[Milva McDonald]: Yes, thank you so much, Danielle. It's really great to be back on the podcast. I'm Milva McDonald, and my pronouns are she, her. And the restaurant question, I've been thinking about that, but you haven't asked it yet.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, well, it's hard to pick one favorite, and I've said different things last time. I said the farmer's market, which is still a great choice. I do like the Thai restaurant in Medford Square, Tom Young Kun. And I like, I mean, I like the Pad Thai. I like curry. I like the massaman curry.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Um, so where we are right now is we are at the final step, which is the voters. Um, and the, the charter was the mayor appointed a committee, which you and I were both on. We spent almost two years doing public engagement or review, reviewing the charter, going through an article by article, the mayor and the city council then, um, had a negotiation, they worked through it, they made some changes, they came to an agreement, and then it was sent to the State House as a home rule petition, which is basically a bill. So it has to go through the process of any bill. And so it went through the House, it went through the Senate. The Senate had a few very minor changes, nothing substantive, just details, but that meant it had to go back to the House. And then it went back to the Senate, and then the governor signed it in mid-September, and that means the next stop is the voters, the ballot. And the state reviews it just to ensure that it complies with state law, You know, it's in alignment with what should be in a charter in Massachusetts, et cetera. And now the voters get to decide. And the sample ballot is available on the website for the Charter's ballot question committee, which I know we're going to be talking about. And it's also on the city website. So people can actually see what their ballot looks like before they go vote, and they can read the question and the summary.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, that's a great question. So the city will be putting out some information on their webpage about the question, but we have a ballot question committee and there's a website and it's www.medfordcharternow.com. It has a link to the current charter, links to the proposed charter, Link to the ballot so you can see it and it and it has summaries of. You know, kind of what is a charter and what some of the proposed changes in the new charter are so, you know, I mean. Reading the chart, the propose the current our current charter is very short. It's about 2 pages. Um, but the proposed charter is much longer. Um. And it's comprehensive, whereas our current charter isn't so are the proposed charter is. 40 something pages. So there are summaries for people if they don't want to read the whole thing.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, absolutely. But to your point that you just made, I mean, you remember when the Collins Center for Public Management that we worked with on the committee, we were fortunate to have them advising us. They sort of, we have a memo from them about the complexity of Medford's Charter, which sounds strange because Medford's Charter is only two pages long, right? But the reason it's difficult is because there's almost nothing in it. So any questions that arise, you have to sort of find your way through state law, as you just said, and it can make things confusing. Yeah, exactly. So, as far as the major as the changes in the charter, the charter sets out sort of establishes Medford as a city, and it lays out our form of government. The form of government, which is mayor council will remain, but the changes to the mayor's office are a 4 year term. Which is trending in Massachusetts and it makes sense for reasons, including, you know, executive tasks are more long term. And so. Giving the mayor 4 years means less time campaigning more time spent working on what the city needs. The other thing to them with the mayor is a term limit of four terms, so no mayor will be able to serve longer than 16 years. And as far as the city council. Ward representation, which is something that people have talked about. I mean, I've lived in the city for 32 years, and for most of that time, people have been talking about why don't we have ward representation? We're one of the only cities left in the state that does not have it. So that's a pretty big change, and it means our current council of seven at-large members would change to a hybrid Council of 8 ward representatives 1 from each ward and 3 at large Councilors, which is also the standard size for. Cities like ours, our council is the smallest. um and that number because we wanted to have you don't have to be able to break a tie but also not just a single at large exactly right we did you remember because we did say well we could do nine but that would mean one at large and the point of hybrid is that you sort of have a mix of both so yeah yeah that's why um you know, like Malden has eight wards and they have eight ward Councilors, three at large. Somerville, I believe only has seven wards, but they still, they have 11, they have four at large. So they're still doing 11, but if we had had six wards, you know, then maybe we would have gone with nine, but it makes sense to do the 11 because of the hybrid. The school committee, will have localized representation, not ward, because that would have made the school committee much bigger. And, you know, we didn't really see a need to increase the size of the school committee. So, um, they'll still be 7 members. 4 of them will be from districts, so two wards will be combined to make a district, and then two at large and the mayor will remain on the school committee, but the school committee will elect its own chair, whereas currently our charter says the mayor is the chair. Under the new charter, the school committee will elect its own chair.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that was, that came up during the negotiations between the mayor and the city council. Um, the, um, yeah, it's, there's almost, I think there's maybe one, maybe two communities that don't have the mayor on the school committee. Um, but the mayor being chair is, you know, it's, it's not as common. It's, it's about half and half. Um, so, um, so that is, you know, that's one of the reasons that, um, It didn't, I mean, for many reasons, mayors are on school committees in Massachusetts because of the way schools are run in Massachusetts. And the budget is a huge part of, the school budget is a huge part of the city budget. So having the mayor present and part of that, that's kind of the idea. It also gives the school committee members the mayor's ear every week. It gives the public a chance to interact. But in other states, maybe where they have county systems, whatever, the mayor's not necessarily as involved just because of the way their systems work.
