[Melanie Tringali]: That's OK. Mistakes happen.
[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, I'm Melanie Tringali. I don't know how I'm going to top that, Paul. But anyways, first of all, I want to thank the Medford Democrat City Committee for organizing this event. I'm a longtime resident of Medford and a homeowner. My husband, James Murdoch, and I live on Forest Street with our four children. Both my parents were born and raised here and graduated from Medford High. My father, Salvatore J. Tringali, lived in South Medford. And my mother, Lorraine Mifflin, grew up on the hillside. I'm a graduate of UMass Amherst, and have over 20 years of business experience. As long as I have lived here, I have served this community. I served on the Medford Family Network Advisory Board, was co-chair of the PTO for what was then the Columbus School, and served on the Historic District Commission. Today, I'm a board member of the Rotary Club, an organization that provides services to the city and schools. I'm running because this is my home and a city I deeply love. I want to serve this community, make a positive impact, and ensure Medford is the best it can be. I believe in common sense change, the kind that strengthens neighborhoods, improves city services, and respects the history and character of our community. As a councilwoman, there are many things I will work on, but given the time tonight, let me highlight my top four priorities. One, I will always protect our neighborhoods and historic squares. Blanket rezoning would forever change our neighborhoods and community. Instead, we should focus on thoughtful commercial development that grows our tax base and revitalizes our squares. Two, our streets and sidewalks continue to be in disrepair. Recent staffing changes and overrides have not made significant improvements. Potholes remain and sidewalks are unsafe. Safe, walkable sidewalks and well-maintained streets are basic services that meet the needs of every citizen in the city. Our first responders risk their lives every day to keep us safe. They deserve to be fully staffed, have safe and clean facilities, and the equipment to do their jobs well. Public safety must come first in our city budget. And fourth, For the fourth year in a row, Medford has had a large amount of free cash. The percentage of that free cash exceeds most cities our size of what is considered to be a normal percent of budget. I will push for line item budget breakdown and responsible planning so taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and timely. In closing, Medford deserves a City Council that puts Medford first. Protecting our neighborhoods, fixing our streets and sidewalks, supporting our first responders, and spending responsibly. As an independent candidate, I will bring balance, common sense, and accountability to City Hall. On Tuesday, September 16th, I respectfully ask for one of your seven votes for Medford City Council. Thank you.
[Melanie Tringali]: Well, on a personal level, I'm married to James Murdock, my husband. We have four children and one dog. We've been residing in Medford close to 30 years. Yeah, and I have deep roots in the city of Medford. Both my grandparents lived here, one in South Medford, one on the hillside. Both my parents graduated Medford High. And ironically, I live now in the house of my pediatrician, Dr. Murphy. So many people that live here know that old yellow house on Forest Street. And on a professional level, I work in business. I've been in marketing for 20-plus years. I've worked for professional services company, nonprofits, education, and community service-wise, I've been on the Methodist Family Network Board. I've worked – I was on the 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. And I am now a member of Method Rotary.
[Melanie Tringali]: Well, one, the thing I learned is I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of hard work, I'm not going to lie. But I really enjoyed meeting people, being out in the community, hearing from different people. But then the other lesson I learned is that it's really hard. It's a lot of work. 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. But overall, it was a good experience.
[Melanie Tringali]: The biggest issue right now is the rezoning. And I am really rezoning in a way that disrupts our neighborhoods. And so we really need to take a step back and protect our neighborhoods. That's my first thought. I am not against rezoning. I think we need to rezone at a level that brings in a commercial base. And not so much this type of this rezoning that's happening is really trying to bring in a lot of density. And I don't know if housing density is the right thing for the city of Medford. I think that 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. Because if we continue to rely on residential tax bases, we'll continue to have more overrides. So that's one. I think other than that, the majority of the issues are still there.
