[Melanie Tringali]: Well, on a personal level, I'm married to James Murdock, my husband.

[Melanie Tringali]: We have four children and one dog.

[Melanie Tringali]: We've been residing in Medford close to 30 years.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, and I have deep roots in the city of Medford.

[Melanie Tringali]: Both my grandparents lived here, one in South Medford, one on the hillside.

[Melanie Tringali]: Both my parents graduated Medford High.

[Melanie Tringali]: And ironically, I live now in the house of my pediatrician, Dr. Murphy.

[Melanie Tringali]: So many people that live here know that old yellow house on Forest Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: And on a professional level, I work in business.

[Melanie Tringali]: I've been in marketing for 20-plus years.

[Melanie Tringali]: I've worked for professional services company, nonprofits, education, and community service-wise, I've been on the Methodist Family Network Board.

[Melanie Tringali]: I've worked – I was on the

[Melanie Tringali]: I was the co-chair of the PTO for the Columbus School, which is now the Mississippi, but when I was at the Columbus School.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I am now a member of Method Rotary.

[Melanie Tringali]: Well, one, the thing I learned is I really enjoyed it.

[Melanie Tringali]: It was a lot of hard work, I'm not going to lie.

[Melanie Tringali]: But I really enjoyed meeting people, being out in the community, hearing from different people.

[Melanie Tringali]: But then the other lesson I learned is that it's really hard.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's a lot of work.

[Melanie Tringali]: It takes a lot of time and effort from meeting people to fundraising, trying to get up to speed and everything that's happening with the city.

[Melanie Tringali]: But overall, it was a good experience.

[Melanie Tringali]: The biggest issue right now is the rezoning.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I am really rezoning in a way that disrupts our neighborhoods.

[Melanie Tringali]: And so we really need to take a step back and protect our neighborhoods.

[Melanie Tringali]: That's my first thought.

[Melanie Tringali]: I am not against rezoning.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think we need to rezone at a level that brings in a commercial base.

[Melanie Tringali]: And not so much this type of this rezoning that's happening is really trying to bring in a lot of density.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I don't know if housing density is the right thing for the city of Medford.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think that

[Melanie Tringali]: for this city to be successful and to grow is we need to think of rezoning in a way that brings in commercial and more businesses so that we're not relying on residential tax bases.

[Melanie Tringali]: Because if we continue to rely on residential tax bases, we'll continue to have more overrides.

[Melanie Tringali]: So that's one.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think other than that, the majority of the issues are still there.

[Melanie Tringali]: Most of them, not all of them.

[Melanie Tringali]: You know, my campaign when I ran two years ago, my campaign was running on the local issues and not on the national issues.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think we need to take a step back and really look at how

[Melanie Tringali]: we function as a city and making sure that we still have problems with our infrastructure.

[Melanie Tringali]: We still have problems with our streets and our roads.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's still

[Melanie Tringali]: I would say budgetary issues.

[Melanie Tringali]: We still come up with $25 million of free cash every year.

[Melanie Tringali]: So why is that continuing to happen?

[Melanie Tringali]: That's not to say we shouldn't have a rainy day fund, but $25 million is a lot of money to have.

[Melanie Tringali]: Sure is.

[Melanie Tringali]: Revitalizing our squares, bringing in more of a commercial base.

[Melanie Tringali]: So a lot of that stuff is still kind of the same.

[Melanie Tringali]: All right.

[Melanie Tringali]: But the main thing right now, I think, is really protecting our neighborhoods.

[Melanie Tringali]: This rezoning fundamentally changes the city of Medford.

[Melanie Tringali]: And it fundamentally changes every single neighborhood we have.

[Melanie Tringali]: I've been living here for 30 years.

[Melanie Tringali]: And one thing I've always appreciated about the city is the difference between Lawrence Estates, West Medford, East Medford, Glenwood, the hillside.

[Melanie Tringali]: Every place is different.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yes, it is.

[Melanie Tringali]: And what we're seeing is people coming in and making them kind of look

[Melanie Tringali]: Vanilla and taking away Taking that away.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, I also don't think just by building more houses, we're going to reduce the cost of housing.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's very expensive to build homes today.

[Melanie Tringali]: And given the green initiatives that they want, that actually increases the cost of building houses.

[Melanie Tringali]: And no one's not going to build houses without a profit.

[Melanie Tringali]: Will it bring down some costs?

[Melanie Tringali]: Maybe, but not drastically.

[Melanie Tringali]: There was a lot of problems.

[Melanie Tringali]: Sure.

[Melanie Tringali]: Well, in 2023, during the local election, there were a lot of problems.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I think a lot of those problems came to fruition or were recognized when the tallies and the results of the election was completed.

[Melanie Tringali]: It almost looked like there was

[Melanie Tringali]: counts or ballots missing because the tallies weren't right.

[Melanie Tringali]: But some of the main issues, and I'm going to have to refer to my notes on this one because there's a lot.

[Melanie Tringali]: So one, there was misprinting of ballots.

[Melanie Tringali]: They sent out incorrect ballots, the mail-in ballots, and they were wrong.

[Melanie Tringali]: I believe there was incorrect information on the website at one point with incorrect dates.

[Melanie Tringali]: Okay.

[Melanie Tringali]: There was inaccurate instructions provided to the voter polls and mail-in ballots, if memory serves me right.

[Melanie Tringali]: Trainings that were provided had incorrect information.

[Melanie Tringali]: People were told, the poll wardens were telling people they couldn't bring in notes or instructions about who they wanted to vote for, and they were turning people away.

[Melanie Tringali]: I know there was many people that went to vote, and they weren't on the voter rolls.

[Melanie Tringali]: They somehow, even though they filled out a census, they weren't there.

[Melanie Tringali]: There was an issue with the poll location.

[Melanie Tringali]: I believe there was an issue with the Roberts School, and one of the poll locations had changed.

[Melanie Tringali]: There was definitely an issue with the ballot counts.

[Melanie Tringali]: And when the results were provided, you could tell there was, it looked like there was 700 votes missing.

[Melanie Tringali]: So giving all, and actually, for on the record, the city council recognized all these issues and actually agreed, they all voted,

[Melanie Tringali]: Every single one of them agreed that the issues were bad and that they were to write a letter to the Secretary of State asking them to come in and review the process.

[Melanie Tringali]: That's how bad it was.

[Melanie Tringali]: So it was a mess, the election.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, it was a mess.

[Melanie Tringali]: So I knew I didn't win.

[Melanie Tringali]: I was definitely behind by a couple of hundred votes.

[Melanie Tringali]: But I felt it was important to develop or I felt it important to do a recount.

[Melanie Tringali]: And the reason I wanted to do the recount, because I wanted to see if there was any other inconsistencies, given all the stuff leading up to the election and the ballot count.

