City Council: Law Department Supplemental Appropriation and Audit Agreement - 2026-11-02

AI-generated transcript — the recording is the record.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: stand there too. Yeah. Let me know and we're good to go. We are all set. All right. Special meeting Medford City Council November 2 2026 is called the order clerk single please call the role.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Thank you, yes, I am present. Councilor Lohning? Present. Councilor Mullane? Present. Councilor Skargkali? Present. Councilor Tseng? Councilor Tseng? We can't hear you for some reason.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Vice President Lazzaro is absent. President Bears? Present. Seeing Councilor Tseng, I see him being present. Six present, one absent. The meeting is called to order. Communications from the Mayor. 26142 submitted by the Mayor, Supplemental Appropriation for Fiscal Year 2027 Law Department. We received a revised paper this afternoon. I'm going to read it. We have November 2 2026 supplemental appropriation for fiscal year 2027 revised dear President Bears and members of the city council based on a meeting this afternoon with myself President Bears vice president was our Councilor malign and chief of staff is Aaron. I'm hereby submitting the survives supplemental appropriation request for today's special meeting of the city council under agenda item. Under this agenda item and rescind my prior letter dated October 29 2026, I respect the request and recommend that your animal body approves the supplemental appropriation for fiscal year 2027 law department budget in the amount of $52,507 and 63 cents to restore ordinary expenses for the fiscal 27 law department for the bunch budget for the month of November. and $10,000 to address the necessary upcoming legal service costs and or to ensure that the funds available for legal services related to the November 4 2026 election. As of today the Council President provide a list of five organizations and firms that may be able to conduct an audit of the city's legal spending and the administration committed to submitting a progress update with the results of quotes from the organizations that have done this kind of work before December 1. And to meet this appropriation, a sum of $52,507.63 be raised and appropriated from the tax levy. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely, Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Mayor. So we did meet this afternoon based on having had anyone from the administration present last week at our meeting to just try to move forward here. I'll go to Councilor Mullane.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Great. Thank you, President Bears. Yes, as stated in that letter, myself, President Bears, Vice President Lazzaro, the mayor and the chief of staff were able to meet and talk through where we all kind of stood when it comes to figuring out the next steps around the law budget. I think all of us are trying to look for a way to be able to move forward and that we're able to be able to get some answers and To be able to make sure that we have the appropriate funds that are needed in order to keep moving forward when it comes to the law budget piece. President Bears suggested, and I think this has been brought up a couple of times before about trying to have an outside audit. come and actually take a look so that it's not us. It's not just the administration or KP Law, but a different organization taking a look to see what the audit looks like in terms of where we're spending some of our law budget dollars. At the end of that meeting, we seem to come to an agreement that the five places that President Bears suggested that the administration would reach out to and start having conversations, be able to get quotes, see who is able to actually perform what we're asking them to do so that we can begin to move the needle forward. The hope being that we'll get another progress report by our next city council meeting where the administration can hopefully come in person and talk through what they were able to find and where our next steps are. so we can continue moving through this process. I think that kind of sums it up. I don't know, President Bears, is there anything else you'd want to add to that conversation?

[Councilor Zac Bears]: The only thing I would just add is, you know, we really, we've been going back and forth on this now for nine months, maybe even longer. You know, the review was something that we had included in our original request in February. I think At this point, with the trust deficit between the Council and the administration when KP law, you know, we just need an independent assessment, we need someone to come in and say, this is what's going on and get us the answers that we have been asking for now for nine months. I really wish we weren't here. I certainly wish we weren't having a special meeting on a Monday. I think we could have gotten to this resolution last week if the administration had been able to join us at that meeting. So now that we have that, by the end of the month, hoping we'll see the progress report and then what we had suggested at that meeting, myself and Vice President Lazzaro and Councilor Mullane If we're seeing that progress and the city's about to or going to engage someone to do the audit and review, we can then approve, you know, two, three, four more months of funding until that review is complete. And then, you know, essentially be coming back hopefully early next year with the outcome of that review. And then we can move forward, you know, for the rest of this fiscal year and for next fiscal year. And as I said to the mayor, you know, I know the administration's position is that everything is okay, you know that they believe ever they've done the right things.

And I really, you know, I think the reason we all have agreed that doing an outside review is because they believe that, right? And if we see an independent third party from the outside who comes in and says, this is what has been spent, and these are the decisions that would have been made, and we think these are reasonable or unreasonable, or this is how they compare to the past in Medford, or what we see in the law here in Massachusetts, I think that's a much better place for us to be then kind of this, back and forth. So that's my hope. You know, the administration believes that an outside review will show that everything is up to par. And I think it, you know, will give us certainly an outside review will give us the financial answers. And we can move forward from there on the other questions we have. So that's really all I have to say.

And appreciate everybody's work on this. Councilor Mullane.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Thank you. One other thing I just want to add to is we did also bring up getting the city solicitor position posted as well as part of this too, so that we're hoping to see that move as well. So I just want to make sure that we had addressed all those different points that I think have been brought up by ourselves, by residents, that these are all the areas that we were trying to address and negotiate as part of this process.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right. Thank you, Councilor Mullane. Any other councilors who'd like to speak on this? Seeing none, are there any members of the public who'd like to speak on this matter? Please raise your hand on Zoom. All right, seeing none, is there a motion? Motion to approve. Motion approved by Councilor Leming, seconded by Councilor Mullane. Clerk Siegel, please call the roll.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Councilor Callahan. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Six the affirmative one absent the motion passes. Their further motion.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Motion adjourned. On the motion to adjourn by seconded by Councilor Callahan. Clerk Siegel, please call the roll.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Councilor Callahan. Yes. Councilor Leming.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Councilor Mullane. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Councilor Tseng.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Councilor Liz Mullane]: Vice President Lazzaro is absent. President Bears?

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yes. Six in the affirmative, one absent. The motion passes. Join us Wednesday for Councilor Mullane's riveting Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee meeting at 6pm on Wednesday.