[Melanie Tringali]: Most of them, not all of them. You know, my campaign when I ran two years ago, my campaign was running on the local issues and not on the national issues. I think we need to take a step back and really look at how we function as a city and making sure that we still have problems with our infrastructure. We still have problems with our streets and our roads. There's still I would say budgetary issues. We still come up with $25 million of free cash every year. So why is that continuing to happen? That's not to say we shouldn't have a rainy day fund, but $25 million is a lot of money to have. Sure is. Revitalizing our squares, bringing in more of a commercial base. So a lot of that stuff is still kind of the same.
[Melanie Tringali]: All right. But the main thing right now, I think, is really protecting our neighborhoods. This rezoning fundamentally changes the city of Medford. And it fundamentally changes every single neighborhood we have. I've been living here for 30 years. And one thing I've always appreciated about the city is the difference between Lawrence Estates, West Medford, East Medford, Glenwood, the hillside. Every place is different. Yes, it is. And what we're seeing is people coming in and making them kind of look 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. It's very expensive to build homes today. And given the green initiatives that they want, that actually increases the cost of building houses. And no one's not going to build houses without a profit.
[Melanie Tringali]: Will it bring down some costs? Maybe, but not drastically.
[Melanie Tringali]: There was a lot of problems.
[Melanie Tringali]: Sure. Well, in 2023, during the local election, there were a lot of problems. 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. It almost looked like there was counts or ballots missing because the tallies weren't right. 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. So one, there was misprinting of ballots. 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. Okay. 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. 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. I know there was many people that went to vote, and they weren't on the voter rolls. They somehow, even though they filled out a census, they weren't there. There was an issue with the poll location. I believe there was an issue with the Roberts School, and one of the poll locations had changed. There was definitely an issue with the ballot counts. And when the results were provided, you could tell there was, it looked like there was 700 votes missing. So giving all, and actually, for on the record, the city council recognized all these issues and actually agreed, they all voted, 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. That's how bad it was. So it was a mess, the election. Yeah, it was a mess. So I knew I didn't win. I was definitely behind by a couple of hundred votes. But I felt it was important to develop or I felt it important to do a recount. 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. And there was.
[Melanie Tringali]: There was a lot of inconsistencies. The things that we found were that there was 130 mail-in ballots that were never counted. Now, people say, oh, 130, that's nothing. But it is something. That's someone's vote that was not counted. And that goes to show that there's still process. There's problems with the process. Then for precinct counting, 80% of the precincts had incorrect tallies. So what we did is we counted the ballots. And then we compare the ballots to the tallies. And what we found were, in some cases, there was more tallies than there were ballots. And actually in two of them, two precincts, there was 40 more I mean, all of them had some inconsistencies, but two of them, one was 40 more and one was 50 more. So we had 50 more tallies than actual ballots. So, yeah, there were a lot of issues. And, you know, I don't know if those got resolved. You know, the city council had requested that the elections committee come forward. With the report, I went to that meeting. I don't know if anything was actually resolved. 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. And usually the votes are tallied in chambers. Chambers, they have to be, right? 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. 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. Legally, I have the right to watch them. Absolutely. 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. So I, you know, with the upcoming election, I think one of my main things is to make sure 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. People want to know that their vote was counted. Right.
[Melanie Tringali]: And you know, Again, I didn't do it because I thought that it was gonna change the outcome of the election. 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. Reaching out to more people. I think being less shy about asking help because it's a lot of work and you need the volunteers. 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. 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. So though I do know a lot of people, and sometimes I think, oh, I didn't realize I knew that many people. 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. My goal is to get another 1,200. So my goal is 6,000. I think if I can get 6,000, I can get in.
[Melanie Tringali]: OK. I think the biggest issue was communication. You know, I'm a marketing professional, that's what I do. Communication, right? And one thing I realized in my role as a marketing professional is everyone digests information in different ways. 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. Not everyone's on social media. And even on social media people, consume information in different ways. 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. And I don't think we do a good job. Let's take the zoning, for example.
