chief search. Is there anyone from the city administration who wants to speak to the police chief search funding? This was tabled from the last regular meeting. There's no one in the chamber. If you're here from the city administration to talk about this, please raise your hand on Zoom.

Seeing none, is there a motion? Motion to table the next regular meeting by Councilor Leming, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion passes. Last one is the never-ending nightmare 26142, supplemental appropriation. We received another request for supplemental appropriation. At least we know the number now. So the city is requesting that we fund the law department filling the $340,061 that we have cut due to the lack of responsiveness or limited responsiveness around the legal budget.

I believe we referred questions to them earlier and tabled another element of this. So is there a motion?

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: Table.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: A motion to table by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by? Seconded by Council Vice President Lazzaro. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion passes, which brings us around, I believe. Did I miss anything? I don't think so. All right. To public participation, we do have a... We did that. Yeah. Yeah, it was like Ken Lord, we gotta get you out of here. Yeah, all right. I think, you know, we knew it was coming. All right, we have public participation. We have public participation petition by Micah Shalom Kesselman to the Honorable City Council, the underspined respectfully request for to read in a memo responsive to certain slanderous, defamatory, and factually untrue statements made by Mayor Lungo-Koehn about myself that were published in the Tufts Daily. Mike, do you want to do it right now or do you want to do it in two weeks?

Great. All you. All right. You're on the agenda and the microphone is yours. I will generally say,

[SPEAKER_20]: Five minutes would be ideal. I will try and read through it fast.

[Micah Kesselman]: And I'll say that I deeply appreciate the opportunity to memorialize my response in the city's record in as many ways as I can, because what the mayor had published about me is wild and crazy. And it gets to some other things that she has done that have been absolutely atrocious and unacceptable. So some of you, so first, Micah Shalom Kesselman, 499 Main Street. Some of you may have read an article in the Tufts Daily published on September 30th about the city's illegal spending that included some seriously defamatory and outrageous statements from the current Medford mayor about myself. They have since updated the article with some lines from a rebuttal letter I sent them after the fact, but I am publicly sharing a full version of the letter because it is important to me that the people I work and live with have a complete understanding of everything that transpired here and can trust me and feel safe around me as we continue to fight for a better world and a better Medford. I want to be very clear. Almost every single thing that Breonna Lungo-Cohen stated in regards to myself in the Tufts Daily article was either inaccurate or a complete falsehood. and their incredibly defamatory and outrageous nature of her public statements cannot be understated. As is typical in responding to the increasingly ubiquitous gish gallop tactic in politics these days, it will take a bit of effort to break down Brianna's defamatory statements. Certainly more time than it took for her to fabricate them. I will proceed through them in the order in which they were stated. Brianna claimed that I offered to represent the city pro bono. I never held myself out to the city to perform any pro bono work related to its defense in the Chertok-Jolkelson lawsuit. I am an advanced software and intellectual property attorney, not a municipal law attorney or even a litigator, nor do I have the time or energy to deal with what would clearly be an exceptionally hostile client. When I eventually did enter the case in a professional pro bono capacity, it was on behalf of the interveners and was done out of necessity to enable the robust defense that the attorneys at the American Arab Antidiscrimination Committee have been providing to the case and the city without cost. They thankfully understood the dire repercussions the case could have, not just on Medford, but the entirety of the Commonwealth, and so decided to take up representation of the interveners after discussions with me. Brianna spelled my name wrong. My last name is Kesselman, not Kessleman. This is minor, maybe even petty, but I think it's rude to not know the last name of the person you are actively defaming. I am from Medford, not any particular activist group. I am not from OR, as Brianna stated. I rally and work with a litany of municipal groups in Medford because the current situation of the city, largely due to historic incompetence from the executive branch leadership, is so catastrophic that it has largely fallen upon residents to take up the necessary work to protect our neighbors and help them thrive. I work with Our Revolution Medford. By the way, OR is not, is Our Revolution. ORM is not Our Revolution. It is our revolution, Medford. They are different organizations. And people should stop conflating them.

And I work with them when our goals and work align. I also regularly work with Medford for Palestine, Luce Medford Hub, Medford People Power Safe, Medford, Medford Community Response Network, many other municipal organizations in the city, and even just my neighbors, because I give a damn about them. The Medford City Council did not turn down any offer of professional services from me due to my conduct or otherwise. And this is part of the defamation that happened in here. As it is overwhelmingly clear by now, the city council did not, quote unquote, decide not to go with me to represent the city because it was never an option. And they never had such authority as the executive branch of the city has reiterated time and time again.

I have never advocated or expressed interest in violence against any public official, elected or otherwise. Now we come to the especially brazen, defamatory, and uncalled for nonsense. Earlier this year, Breonna did in fact initiate a clearly politically motivated and spurious police investigation into myself and others with whom I organize. It was ostensibly in regards to a Medford people power, not safe Medford, which was completely uninvolved in Breonna's attempted intimidation meeting. As an aside, and in relation to discussion of whether we should continue to push Breonna to implement a model executive order promulgated by the ACLU to protect local organizers against politically motivated targeting and investigation, I apparently said something along the lines of, I'm happy to keep pushing the mayor right to the edge of a cliff, but I don't think it's worth spending energy pursuing her support on this one. This is very much a paraphrase because it was such an incidental and arbitrary aside that literally no one thought anything of it.