[Melanie Tringali]: And there was.

[Melanie Tringali]: There was a lot of inconsistencies.

[Melanie Tringali]: The things that we found were that there was 130 mail-in ballots that were never counted.

[Melanie Tringali]: Now, people say, oh, 130, that's nothing.

[Melanie Tringali]: But it is something.

[Melanie Tringali]: That's someone's vote that was not counted.

[Melanie Tringali]: And that goes to show that there's still process.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's problems with the process.

[Melanie Tringali]: Then for precinct counting, 80% of the precincts had incorrect tallies.

[Melanie Tringali]: So what we did is we counted the ballots.

[Melanie Tringali]: And then we compare the ballots to the tallies.

[Melanie Tringali]: And what we found were, in some cases, there was more tallies than there were ballots.

[Melanie Tringali]: And actually in two of them, two precincts, there was 40 more

[Melanie Tringali]: I mean, all of them had some inconsistencies, but two of them, one was 40 more and one was 50 more.

[Melanie Tringali]: So we had 50 more tallies than actual ballots.

[Melanie Tringali]: So, yeah, there were a lot of issues.

[Melanie Tringali]: And, you know, I don't know if those got resolved.

[Melanie Tringali]: You know, the city council had requested that the elections committee come forward.

[Melanie Tringali]: With the report, I went to that meeting.

[Melanie Tringali]: I don't know if anything was actually resolved.

[Melanie Tringali]: In matter of fact, in 2024, during the federal election, and during the override, I was out one night with a friend, and I said, let's just go over to the, it's eight o'clock, let's go over to City Hall, and let's go watch them tally up the votes.

[Melanie Tringali]: And usually the votes are tallied in chambers.

[Melanie Tringali]: Chambers, they have to be, right?

[Melanie Tringali]: So we go up to chambers, there's no one there.

[Melanie Tringali]: So I go downstairs to the election office, the Italian in the election office.

[Melanie Tringali]: No.

[Melanie Tringali]: I actually went and asked to go and view the Italian.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I was told that I could not stand in the election office, that I had to leave and stand outside in the hallway and watch through the window.

[Melanie Tringali]: Legally, I have the right to watch them.

[Melanie Tringali]: Absolutely.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I'm not, I wasn't going to harass, but as a citizen and knowing all the inconsistencies that happened in 2023, I did have the right to watch.

[Melanie Tringali]: So I, you know, with the upcoming election, I think one of my main things is to make sure

[Melanie Tringali]: There's a new manager of the elections office and make sure that the processes, I'm actually going to bring something forward to the city council to make sure that that happens.

[Melanie Tringali]: That's right.

[Melanie Tringali]: People want to know that their vote was counted.

[Melanie Tringali]: Right.

[Melanie Tringali]: And you know,

[Melanie Tringali]: Again, I didn't do it because I thought that it was gonna change the outcome of the election.

[Melanie Tringali]: I did it to make sure that moving forward, people would have confidence that their votes were being counted.

[Melanie Tringali]: The only thing I think I need to do different really is really look at where I was strong in the voting process and hitting the areas where I may have not been as strong.

[Melanie Tringali]: Reaching out to more people.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think being less shy about asking help because it's a lot of work and you need the volunteers.

[Melanie Tringali]: Even if it's just holding a sign for a day or having a meet and greet at your house so you can meet other people.

[Melanie Tringali]: Living here, you think you know a lot of people, and then you realize it's a pretty big, it's a small city, but it's a big city.

[Melanie Tringali]: So though I do know a lot of people, and sometimes I think, oh, I didn't realize I knew that many people.

[Melanie Tringali]: At the same time, I meet new people every time that I never met before.

[Melanie Tringali]: So yeah, I'm hoping to get another, I think I came in at 4,800 votes.

[Melanie Tringali]: My goal is to get another 1,200.

[Melanie Tringali]: So my goal is 6,000.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think if I can get 6,000, I can get in.

[Melanie Tringali]: OK.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think the biggest issue was communication.

[Melanie Tringali]: You know, I'm a marketing professional, that's what I do.

[Melanie Tringali]: Communication, right?

[Melanie Tringali]: And one thing I realized in my role as a marketing professional is everyone digests information in different ways.

[Melanie Tringali]: Some people are on social media, some people go and look for the information, some people rely on, well they used to rely on the newspaper, we don't have a newspaper anymore.

[Melanie Tringali]: Not everyone's on social media.

[Melanie Tringali]: And even on social media people,

[Melanie Tringali]: consume information in different ways.

[Melanie Tringali]: Some people go to Instagram, some people go to Facebook, some people go to TikTok, some people go to Reddit, some people look at online newspapers, some, you know, there's just different ways.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I don't think we do a good job.

[Melanie Tringali]: Let's take the zoning, for example.

[Melanie Tringali]: Okay, let's take the zoning as an example.

[Melanie Tringali]: So one, we don't communicate enough.

[Melanie Tringali]: Two, it's hard to find information and the information when you find it is not easily digestible.

[Melanie Tringali]: And what I mean by that is the zoning is a really good example of bad communication.

[Melanie Tringali]: I've been involved in the zoning since they started on Salem Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: Right.

[Melanie Tringali]: There was little information about the Salem Street zoning in what was happening.

[Melanie Tringali]: There was no notices that I know of that was put in tax bills.

[Melanie Tringali]: And matter of fact, I know it's not because I do own a property that was part of the rezoning piece.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I'm going to be up front.

[Melanie Tringali]: I do want to to

[Melanie Tringali]: two-family on Park Street that is right on the corner of Salem and Park.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I never got notification.

[Melanie Tringali]: The only reason I found out about it is due to Sheryl Rodriguez and Gene Nuzzo.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I got involved in that process.

[Melanie Tringali]: And in the sense that I was going to the meetings, I was presenting my thoughts and my feedback.

[Melanie Tringali]: What happened over there is really too bad.

[Melanie Tringali]: That zoning was pushed through without any planning, with resident feedback, but that resident feedback really wasn't taken into account.

[Melanie Tringali]: No.

[Melanie Tringali]: And then what I mean by easily digestible is that unless you're an architect,

[Melanie Tringali]: or some zoning person, trying to read all this information is very challenging.

[Melanie Tringali]: If you have a full-time job, trying to do this is really challenging.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I mean, I'm still trying to get caught up on everything and what the zoning means.

[Melanie Tringali]: So it's not in layman terms.

[Melanie Tringali]: I know I've been to community development board meetings where even the board members have asked for easy

[Melanie Tringali]: easy keys and easy ways to understand.

[Melanie Tringali]: Simplify it.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's got to be a way to do that.

[Melanie Tringali]: The information was not always available timely before meetings to review.