[Melanie Tringali]: Okay, let's take the zoning as an example. So one, we don't communicate enough. Two, it's hard to find information and the information when you find it is not easily digestible. And what I mean by that is the zoning is a really good example of bad communication. I've been involved in the zoning since they started on Salem Street. Right. There was little information about the Salem Street zoning in what was happening. There was no notices that I know of that was put in tax bills. And matter of fact, I know it's not because I do own a property that was part of the rezoning piece. And I'm going to be up front. I do want to to two-family on Park Street that is right on the corner of Salem and Park. And I never got notification. The only reason I found out about it is due to Sheryl Rodriguez and Gene Nuzzo. And I got involved in that process. And in the sense that I was going to the meetings, I was presenting my thoughts and my feedback. What happened over there is really too bad. That zoning was pushed through without any planning, with resident feedback, but that resident feedback really wasn't taken into account. No. And then what I mean by easily digestible is that unless you're an architect, or some zoning person, trying to read all this information is very challenging. If you have a full-time job, trying to do this is really challenging. And I mean, I'm still trying to get caught up on everything and what the zoning means. So it's not in layman terms. I know I've been to community development board meetings where even the board members have asked for easy easy keys and easy ways to understand. Simplify it. There's got to be a way to do that. The information was not always available timely before meetings to review. And there was a couple of meetings that I went to that the presentations were not up on time. And then I think the other thing is that the information is hard to find, regardless of the zoning. You go to the Medford website. I mean, I was trying to look at minutes from two years ago. They're all on Google Docs. senior, I don't even want to just say senior, but if you're just not, like my husband, my husband is technically inept. I'll be honest. He can fix your car, he can build anything, but when it comes to technology, simple things on his phone, he's inept. So it will be a challenge for people to find the information they need and then get it in layman terms. That being said, I do think improvements have been made over time. The website has been updated. They have been making improvements to try to get information out. For the zoning, it was too late. 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. 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. I think she's been very I fair and trying to get everyone's information and hear everyone. And I have, you know, again, it's just a little, I think a lot of this stuff happened a little bit too late. And we all know at the end, it's the city council that makes the decision. They can take the recommendation from the community development board, or they can not take it. And that's what happened on Salem Street.
[Melanie Tringali]: Well, I want to be clear, because I think I do think we need to rezone. I'm not saying that we shouldn't rezone. I think we need to focus on specific areas. The squares, I think rezoning will help to revitalize the squares. Mr. Gav, the Fellsway, but it needs to be done in a thoughtful and planful manner. And it's not. So, for example, we put out three RFPs for three parcels in Medford Square before the rezoning was even done. Why wasn't that done, why wasn't planning done together? Like, okay, this is our vision for Medford Square. And to include that vision, this is what we want. And to do that, this is the type of rezoning we're thinking about. There just needs to be a plan. And I'll give another good example. In my eyes, anyways, if you look at the Felsbury where Stop and Shop is, that's a huge property. 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. That came in, yeah.
[Melanie Tringali]: It's just it needs to be planned appropriately. And there needs to be a master plan. And there needs to be studies done. We haven't had the studies done. I agree with the studies. 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. We need to look at ways to bring in new business. I don't know if there's a lot of regulation or barriers for people starting small businesses here. I do know that we have 64 liquor licenses for restaurants and only 28 are being used. Wow. So. Wow. Yeah. I think that's pretty accurate. Yeah. 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. I also think we need to make our squares more welcoming. If you look at Melrose Square, even Arlington, Winchester, a lot of the surroundings, there's conformity. Right? Very much. They make it very welcoming, and you want to be there. Yep. If you look at Medford Square, there's no conformity. Right. I know we have a sign ordinance. The sign ordinance is not followed. You need to make it welcoming. You need to clean them up. And there's small things that can be done. Clean them up. Plants, flowers, more lights, working on the signs, cleaning up the windows, just making it more inviting. I think we go a long way. And there's no reason why we shouldn't be attracting restaurants and small business with the Chevalier Theater.
[Melanie Tringali]: For the buildings, for... And they get people in. You know, I talked to the owner of the Altacuba, he's doing well.