And we only had to figure out what was being referred to even when Brianna forced the police to investigate. The detective's own report, which can be publicly retrieved from the Medford Police Department upon request, makes it very and nearly explicitly clear that the entire investigation was baseless and thoroughly politically motivated in relation to a contemplated run for Middlesex's 34th District House Representative seat by myself, which I later bowed out of for completely unrelated reasons. Moreover, even the supposed statement which Brianna instrumentalized to initiate a politically motivated investigation against myself and my colleagues was nothing like an indication that I wanted to throw her off a cliff. It is atrocious and reprehensible that she would make such allegations in the public press. I want to be clear about this. I have never advocated for or supported violence against any of our elected officials and would never condone such. I wouldn't condone it against anyone, regardless of their political position. I admittedly can be less than nice and I might talk like your average New Englander despite being a transplant, but no one would sincerely accuse me of being unkind or advocating political violence. When I and my colleagues in Medford People Power were first put through all of this political targeting by Brianna, we decided to largely keep the whole matter to ourselves. We felt we had come out the other side and had too much other important work to do to be distracted or intimidated by what was, at the end of the day, utter nonsense from a petty, flailing individual with an unfortunate amount of power for the time being. Now that it has been raised in the public and deeply mischaracterized and instrumentalized solely to slander me, it appears we will have to engage in the distraction after all. Regardless of whatever rightful legal action I do or do not take against Brianna as an individual, I think it is important to recognize what this kind of conduct means for the city and its residents as a whole. The indescribably distressing nature of Brianna's conduct here needs to be also emphasized. This defamatory statement from Brianna is especially troubling because it is indicative of at least two very problematic behaviors that have only escalated in recent months. First, she has always engaged in borderline, and at this point I would say well over the border, defamatory and disparaging speech about those who are politically opposed to her, especially if they are vocal and unapologetic. Moreover, she has been more than willing to abuse her position and municipal resources to engage in political bullying and intimidation, as we clearly see here. The second behavior is far more personal to me, as this comes right off the heels of the City Council meeting of September 29th, where it was shared that Breonna had not only refused to utilize any city resources to publicize the City Council's ward meetings, which they ordained last year, but actively tried to obstruct those meetings by removing them from the city calendar merely because I had produced a flyer to publicize the meetings and enable some sort of RSVP. For whatever reason, it is clear that she has decided to target specifically me and now is doing whatever she can to harm me, personally, professionally, and socially, even if it puts bystanders like my fellow organizers or my family or even the fundamental democratic systems and axioms of our city itself in danger. Everything about how Brianna is conducting herself right now is simply untenable. And I sincerely urge her to deeply introspect and work towards a more healthy and reasonable mode of behavior for her own sake and for the sake of the city, if not for mine. And that's my rebuttal. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Micah. I think actually what you said may have been the most important thing we heard all night. Chris Stevens, I know you're here, from God I Know Medford. I really hope you write about this. I just am, I've read the police report and the idea that the mayor would use the Medford police to investigate her political opponents because they disagree with her, that she would accuse people of wanting to commit violence against her, that she is now weaponizing this vendetta against a single person against the city council, holding neighborhood meetings. Like, nevermind all of the reasons how it impacts me. This is a person who had the police call his home who's worried about his family, who's worried about his job. Like, have you no decency, Brianna, is really the only thing I can say. Please stop doing what you're doing. You are hurting people.

Every meeting we have is about how you are hurting people. I don't really have anything more to say. Councilor Tseng.

[Councilor Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I agree that this is the most important thing of the night because it is just so deeply messed up. The whole notion of democracy is that, like we saw tonight, is that you get to, you know, talk to your leaders, to pressure them, to work with them, to try to pass things that you want to see as a resident in this community, and, you know, sometimes you disagree, and that's okay, but, you know, there's a civilized way to go about it. And to see her sick the police on you is just insane. I'm trying not to swear.

I, you know, as angry as I was about the mayor making, you know, insinuations about my character, that anger comes nothing, it comes nothing close to the anger I feel about her doing it. to residents who can't defend themselves, to residents who don't have the privilege of sitting at this seat and being able to respond in a public chamber. And then to create basically a state of terror where she's utilizing the police to attack individuals for their political beliefs, it's the type of stuff that you would expect out of I don't know, like Soviet Russia. This is craziness. It's utter madness. We should never stand for that. I don't know if I've ever read any example of a local government in the U.S. where this has happened, because I think most people have enough decency to know that this is just not something you do when you're in power.

I think, and Micah, you're one example of it, speaking through the chair, you're one example of it. I also feel equally outraged about folks who work for the city, who've given their careers to the city, who have had to face false accusations from their boss about their character and what they've done and their service to the city. and to feel hopeless and defenseless in those situations. I get why city staff are so, so done with things here.

You would never expect this from a healthy workplace. You would never expect this from a democracy, and I am just astounded.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. We do have Mr. Casanetti on Zoom, or I can go to Vice President Lazzaro. Do you want to speak? All right, Mr. Casanetti, if you could give your name and neighborhood, and you will have three minutes. Mr. Casanetti requesting you unmute. All right, you have three minutes.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: I'm unmuted, sir.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you very much, Council President. I'll admit, I know next to nothing on this matter. However, he, Mr. Kesselman, said, and I quote him, I can admittedly be less than nice and might talk like a typical New Englander, despite being a transplant. So I'm questioning, I'd like to know, where were you born and bred? What city, state and country? I'm just asking and curious if you want to answer. Reason being, because I'm a lifelong New Englander and I feel offended by his comment. That's all.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right, thank you for your time. I would recommend you listen to what he said and the serious allegations, frankly, the serious factual statements about the mayor's harm that she's causing to our community.