[Melanie Tringali]: And there was a couple of meetings that I went to that the presentations were not up on time.

[Melanie Tringali]: And then I think the other thing is that the information is hard to find, regardless of the zoning.

[Melanie Tringali]: You go to the Medford website.

[Melanie Tringali]: I mean, I was trying to look at minutes from two years ago.

[Melanie Tringali]: They're all on Google Docs.

[Melanie Tringali]: senior, I don't even want to just say senior, but if you're just not, like my husband, my husband is technically inept.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'll be honest.

[Melanie Tringali]: He can fix your car, he can build anything, but when it comes to technology, simple things on his phone, he's inept.

[Melanie Tringali]: So it will be a challenge for people to find the information they need and then get it in layman terms.

[Melanie Tringali]: That being said, I do think improvements have been made over time.

[Melanie Tringali]: The website has been updated.

[Melanie Tringali]: They have been making improvements to try to get information out.

[Melanie Tringali]: For the zoning, it was too late.

[Melanie Tringali]: I mean, I know the mayor, there was finally stuff put in the tax things for the West Medford and Lawrence Estates, but it was too late.

[Melanie Tringali]: They should have started that from the very beginning, and they didn't.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, I do think the Community Development Board I I do have a lot of respect for Emily.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think she's been very I

[Melanie Tringali]: fair and trying to get everyone's information and hear everyone.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I have, you know, again, it's just a little, I think a lot of this stuff happened a little bit too late.

[Melanie Tringali]: And we all know at the end, it's the city council that makes the decision.

[Melanie Tringali]: They can take the recommendation from the community development board, or they can not take it.

[Melanie Tringali]: And that's what happened on Salem Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: Well, I want to be clear, because I think

[Melanie Tringali]: I do think we need to rezone.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm not saying that we shouldn't rezone.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think we need to focus on specific areas.

[Melanie Tringali]: The squares, I think rezoning will help to revitalize the squares.

[Melanie Tringali]: Mr. Gav, the Fellsway, but it needs to be done in a thoughtful and planful manner.

[Melanie Tringali]: And it's not.

[Melanie Tringali]: So, for example, we put out three RFPs for three parcels in Medford Square before the rezoning was even done.

[Melanie Tringali]: Why wasn't that done, why wasn't planning done together?

[Melanie Tringali]: Like, okay, this is our vision for Medford Square.

[Melanie Tringali]: And to include that vision, this is what we want.

[Melanie Tringali]: And to do that, this is the type of rezoning we're thinking about.

[Melanie Tringali]: There just needs to be a plan.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I'll give another good example.

[Melanie Tringali]: In my eyes, anyways, if you look at the Felsbury where Stop and Shop is, that's a huge property.

[Melanie Tringali]: And if we had thought and planned out that appropriately, have you ever tried that parking lot?

[Melanie Tringali]: It's the angles and where Keynes is too.

[Melanie Tringali]: That came in, yeah.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's just it needs to be planned appropriately.

[Melanie Tringali]: And there needs to be a master plan.

[Melanie Tringali]: And there needs to be studies done.

[Melanie Tringali]: We haven't had the studies done.

[Melanie Tringali]: I agree with the studies.

[Melanie Tringali]: So again, and I think that we should focus on those areas, not so much on building just housing density.

[Melanie Tringali]: I really do think that, again, that goes back to planning and working with different departments, the Chamber of Commerce, the planning department at City Hall.

[Melanie Tringali]: We need to look at ways to bring in new business.

[Melanie Tringali]: I don't know if there's a lot of

[Melanie Tringali]: regulation or barriers for people starting small businesses here.

[Melanie Tringali]: I do know that we have 64 liquor licenses for restaurants and only 28 are being used.

[Melanie Tringali]: Wow.

[Melanie Tringali]: So.

[Melanie Tringali]: Wow.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think that's pretty accurate.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's about 60 and we're only about 28 are being used.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think there's a lot of opportunity there.

[Melanie Tringali]: I also think we need to make our squares more welcoming.

[Melanie Tringali]: If you look at Melrose Square, even Arlington, Winchester, a lot of the surroundings, there's conformity.

[Melanie Tringali]: Right?

[Melanie Tringali]: Very much.

[Melanie Tringali]: They make it very welcoming, and you want to be there.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yep.

[Melanie Tringali]: If you look at Medford Square, there's no conformity.

[Melanie Tringali]: Right.

[Melanie Tringali]: I know we have a sign ordinance.

[Melanie Tringali]: The sign ordinance is not followed.

[Melanie Tringali]: You need to make it welcoming.

[Melanie Tringali]: You need to clean them up.

[Melanie Tringali]: And there's small things that can be done.

[Melanie Tringali]: Clean them up.

[Melanie Tringali]: Plants, flowers, more lights, working on the signs, cleaning up the windows, just making it more inviting.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think we go a long way.

[Melanie Tringali]: And there's no reason why we shouldn't be attracting

[Melanie Tringali]: restaurants and small business with the Chevalier Theater.

[Melanie Tringali]: For the buildings, for... And they get people in.

[Melanie Tringali]: You know, I talked to the owner of the Altacuba, he's doing well.

[Melanie Tringali]: You know?

[Melanie Tringali]: I mean, in restaurants, I mean, there's other types of businesses that we can bring into.

[Melanie Tringali]: Right.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's just not restaurants.

[Melanie Tringali]: But I think we all agree that we want more restaurants.

[Melanie Tringali]: Well, depending on where the zoning goes, I bring in the zoning.

[Melanie Tringali]: Right.

[Melanie Tringali]: I would really look into our infrastructure and where we stand with our roads and our squares.

[Melanie Tringali]: Uh, you know, there's been a street, you know, a comprehensive street plan.

[Melanie Tringali]: We hired two new people to in the DPW or there was an override to hire two new people to fix our streets and our sidewalks.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um, really figure out where that's going.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um, take a good look at the budget and see, well,

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, I could see you taking a good look at the budget.

[Melanie Tringali]: No, I could.

[Melanie Tringali]: You're good with that.

[Melanie Tringali]: I could see you.

[Melanie Tringali]: I would look at our pilot programs, too.

[Melanie Tringali]: Our pilot programs, I don't know if we're getting the most out of them and if we're

[Melanie Tringali]: Using them as much as possible.

[Melanie Tringali]: I mean, Tufts, you know, Tufts, I don't know if their pilot program has increased over the years.

[Melanie Tringali]: Right.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's other non-profits that we could be tapping into.

[Melanie Tringali]: All right, I would say my least favorite is food shopping.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm not a fan of the majority of the food stores.

[Melanie Tringali]: Okay in Medford.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, I will frequent Wegmans I think they're very expensive stop-and-shop.