[Melanie Tringali]: You know? I mean, in restaurants, I mean, there's other types of businesses that we can bring into. Right. It's just not restaurants. 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. Right. I would really look into our infrastructure and where we stand with our roads and our squares. Uh, you know, there's been a street, you know, a comprehensive street plan. 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. Um, really figure out where that's going. Um, take a good look at the budget and see, well, Yeah, I could see you taking a good look at the budget. No, I could. You're good with that. I could see you. I would look at our pilot programs, too. 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. Right. There's other non-profits that we could be tapping into.
[Melanie Tringali]: All right, I would say my least favorite is food shopping. I'm not a fan of the majority of the food stores. Okay in Medford. Yeah, I will frequent Wegmans I think they're very expensive stop-and-shop. 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 It's kind of a combo, most favorite, least favorite. I walk all the time. 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. 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. But I love walking. I walk along the river and the Mystic all the time. I love it. I love watching the birds. 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. I've tripped a couple of times. I've actually fell a couple of times on the sidewalks. my dog pulled me once and I fell because there was a lip in it and ended up getting black eye.
[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah. Yeah.
[Melanie Tringali]: It is embarrassing.
[Melanie Tringali]: And Medford Square, I don't even like walking in the square during 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. It just doesn't look too good. It doesn't look good at all. So I try to avoid the square on Monday nights.
[Melanie Tringali]: No, there's a lot of small stuff that can be done. I think following through on our ordinances would be a huge help. There's a lot of ordinances that are not enforced, which could bring in additional revenue. 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. And then I do have an email. 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. 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. I wasn't going to comment tonight on this at all. My original comment was about this ordinance and the council's fiduciary responsibility to the city of Medford. 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. But then listening to these stories and these people who are afraid and upset 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. 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. I really would recommend that you reconsider it altogether. Thank you.
[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, I'm 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. Many people have already spoken, so I'm not going to repeat everything they said, because I've agreed with a lot of them. Increased density does not necessarily mean that we're going to bring down our housing cost. that we need to slow down. Um increase in traffic. Uh our infrastructure. Our schools are safety. All that I think will be extremely impacted. And I know that you wanted to focus on. Residential zoning, but I also think that we need to slow down on the square zoning. Um we need to get it right. The We need to increase our commercial base. We're not going to increase our revenue by increasing density in residence. We need to increase our commercial base. We need to have vibrant squares, and you need to have a plan for that. Just rezoning and saying, come to us is not going to work. There needs to be a plan. 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. Thank you.
[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, I'm Melanie Tringali. I live at 116 Forest Street, so I live right outside of the main square. And I just want to, I have a couple of comments. 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. Thank you for that we need that information. 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. To the acronyms, I think someone else had mentioned that. I think that's really helpful, especially for Layman and the majority of the residents here in Medford. And also there was a comment from one of the board members about an overall plan for each of these squares. And I think that's really important as we look to how we want to zone these squares for the benefit of the residents. 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. I think there's a lot of things that still need to be reviewed. Development of commercial being outside of West Medford Square. I love to walk to the square. I love to go to the restaurants and the bars. I wish there was more shopping. I'm not sure that we need more density. I think we need housing, but not a ton of it. There's tons of traffic in Method Square as it is now. Adding more density is only going to increase that traffic. I think there's tons of people in the neighborhood that I know of that want to walk to the square. and frequent businesses, small businesses. 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. Winchester Square, I think has three to four different coffee shops, but you don't see a lot of density there. And they're vibrant squares. With regards to keeping historical preservation, I actually worked, was on the Historic District Commission for a while. I know there was a purpose of them of making Medford Square a Historic District Commission. I don't know where that is, but I'm all in favor of keeping our history and reducing destruction of any of our history for that in the square. And lastly, we need parking. I live on Forest Street. When there is a show here, the side streets are filled with cars. No one parks at City Hall. No one. No one parks there to visit the show. They all park on Forest Street. the residential streets and in the square. 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. That's it. Thank you very much.