[Melanie Tringali]: I don't really go to it all and I will go to Whole Foods I'm usually at Trader Joe's or Market Basket I'd say that's my least favorite So I don't really yeah, I don't food shop in Medford at all And my

[Melanie Tringali]: It's kind of a combo, most favorite, least favorite.

[Melanie Tringali]: I walk all the time.

[Melanie Tringali]: I love that we are so close to the Mystic River, which, by the way, I think we should be taking more advantage of that, which we're not.

[Melanie Tringali]: And actually, the RFP for the three buildings that came in really didn't take into account how to take advantage of our waterfront, which was disappointing to me.

[Melanie Tringali]: But I love walking.

[Melanie Tringali]: I walk along the river and the Mystic all the time.

[Melanie Tringali]: I love it.

[Melanie Tringali]: I love watching the birds.

[Melanie Tringali]: But it's also the worst part because our sidewalks... I mean, I end up walking in the street all the time because the sidewalks are awful.

[Melanie Tringali]: I've tripped a couple of times.

[Melanie Tringali]: I've actually fell a couple of times on the sidewalks.

[Melanie Tringali]: my dog pulled me once and I fell because there was a lip in it and ended up getting black eye.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah.

[Melanie Tringali]: It is embarrassing.

[Melanie Tringali]: And Medford Square, I don't even like walking in the square during

[Melanie Tringali]: uh... on mondays yeah because the trash so our businesses put the trash out in the front of the uh... which i don't like because i'm always afraid that i'll come across some critters that i don't want to see you know you would think there would be a better way to do that because there's gotta be a better way

[Melanie Tringali]: Tons of trash barrels.

[Melanie Tringali]: It just doesn't look too good.

[Melanie Tringali]: It doesn't look good at all.

[Melanie Tringali]: So I try to avoid the square on Monday nights.

[Melanie Tringali]: No, there's a lot of small stuff that can be done.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think following through on our ordinances would be a huge help.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's a lot of ordinances that are not enforced, which could bring in additional revenue.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's not going to be huge, but it could bring in additional revenue.

[Melanie Tringali]: So I do have a Facebook page that they can reach out to Melanie Tringali from City Council, I believe it is.

[Melanie Tringali]: And then I do have an email.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's Tringali, F-O-R, and that's Tringali with an I, T-R-I-N-G-A-L-I-4-F-O-R Medford at gmail.com.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I will have a website up fairly shortly.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm sure but just one more time Tringali t r i n g a li for for Medford at gmail.com awesome.

[Melanie Tringali]: I really enjoyed this.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, this is good.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thanks for having me.

[Melanie Tringali]: Melanie Tringali, 116 Forest Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: I wasn't going to comment tonight on this at all.

[Melanie Tringali]: My original comment was about this ordinance and the council's fiduciary responsibility to the city of Medford.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's your fiduciary responsibility who oversees the budget to make sure that we have right investments and bring us a good return on our money.

[Melanie Tringali]: But then listening to these stories and these people who are afraid and upset

[Melanie Tringali]: The gentleman from Somerville who called in talking about the hate that he's witnessing in Somerville and what's happening over there should be enough for you people to make these changes to these ordinances.

[Melanie Tringali]: I mean, other than the fiduciary responsibility to the city of Medford and its residents, but also for all these other residents who don't support this at all and are afraid.

[Melanie Tringali]: I really would recommend that you reconsider it altogether.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, I'm Melanie Tringali.

[Melanie Tringali]: I live at 1164 Street, and I just wanted to thank the mayor for calling in today and requesting to slow down and stop the residential zoning.

[Melanie Tringali]: Many people have already spoken, so I'm not going to repeat everything they said, because I've agreed with a lot of them.

[Melanie Tringali]: Increased density does not necessarily mean that we're going to bring down our housing cost.

[Melanie Tringali]: that we need to slow down.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um increase in traffic.

[Melanie Tringali]: Uh our infrastructure.

[Melanie Tringali]: Our schools are safety.

[Melanie Tringali]: All that I think will be extremely impacted.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I know that you wanted to focus on.

[Melanie Tringali]: Residential zoning, but I also think that we need to slow down on the square zoning.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um we need to get it right.

[Melanie Tringali]: The

[Melanie Tringali]: We need to increase our commercial base.

[Melanie Tringali]: We're not going to increase our revenue by increasing density in residence.

[Melanie Tringali]: We need to increase our commercial base.

[Melanie Tringali]: We need to have vibrant squares, and you need to have a plan for that.

[Melanie Tringali]: Just rezoning and saying, come to us is not going to work.

[Melanie Tringali]: There needs to be a plan.

[Melanie Tringali]: In addition to stopping and opposing the residential, I strongly recommend that we slow down on our squares and get it right so that we have the commercial base that we need to have vibrant squares and the tax revenue that we need.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, I'm Melanie Tringali.

[Melanie Tringali]: I live at 116 Forest Street, so I live right outside of the main square.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I just want to, I have a couple of comments.

[Melanie Tringali]: 1, I want to thank, I don't, I remember their names, but there was 2 board members that specifically talked about providing information prior to the meeting.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you for that we need that information.

[Melanie Tringali]: I like Cheryl would not was not able to review the information so a lot of this, I didn't have time to really delve into it.

[Melanie Tringali]: To the acronyms, I think someone else had mentioned that.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think that's really helpful, especially for Layman and the majority of the residents here in Medford.

[Melanie Tringali]: And also there was a comment from one of the board members about an overall plan for each of these squares.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I think that's really important as we look to how we want to zone these squares for the benefit of the residents.

[Melanie Tringali]: To given the timing of the information that was received tonight, I agree with page and Michael that this needs to be slowed down and that I don't think there should be moved to the city council for next week.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think there's a lot of things that still need to be reviewed.

[Melanie Tringali]: Development of commercial being outside of West Medford Square.

[Melanie Tringali]: I love to walk to the square.

[Melanie Tringali]: I love to go to the restaurants and the bars.

[Melanie Tringali]: I wish there was more shopping.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm not sure that we need more density.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think we need housing, but not a ton of it.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's tons of traffic in Method Square as it is now.

[Melanie Tringali]: Adding more density is only going to increase that traffic.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think there's tons of people in the neighborhood that I know of that want to walk to the square.

[Melanie Tringali]: and frequent businesses, small businesses.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I look at Melrose Square, Winchester Square, there's not a whole lot of density there, but those are very vibrant squares with small businesses, lots of restaurants, lots of activity happening, lots of coffee shops.

[Melanie Tringali]: Winchester Square, I think has three to four different coffee shops, but you don't see a lot of density there.

[Melanie Tringali]: And they're vibrant squares.

[Melanie Tringali]: With regards to keeping historical preservation, I actually worked, was on the Historic District Commission for a while.

[Melanie Tringali]: I know there was a purpose of them of making Medford Square a Historic District Commission.

[Melanie Tringali]: I don't know where that is, but I'm all in favor of keeping our history and reducing

[Melanie Tringali]: destruction of any of our history for that in the square.

[Melanie Tringali]: And lastly, we need parking.

[Melanie Tringali]: I live on Forest Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: When there is a show here, the side streets are filled with cars.

[Melanie Tringali]: No one parks at City Hall.

[Melanie Tringali]: No one.

[Melanie Tringali]: No one parks there to visit the show.

[Melanie Tringali]: They all park on Forest Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: the residential streets and in the square.

[Melanie Tringali]: And removing parking within the square puts an onus on elderly and other people that can't walk from distances to go to the bank and to run their errands.

[Melanie Tringali]: That's it.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you very much.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, Melanie Trangali 116 Forest Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: I also own a piece of property at the corner of Park and Salem Street, and I do want to say that I'm in favor of rezoning especially

[Melanie Tringali]: anything that increases our businesses and commercial businesses.

[Melanie Tringali]: However, at this current zoning, I'm not in favor of right now for a number of reasons.

[Melanie Tringali]: One, just looking at the website, one of the goals that says moderately increase residential housing and ensure neighborhood compatibility.

[Melanie Tringali]: Under the current zoning, I don't think the increase in residential housing is moderate.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think it's much larger than moderate.

[Melanie Tringali]: We could be talking about possibly thousands of houses and units.

[Melanie Tringali]: In top of that, none of these houses and units are affordable.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's nothing saying that they're affordable, that it's going to reduce the cost of living in Medford.

[Melanie Tringali]: There are currently 489 apartments listed on Zillow right now in Medford, and that has not brought down the price at all.

[Melanie Tringali]: Parking is an issue.

[Melanie Tringali]: As I stated, I do have a piece of property on Park and Salem Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: I have tenants.

[Melanie Tringali]: They all have cars.

[Melanie Tringali]: They all need parking.

[Melanie Tringali]: They all drive to their jobs.

[Melanie Tringali]: They don't take the 101 bus or walk around in Salem Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: They drive to other destinations.

[Melanie Tringali]: Two, I think that I'm concerned of the businesses and gentrification of these buildings.

[Melanie Tringali]: All these businesses, the majority of them do not own the buildings that they're renting.

[Melanie Tringali]: Rents could increase.

[Melanie Tringali]: And we saw that.

[Melanie Tringali]: We saw that with the Best Sellers Cafe.

[Melanie Tringali]: It was displaced for years and years, came in, and then couldn't afford the rent to stay there anymore.

[Melanie Tringali]: So there's a very good chance that a lot of these local businesses will be out of business.

[Melanie Tringali]: And again, just we need to consider parking.

[Melanie Tringali]: If you're gonna have businesses, you need to have places to park.

[Melanie Tringali]: So that's it.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you very much.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, this is Melanie Tringali calling from 116 Forest Street, but I do own a property at 178 Park Street as well.

[Melanie Tringali]: Just a couple of things that I'm concerned about specifically is traffic.

[Melanie Tringali]: I don't think there was a traffic study done at all.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um, I don't think there was any study done with our public safety departments at all as to how this these new.

[Melanie Tringali]: Properties apartments or commercial building would have an impact on them.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um, I don't think there was any infrastructure studies done as well.

[Melanie Tringali]: How does this impact our water our sewer?

[Melanie Tringali]: And our electrical, I think that area is pretty prone to black, pretty frequent blackouts.

[Melanie Tringali]: I know in the past couple of months, they've people have lost electricity and heating.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm very concerned about the intense zoning around the public school.

[Melanie Tringali]: I don't understand why that was even considered to have.

[Melanie Tringali]: commercial zoning at up to six stories next to a public school.

[Melanie Tringali]: If you go down those streets, those streets are so crowded, there's parking on both sides, it's just dangerous.

[Melanie Tringali]: And if you have commercial buildings, they are businesses, it's a huge safety issue for the school.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm trying to, if I had anything else, I think those are my biggest concerns.

[Melanie Tringali]: The only other thing I did want to comment on is earlier in the presentation, I think you had actually asked a specific question about, you know, businesses and if they would have to go out of business.

[Melanie Tringali]: But I think what we have to consider here is that if these new zoning things go into

[Melanie Tringali]: reality, there is a possibility that some of those businesses may lose their business, right?

[Melanie Tringali]: If they don't own those buildings and there's owners that are open to more cash or other types of

[Melanie Tringali]: Availability to make more money.

[Melanie Tringali]: A lot of those people and all those businesses could be displaced.

[Melanie Tringali]: So that's all I have.

[Melanie Tringali]: I don't think a lot of them do.

[Melanie Tringali]: Matter of fact, I know that, and I don't know if it's a result of the potential zoning coming up, but Citizens Bank, which is a huge bank for that community, I know I visited frequently, even though I live on Forest Street, is being closed or has already been closed because they did not renew their lease.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yep.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Melanie Tringali, 1164 Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: I just have a question as I'm looking through this document.

[Melanie Tringali]: I noticed that you have,

[Melanie Tringali]: mix one, mix two, mix three, and then through all the columns you have either, yeah, like an N, which I assume stand for no, Y for yes, and then the CDB, is that because you're sending it to them to make a recommendation for that, or is that because when one of those particular parcels come up for development, it needs to go to the Community Development Board?

[Melanie Tringali]: Dormitory and fraternity and sorority houses can be built on Mystic Ave, which I'm not quite sure how that contributes to our tax base, but then you have senior housing facilities, CDB.

[Melanie Tringali]: Okay so everything in bold would be a new use and then so then previously dormitory fraternity sorority was part of the old use and that's why it's still wide but okay all right exactly yeah okay that makes a little bit more sense to me thank you thank you all right on the motion to refer to community development board um do you think we should roll call

[Melanie Tringali]: I just want to thank them for bringing this up again.

[Melanie Tringali]: I have a property on Forest Street where I live and have been seeing rodent activities the first time I've seen it in five years.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I also own a property that I lived in for 25 years at 2931 Stoughton Street and have never had

[Melanie Tringali]: rat issues over by the hillside, but that is becoming an issue.

[Melanie Tringali]: The Method Health Department was very responsive and coming out after my calls and people have come out and looked.

[Melanie Tringali]: I do just want to say two things.

[Melanie Tringali]: One, there's a huge health concern with rats.

[Melanie Tringali]: A friend of mine's actual dog got liver disease from being in touch with rat urine.

[Melanie Tringali]: So rat urine actually causes liver disease in animals.

[Melanie Tringali]: So that's an issue.

[Melanie Tringali]: It can also cause a lot of issues with human contact as well.

[Melanie Tringali]: And two, you mentioned something about the trash.