[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, Melanie Trangali 116 Forest Street. 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 anything that increases our businesses and commercial businesses. However, at this current zoning, I'm not in favor of right now for a number of reasons. One, just looking at the website, one of the goals that says moderately increase residential housing and ensure neighborhood compatibility. Under the current zoning, I don't think the increase in residential housing is moderate. I think it's much larger than moderate. We could be talking about possibly thousands of houses and units. In top of that, none of these houses and units are affordable. There's nothing saying that they're affordable, that it's going to reduce the cost of living in Medford. There are currently 489 apartments listed on Zillow right now in Medford, and that has not brought down the price at all. Parking is an issue. As I stated, I do have a piece of property on Park and Salem Street. I have tenants. They all have cars. They all need parking. They all drive to their jobs. They don't take the 101 bus or walk around in Salem Street. They drive to other destinations. Two, I think that I'm concerned of the businesses and gentrification of these buildings. All these businesses, the majority of them do not own the buildings that they're renting. Rents could increase. And we saw that. We saw that with the Best Sellers Cafe. It was displaced for years and years, came in, and then couldn't afford the rent to stay there anymore. So there's a very good chance that a lot of these local businesses will be out of business. And again, just we need to consider parking. If you're gonna have businesses, you need to have places to park. So that's it. 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. Just a couple of things that I'm concerned about specifically is traffic. I don't think there was a traffic study done at all. Um, I don't think there was any study done with our public safety departments at all as to how this these new. Properties apartments or commercial building would have an impact on them. Um, I don't think there was any infrastructure studies done as well. How does this impact our water our sewer? And our electrical, I think that area is pretty prone to black, pretty frequent blackouts. I know in the past couple of months, they've people have lost electricity and heating. I'm very concerned about the intense zoning around the public school. I don't understand why that was even considered to have. commercial zoning at up to six stories next to a public school. If you go down those streets, those streets are so crowded, there's parking on both sides, it's just dangerous. And if you have commercial buildings, they are businesses, it's a huge safety issue for the school. I'm trying to, if I had anything else, I think those are my biggest concerns. 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. But I think what we have to consider here is that if these new zoning things go into reality, there is a possibility that some of those businesses may lose their business, right? If they don't own those buildings and there's owners that are open to more cash or other types of Availability to make more money. A lot of those people and all those businesses could be displaced. 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. Thank you.
[Melanie Tringali]: Melanie Tringali, 1164 Street. I just have a question as I'm looking through this document. I noticed that you have, 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. 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. And I also own a property that I lived in for 25 years at 2931 Stoughton Street and have never had rat issues over by the hillside, but that is becoming an issue. The Method Health Department was very responsive and coming out after my calls and people have come out and looked. I do just want to say two things. One, there's a huge health concern with rats. A friend of mine's actual dog got liver disease from being in touch with rat urine. So rat urine actually causes liver disease in animals. So that's an issue. It can also cause a lot of issues with human contact as well. And two, you mentioned something about the trash. Is trash being done, because I walked through Medford Square on Monday night, And it is disgusting. I don't even like walking through this square at all. It's deplorable, the amount of trash that's not in any receptacles whatsoever. They're just sitting in cardboard boxes and trash bags. And I want to be supportive of the businesses. 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. enforcing ordinances, and we've talked, this has been a subject matter for many city councils, but enforcing the ordinances is necessary. 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. I also wanted to comment similar to what the previous woman has also said. I am a landlord. I own two multi-families. My first home was a multi-family. I've been a landlord in Medford for over 25 years. I take pride in ownership of my properties. I upkeep them. I have good tenants. I'm a good landlord. Many of my tenants have lived in my properties for five, six, seven years. 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. You said in your comments, President, that you know who the bad landlords are. It is a code enforcement issue. If you know who they are, then you can enforce the laws. The other thing is you talk about that. You did. You did. You said you already know.