[Melanie Tringali]: Is trash being done, because I walked through Medford Square on Monday night,

[Melanie Tringali]: And it is disgusting.

[Melanie Tringali]: I don't even like walking through this square at all.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's deplorable, the amount of trash that's not in any receptacles whatsoever.

[Melanie Tringali]: They're just sitting in cardboard boxes and trash bags.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I want to be supportive of the businesses.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think it's really important to have the businesses there, but I also think it doesn't put our city in good light and it also attracts all types of rodents.

[Melanie Tringali]: And just one other thing, I think the other big thing comes down to enforcement.

[Melanie Tringali]: enforcing ordinances, and we've talked, this has been a subject matter for many city councils, but enforcing the ordinances is necessary.

[Melanie Tringali]: And if we're not enforcing, it's also a good way to raise money, but if we're not enforcing the ordinances, then as the gentleman previously said, we won't be able to get any control of the rat population at all.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, this is Melanie Tringale, 116 Forest Street in Medford.

[Melanie Tringali]: I also wanted to comment similar to what the previous woman has also said.

[Melanie Tringali]: I am a landlord.

[Melanie Tringali]: I own two multi-families.

[Melanie Tringali]: My first home was a multi-family.

[Melanie Tringali]: I've been a landlord in Medford for over 25 years.

[Melanie Tringali]: I take pride in ownership of my properties.

[Melanie Tringali]: I upkeep them.

[Melanie Tringali]: I have good tenants.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm a good landlord.

[Melanie Tringali]: Many of my tenants have lived in my properties for five, six, seven years.

[Melanie Tringali]: This registry is a slippery slope and it's a policing policy of landlords and the people that end up getting punished for this are the good landlords, not the bad landlords.

[Melanie Tringali]: You said in your comments, President, that you know who the bad landlords are.

[Melanie Tringali]: It is a code enforcement issue.

[Melanie Tringali]: If you know who they are, then you can enforce the laws.

[Melanie Tringali]: The other thing is you talk about that.

[Melanie Tringali]: You did.

[Melanie Tringali]: You did.

[Melanie Tringali]: You said you already know.

[Melanie Tringali]: Okay, all right, so I didn't hear anything about single families.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's tons of single family homes that don't enforce their codes.

[Melanie Tringali]: I walk the streets of Medford all the time.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's no code enforcement for businesses.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's trash thrown in front of their businesses, overgrowth, things are not taken care of.

[Melanie Tringali]: What are you doing about that?

[Melanie Tringali]: Are they registered?

[Melanie Tringali]: Do you reach out to them?

[Melanie Tringali]: How are you gonna reach out?

[Melanie Tringali]: You talk about tax programs that you wanna reach out to us for tax programs.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's other ways to reach out to us.

[Melanie Tringali]: do you what about the tax incentives for single family homebuyers how are you going to reach out to them are you going to have them register there's ways to reach out to these people without having to and again the people that end up getting burned with these types of things are the small property owners who actually the majority of them are pretty good landlords and they're the ones who end up bearing the brunt of these these laws that's all i have to say thank you

[Melanie Tringali]: Well, then maybe we should start there first.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, Melanie Trangali, 16 Forest Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: I just have a couple of comments and questions.

[Melanie Tringali]: First of all, it's good to see that there's work being done.

[Melanie Tringali]: Many of you know I actually requested a recount at the November election due to all the issues that transpired.

[Melanie Tringali]: And so it's good to see that this election went a lot smoother.

[Melanie Tringali]: There was still some hiccups, and there's still some issues.

[Melanie Tringali]: I do think that cleaning the voter rolls is very important.

[Melanie Tringali]: You're wasting money sending things to people anyways that aren't eligible to vote, and that shouldn't be happening.

[Melanie Tringali]: A couple of things on Henry Milleran's

[Melanie Tringali]: thing here that I wanted to comment on or question on is, he talks a lot about fixing irregularities in our election.

[Melanie Tringali]: And in the first four, he talks about what he wants to do, but there's really no game plan on how that's going to be done.

[Melanie Tringali]: So I hope to see that there's going to be some plans on how that's going to be done.

[Melanie Tringali]: It talks about identifying and investigating irregularities.

[Melanie Tringali]: That's great, but how is that going to be done?

[Melanie Tringali]: Establish an independent investigation committee.

[Melanie Tringali]: Another good idea.

[Melanie Tringali]: Secure and audit voting machines.

[Melanie Tringali]: How is that being done?

[Melanie Tringali]: One of the things that came across during the election and during the recount is what we found was that machines were counting ballots incorrectly.

[Melanie Tringali]: There was several machines, actually, I think about 60 to 75% of the machines had different counts than actual ballots.

[Melanie Tringali]: and I don't see anything here in this plan addressing how that's gonna be rectified.

[Melanie Tringali]: The other thing that came up during the recount is there was over 130 million ballots that were never counted.

[Melanie Tringali]: Again, there's no plan in here to rectify or count the number of actual ballots that were received and the actual number of ballots that were counted.

[Melanie Tringali]: So I hope to see that addressed in this plan, or hope to see it addressed in some plan.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um, and then just one other comment.

[Melanie Tringali]: I was reading another report here.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um, I don't know if this is an error or but I mean, it is kind of true, but I think it's an error.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um, it says seven results in transparency, the counting and tabulation of votes were conducted with transparency and a lack of accuracy.

[Melanie Tringali]: Oh, I guess that that is accurate.

[Melanie Tringali]: But then it goes on to say instilling confidence in the election outcome.

[Melanie Tringali]: You might want to that doesn't make sense to me.

[Melanie Tringali]: So those are my those are my comments.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, Melanie Tringali, 116 Forest Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm actually one of the candidates that requested the recount of the recent election, and I just want to recognize and appreciate Councilor Bears for adding those additions to the agenda this evening.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think it's really important that we have integrity in our elections and that they're accurate.

[Melanie Tringali]: In addition, I would like it noted that

[Melanie Tringali]: you know, after the election, there was a lot of discussion about the process.

[Melanie Tringali]: And though each one of these city council members agreed that there was an issue with the process, you all agreed that there was no change in the accuracy of the election.

[Melanie Tringali]: Well, the election was not accurate.

[Melanie Tringali]: The,

[Melanie Tringali]: The outcomes may have not changed, but the accuracy was not accurate.

[Melanie Tringali]: We missed over 130 ballots that were not counted, which Councilor Bears had mentioned.

[Melanie Tringali]: But in addition, and I think this is something that should be addressed, is that there was tabulations.

[Melanie Tringali]: There were several precincts that had tabulations where there were more ballots counted than actually tallied than there were counted.

[Melanie Tringali]: In two precincts, there was 40 ballots

[Melanie Tringali]: more that were tallied than what was actually counted during the blocking process, and there was another precinct that had 50.

[Melanie Tringali]: In addition, there were others that had smaller amounts of 11 and 15.

[Melanie Tringali]: But that, to me, is a serious issue with the tabulation machines.

[Melanie Tringali]: So my hope is that somehow those will be addressed as well.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, Melanie Trongali, 116 Forest Street and a recent candidate for the 2023 election.

[Melanie Tringali]: And just sitting here, a couple of things that really stuck out at me is that there was listed probably 10 to 15 issues with the election from beginning to end.

[Melanie Tringali]: 4,000 ballots, if I heard George right, were not counted, were not counted in public, or don't know how they were counted.

[Melanie Tringali]: You all said that there was a complicated process, more complicated process because of the early voting and the mail-in ballots.

[Melanie Tringali]: And each one of you said that election integrity was an issue.

[Melanie Tringali]: And given all those issues, how can you sit here and say 100% that the end result

[Melanie Tringali]: will not be impacted.

[Melanie Tringali]: I've been in business for 20 years.

[Melanie Tringali]: And whenever there is a breakdown in process, there is usually an impact on the end.

[Melanie Tringali]: Now, I'm not saying that those changes are going to be huge to make a difference in who won and who didn't win.

[Melanie Tringali]: But there should be absolute 100% proof that what happened or the counts were accurate.

[Melanie Tringali]: So thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, I'm Melanie Tringali.

[Melanie Tringali]: I live at 116 Forestry.

[Melanie Tringali]: I just had a couple of questions and then maybe a couple of suggestions.

[Melanie Tringali]: Councilor Bears stated that the revenue from the parking is the only revenue that

[Melanie Tringali]: fees that has the most, but I have not been able to see or find in the budget the actual amount of money that we get from parking fees.

[Melanie Tringali]: I've seen the cost it is to support our parking department, which is four people, and I've seen the revenue generated from our excise taxes.

[Melanie Tringali]: but I've not seen any breakout of revenue from our parking.

[Melanie Tringali]: So that's a question, I don't even know if we're making any money off of that.

[Melanie Tringali]: That was delivered to the council.

[Melanie Tringali]: Oh, okay.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, that's true.

[Melanie Tringali]: The other thing I was going to mention was it's building off of,

[Melanie Tringali]: Councilor Scarpelli is pilot programs, working with Tufts and our other nonprofits and helping with a lot of the code enforcement and getting some restitution or help in that situation.

[Melanie Tringali]: And then also,

[Melanie Tringali]: my understanding, and I could be wrong with how I read the budget, but isn't there $25 million put aside with the fact that the mayor only wanted 10% of our full budget?

[Melanie Tringali]: So if I read that budget correctly, that means she wanted to put about 14 million aside for a rainy fund, but that's still money that's left over, no?

[Melanie Tringali]: But you said October, November, November.

[Melanie Tringali]: So that's not that far away.

[Melanie Tringali]: So you guys don't have authority to ask to be sent, but you can recommend to the mayor that she make adjustments in the budget to enforce codes.

[Melanie Tringali]: in ordinances, is that correct?

[Melanie Tringali]: I know.

[Melanie Tringali]: So then in other words, then the citizens really need to get on her in residence of Medford to ask her to really push for this, but all right.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you for answering my questions.

[Melanie Tringali]: I appreciate it.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, this is Melanie Tringali.

[Melanie Tringali]: I live at 116 Forest Street, and I'm all for any new retail on the square to help

[Melanie Tringali]: bring in some new energy as well as some new foot traffic.

[Melanie Tringali]: We definitely need it.

[Melanie Tringali]: So, and I think I'm very aware of spirituals and the crystals and I think it's a great thing to have.

[Melanie Tringali]: Good evening, Erin DiBenedetto, Elections Commission, Room 102.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, this is Melanie from 116 Forest Street in Medford.

[Melanie Tringali]: I just wanted to go on the record and say that I appreciate

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um the mayor trying to make this budget work.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm sure it has not been an easy year given the situation with Covid and the reduction in revenue.

[Melanie Tringali]: I do hope that the mayor and the City Council can work together and making this.

[Melanie Tringali]: Um budget work.

[Melanie Tringali]: I definitely feel for the

[Melanie Tringali]: And I'm not for a proposition two and a half override.

[Melanie Tringali]: We are all, all families are struggling right now to make ends meet.

[Melanie Tringali]: Many people are working two jobs to make ends meet and many people are going and trying to do more with a lot less.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's just a time.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's just a situation that we're all currently in.

[Melanie Tringali]: So I do appreciate the mayor trying to look for additional funding and making additional changes to try to appease everyone and I hope that the mayor and the city council can work on this.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Yes, Melanie Tringali, 116 Forest Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: Just a couple of points of clarification I'm asking.

[Melanie Tringali]: One, if it's really not your business or our business, then why are we writing an ordinance, number one.

[Melanie Tringali]: And number two, when you say whether child or adult, are you usurping the parental rights for that decision?

[Melanie Tringali]: So if a 12 year old child came here from another state

[Melanie Tringali]: wanting a sexual change but the parent doesn't.

[Melanie Tringali]: What is your, how is that ordinance going to deal with that.

[Melanie Tringali]: And then my last point is, you know, some of the things you say is not, I think,

[Melanie Tringali]: Some of your words were a little bit harsh.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm a Catholic, I'm against abortion.

[Melanie Tringali]: I don't force people not having abortion, but I do believe strong morals and values that it's wrong and that people should be counseled on those types of things.

[Melanie Tringali]: I do think that children make decisions rashly.

[Melanie Tringali]: They don't think as a parent of four children,

[Melanie Tringali]: I can tell you they don't think about the consequences very often.

[Melanie Tringali]: And so I guess those are my questions.

[Melanie Tringali]: And then lastly, you talked about medical rights and medical freedom.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I'm just wondering where the medical rights and medical freedom were when those that didn't want to have vaccine mandates were excluded from a lot of their activities over the past year and a half.

[Melanie Tringali]: That's all I have to say.

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, yes, this is Melanie Tringali, 1116 Forest Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: I actually have my hand up during the diversity, equity, and inclusion presentation.

[Melanie Tringali]: So I don't know if I can ask a question now or not, but that's when I have my hand up.

[Melanie Tringali]: Well, they didn't talk to me at the end of the thing.

[Melanie Tringali]: I don't have any comments on the budget.

[Melanie Tringali]: I had questions on the diversity, equity, inclusion, and that's when my hand went up.

[Melanie Tringali]: So then how do I get my question answered?

[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, well, my comment was in the presentation, she talked about the diversity of the student body and it was an HR presentation, but there was no diversity or reporting out on the actual people that worked in the administration of the school.

[Melanie Tringali]: So it would be helpful to have that as a comparison.