[Melanie Tringali]: Okay, all right, so I didn't hear anything about single families. There's tons of single family homes that don't enforce their codes. I walk the streets of Medford all the time. There's no code enforcement for businesses. There's trash thrown in front of their businesses, overgrowth, things are not taken care of. What are you doing about that? Are they registered? Do you reach out to them? How are you gonna reach out? You talk about tax programs that you wanna reach out to us for tax programs. There's other ways to reach out to us. 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. I just have a couple of comments and questions. First of all, it's good to see that there's work being done. Many of you know I actually requested a recount at the November election due to all the issues that transpired. And so it's good to see that this election went a lot smoother. There was still some hiccups, and there's still some issues. I do think that cleaning the voter rolls is very important. You're wasting money sending things to people anyways that aren't eligible to vote, and that shouldn't be happening. A couple of things on Henry Milleran's thing here that I wanted to comment on or question on is, he talks a lot about fixing irregularities in our election. 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. So I hope to see that there's going to be some plans on how that's going to be done. It talks about identifying and investigating irregularities. That's great, but how is that going to be done? Establish an independent investigation committee. Another good idea. Secure and audit voting machines. How is that being done? 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. There was several machines, actually, I think about 60 to 75% of the machines had different counts than actual ballots. and I don't see anything here in this plan addressing how that's gonna be rectified. The other thing that came up during the recount is there was over 130 million ballots that were never counted. 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. So I hope to see that addressed in this plan, or hope to see it addressed in some plan. Um, and then just one other comment. I was reading another report here. 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. Um, it says seven results in transparency, the counting and tabulation of votes were conducted with transparency and a lack of accuracy. Oh, I guess that that is accurate. But then it goes on to say instilling confidence in the election outcome. You might want to that doesn't make sense to me. So those are my those are my comments. Thank you.
[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, Melanie Tringali, 116 Forest Street. 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. I think it's really important that we have integrity in our elections and that they're accurate. In addition, I would like it noted that you know, after the election, there was a lot of discussion about the process. 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. Well, the election was not accurate. The, The outcomes may have not changed, but the accuracy was not accurate. We missed over 130 ballots that were not counted, which Councilor Bears had mentioned. But in addition, and I think this is something that should be addressed, is that there was tabulations. There were several precincts that had tabulations where there were more ballots counted than actually tallied than there were counted. In two precincts, there was 40 ballots more that were tallied than what was actually counted during the blocking process, and there was another precinct that had 50. In addition, there were others that had smaller amounts of 11 and 15. But that, to me, is a serious issue with the tabulation machines. So my hope is that somehow those will be addressed as well. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, Melanie Trongali, 116 Forest Street and a recent candidate for the 2023 election. 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. 4,000 ballots, if I heard George right, were not counted, were not counted in public, or don't know how they were counted. You all said that there was a complicated process, more complicated process because of the early voting and the mail-in ballots. And each one of you said that election integrity was an issue. And given all those issues, how can you sit here and say 100% that the end result will not be impacted. I've been in business for 20 years. And whenever there is a breakdown in process, there is usually an impact on the end. 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. But there should be absolute 100% proof that what happened or the counts were accurate. So thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, I'm Melanie Tringali. I live at 116 Forestry. I just had a couple of questions and then maybe a couple of suggestions. Councilor Bears stated that the revenue from the parking is the only revenue that 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. 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. but I've not seen any breakout of revenue from our parking. So that's a question, I don't even know if we're making any money off of that. That was delivered to the council.
[Melanie Tringali]: Oh, okay.
[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, that's true. The other thing I was going to mention was it's building off of, 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. And then also, 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? 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. 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. in ordinances, is that correct?
[Melanie Tringali]: I know. 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. Thank you for answering my questions. I appreciate it. Thank you.
[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, this is Melanie Tringali. I live at 116 Forest Street, and I'm all for any new retail on the square to help bring in some new energy as well as some new foot traffic. We definitely need it. 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. I just wanted to go on the record and say that I appreciate Thank you. Um the mayor trying to make this budget work. Um. I'm sure it has not been an easy year given the situation with Covid and the reduction in revenue. I do hope that the mayor and the City Council can work together and making this. Um budget work. I definitely feel for the And I'm not for a proposition two and a half override. We are all, all families are struggling right now to make ends meet. Many people are working two jobs to make ends meet and many people are going and trying to do more with a lot less. It's just a time. It's just a situation that we're all currently in. 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. Thank you.
[Melanie Tringali]: Yes, Melanie Tringali, 116 Forest Street. Just a couple of points of clarification I'm asking. One, if it's really not your business or our business, then why are we writing an ordinance, number one. And number two, when you say whether child or adult, are you usurping the parental rights for that decision? So if a 12 year old child came here from another state wanting a sexual change but the parent doesn't. What is your, how is that ordinance going to deal with that. And then my last point is, you know, some of the things you say is not, I think, Some of your words were a little bit harsh. I'm a Catholic, I'm against abortion. 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. I do think that children make decisions rashly. They don't think as a parent of four children, I can tell you they don't think about the consequences very often. And so I guess those are my questions. And then lastly, you talked about medical rights and medical freedom. 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. That's all I have to say.
[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, yes, this is Melanie Tringali, 1116 Forest Street. I actually have my hand up during the diversity, equity, and inclusion presentation. 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. I don't have any comments on the budget. 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. So it would be helpful to have that as a comparison. 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. 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. This is the I'm not familiar with the Fair Share Amendment Act, but so I have a couple questions. How is the money being managed and diverted to the cities and towns? 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. 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. 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. First of all, I'm really sorry to hear about Bradley Street displacement. I feel for those people. I think 30 days is not a good thing. 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. To respond to you, to respond to the, the mortgage payment for individuals, you didn't take into account the maintenance. I had to replace a roof that costs $30,000. So my mortgage payment does not stay the same for the next 30 years. Insurance goes up, taxes go up, water bills go up, everything goes up, and including the maintenance of that home. So we're providing a service to these people. Second of all, I always hear when there's a housing crisis, it always goes immediately to the rent to the owners who rents. There's no discussion at all about zoning or other other opportunities to help people actually become homeowners. The only reason I became a homeowner is because I was able to buy a multifamily home and have rent help subsidize my mortgage. 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. What are you doing about the zoning instead? Instead of hurting small property owners, I provide a service. My rent is comparable and is cheaper than these units. 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? 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. 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. We're actually good for the environment. We're good, not for the environment, but good for the city. So it always goes to the rental. And then you want to cap rent, but I don't ever hear anyone capping the sale of a home. I mean, no one ever caps the sale of a home. 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. And you, again, I'm going to reiterate that you have been saying that you're following the CDC guidelines all along. Until now, you're no longer following the CDC guidelines. The CDC came out with new guidelines based on when to mask indoors and when not to mask outdoors. Masking indoors is based on a number of different criteria now based on the CDC. And they're looking at hospitalization rates, the amount of beds that are being used and not being used. And Middlesex County right now is considered to be low risk. And according to the CDC guidelines, those are on low risk counties are not required to mask indoors anymore. Even those in medium risk, they don't even recommend that people mask indoors anymore. 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. And we're in low risk. Secondly, you said the reason you're continuing your mask mandates is due to uptick after every single vacation. I like to know where that data is. I'm on the DESC website right now, and I am checking all the reported cases of positive cases after vacation. 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. I'm looking here right now, 12-24 to 1-6-2021, four cases reported of students, one teacher. 1-7 to 1-13, zero cases reported for students, two teacher. February 2021, five students, six teachers. So where is the data that there's an uptick? There's nowhere near going through, if I'm looking at the correct data on the DESE website, in an Excel document of all number of district students reported individual positive cases. These are the numbers. April of 2021, two students, zero teachers. All the data is right here. So I'm curious, what data are you basing this information on? Where are the upticks that you say are here? Second of all, out of all these numbers, what is your data based on students? You say you're not doing contact tracing anymore and no one else needs to mask, only the students. 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. 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 and preventing spread within the schools. Where's your documentation on that? 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. That's a really dangerous intersection for walking. And I know there's a lot of bus stops there for kids. So that would be the only thing I would add is they don't.