[Melanie Tringali]: When you're talking about diversity in HR, and what, what that makeup is of the host of the whole administration of the school, school, school body and administration.

[Melanie Tringali]: Be helpful as a comparison.

[Melanie Tringali]: Oh, I didn't see that so I apologize I didn't, I don't remember seeing that so if it was there I didn't see it I apologize.

[Melanie Tringali]: forestry.

[Melanie Tringali]: This is the I'm not familiar with the Fair Share Amendment Act, but so I have a couple questions.

[Melanie Tringali]: How is the money being managed and diverted to the cities and towns?

[Melanie Tringali]: Once this once this money is collected, if this gets approved at a state level, and people are taxed 4% that money then goes into a state must mean some state account.

[Melanie Tringali]: So how, how is it diverted to the cities and towns?

[Melanie Tringali]: So we don't know, though, how much money would actually be coming to the city of Medford.

[Melanie Tringali]: more than the 1.9 billion money that was as we get in any.

[Melanie Tringali]: So, that's including the SSR money that already that we're getting.

[Melanie Tringali]: Okay, thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Sure, Melanie Tringali, 116 Forest Street.

[Melanie Tringali]: First of all, I'm really sorry to hear about Bradley Street displacement.

[Melanie Tringali]: I feel for those people.

[Melanie Tringali]: I think 30 days is not a good thing.

[Melanie Tringali]: But I'm here as a small property owner who has been extremely lucky to have very good tenants and I treat them very well.

[Melanie Tringali]: To respond to you, to respond to the,

[Melanie Tringali]: the mortgage payment for individuals, you didn't take into account the maintenance.

[Melanie Tringali]: I had to replace a roof that costs $30,000.

[Melanie Tringali]: So my mortgage payment does not stay the same for the next 30 years.

[Melanie Tringali]: Insurance goes up, taxes go up, water bills go up, everything goes up, and including the maintenance of that home.

[Melanie Tringali]: So we're providing a service to these people.

[Melanie Tringali]: Second of all, I always hear when there's a housing crisis, it always goes immediately to the rent to the owners who rents.

[Melanie Tringali]: There's no discussion at all about zoning or other other opportunities to help people actually become homeowners.

[Melanie Tringali]: The only reason I became a homeowner is because I was able to buy a multifamily home and have rent help subsidize my mortgage.

[Melanie Tringali]: Instead, we are selling these two-family, multi-family homes to these developers who are turning these two-family homes into $1.2 million condos.

[Melanie Tringali]: What are you doing about the zoning instead?

[Melanie Tringali]: Instead of hurting small property owners, I provide a service.

[Melanie Tringali]: My rent is comparable and is cheaper than these units.

[Melanie Tringali]: What are you doing to help people buy these units instead of having these developers come in and redo them and selling them for $1.2 million?

[Melanie Tringali]: The house on the corner of Webster Street, that single family house that was sold and subdivided, that house just sold for $1.4 million.

[Melanie Tringali]: It's really, there needs to be zoning laws changed here to help these people become actual homeowners and help people become small property owners to offer rentals that are reasonable to these people.

[Melanie Tringali]: We're actually good for the environment.

[Melanie Tringali]: We're good, not for the environment, but good for the city.

[Melanie Tringali]: So it always goes to the rental.

[Melanie Tringali]: And then you want to cap rent, but I don't ever hear anyone capping the sale of a home.

[Melanie Tringali]: I mean, no one ever caps the sale of a home.

[Melanie Tringali]: If you want this government power, why don't you put a cap on the sale of the hall?

[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, this is Melanie Tringali from 116 Forest Street in Medford, Mass.

[Melanie Tringali]: And you, again, I'm going to reiterate that you have been saying that you're following the CDC guidelines all along.

[Melanie Tringali]: Until now, you're no longer following the CDC guidelines.

[Melanie Tringali]: The CDC came out with new guidelines based on when to mask indoors and when not to mask outdoors.

[Melanie Tringali]: Masking indoors is based on a number of different criteria now based on the CDC.

[Melanie Tringali]: And they're looking at hospitalization rates, the amount of beds that are being used and not being used.

[Melanie Tringali]: And Middlesex County right now is considered to be low risk.

[Melanie Tringali]: And according to the CDC guidelines, those are on low risk counties

[Melanie Tringali]: are not required to mask indoors anymore.

[Melanie Tringali]: Even those in medium risk, they don't even recommend that people mask indoors anymore.

[Melanie Tringali]: Okay, even on those counties with medium risk, their recommendation is only those that are vulnerable or who have serious complications from COVID mask, no one else.

[Melanie Tringali]: And we're in low risk.

[Melanie Tringali]: Secondly, you said the reason you're continuing your mask mandates is due to uptick

[Melanie Tringali]: after every single vacation.

[Melanie Tringali]: I like to know where that data is.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm on the DESC website right now, and I am checking all the reported cases of positive cases after vacation.

[Melanie Tringali]: The only time there was really an uptick was during the January 2022 time when there was Omicron, when there was a high number of cases.

[Melanie Tringali]: I'm looking here right now, 12-24 to 1-6-2021, four cases reported of students, one teacher.

[Melanie Tringali]: 1-7 to 1-13, zero cases reported for students, two teacher.

[Melanie Tringali]: February 2021, five students, six teachers.

[Melanie Tringali]: So where is the data that there's an uptick?

[Melanie Tringali]: There's nowhere near going through, if I'm looking at the correct data on the DESE website,

[Melanie Tringali]: in an Excel document of all number of district students reported individual positive cases.

[Melanie Tringali]: These are the numbers.

[Melanie Tringali]: April of 2021, two students, zero teachers.

[Melanie Tringali]: All the data is right here.

[Melanie Tringali]: So I'm curious, what data are you basing this information on?

[Melanie Tringali]: Where are the upticks that you say are here?

[Melanie Tringali]: Second of all, out of all these numbers, what is your data based on students?

[Melanie Tringali]: You say you're not doing contact tracing anymore and no one else needs to mask, only the students.

[Melanie Tringali]: Well, we know the majority of students are at least risk of any serious complications and schools have never been known to be a super spreader.

[Melanie Tringali]: So again, I like to know where your documentation is and also the documentation that you've been tracking that mask has been preventing any

[Melanie Tringali]: and preventing spread within the schools.

[Melanie Tringali]: Where's your documentation on that?

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you.

[Melanie Tringali]: Thank you Melanie Trinidad and I live at 116 forestry, and I just want to work off of that the only other thing, and I don't think differences they don't clear any snow removal.

[Melanie Tringali]: That's a really dangerous intersection for walking.

[Melanie Tringali]: And I know there's a lot of bus stops there for kids.

[Melanie Tringali]: So that would be the only thing I would add is they don't.