[Milva McDonald]: I think that's the main reason, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, well, you know, the budget processes are, are outlined in state law. So there's certain things that, you know, we have to do because of state law says so, but one thing that is new and we, and we've also had some improvements to our budget process with the recent budget ordinance passed by the city council. So, um, so there's that also, but in the charter, there's a requirement that there's an annual budget meeting with the mayor and the school committee and the city council sort of very early in the process. I think, I think the date was no later than February 15th. So that, that the intention of that is for these sort of three bodies to just communicate, um, and talk about the financial state of the city and the needs of the city and, and sort of get some, some of that think tanking, um, before the budget process begins.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so we see the council school committee. Um, there are citizen participation mechanisms that we don't have in our charter now. So. It there's, um. A group petition, it was sometimes called a free petition where, and in the current proposed charter, it would be 100 signatures that. To put a measure to get the city council to put something on their agenda and talk about it. you just need to get 100 signatures. Obviously, then people can do that now, they can contact city councilors, and then the city councilors will often bring those issues to the floor. This provision is meant to, if a resident doesn't get that response, then they have this option to get 100 people to sign a petition and get the city council to talk about their concern. It doesn't require that they do anything specific, but it means it has to be taken to the floor. There's also provisions to put a measure on the ballot. So if there's something that we want to pass in the city or that some resident or group of residents wants to pass and they do the work of collecting the number of signatures required, it can get put on the ballot. Also, If the city council passes an ordinance and people say, you know, we don't agree with this and they get the required number of signatures, which is, you know, a lot, then they can put that on the ballot to, um, to say no to this referent to, to this, uh, measure. Uh, there's also a provision to recall the mayor. So again, pretty big lift to recall the mayor. It can't be done frivolously, but if for some reason there's some, you know, big corruption happening or something that motivated a large enough group of residents to collect the signatures and vote the mayor out, that that is possible. Whereas it wasn't, it's not possible in our current charter.
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely. I mean, that was definitely the hope.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so that was something that people brought up as a question. And when we talked to the call center about it, they basically said, you know, that doesn't generally happen, but there are provisions in state law if it doesn't. I mean, there's the option of writing it. People can write in a candidate. But and then, you know, if that doesn't, yeah, usually that fixes it. But I mean, when we asked them about it, they I believe they said they didn't even know of a single case where that happened.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I mean, because the other thing about ward representation is that it makes running for office a lot more accessible. Running in a ward of 7,000 to 8,000 people is hugely different from running in a city of 60,000. Mailings are going to be a lot less. You're going to need a lot less literature. Your ability to actually hit a significant number of voters' doors. So it's just more manageable. And even when we did the listening sessions around the city with groups of people, there was a couple of times where people said, oh, yeah, maybe I would consider running if there were ward representation. Yeah, so, um, so I think that the, the lowering the barriers to running for office, um. You know, could hopefully, um. Eliminate the problem of potential problem of not having candidates.
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely. And we, you know, we heard some of that when we did the listening sessions too. Um, you know, I, I mean, I, there I've talked to people who will say, You know, they've moved here from other cities and they're like, wait, Medford doesn't have order. There's no ward representative. That's weird. And it is weird, actually, in the context of a state.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, as you know, I'm sure you remember that this did come up. People on the committee were like, oh, well, will people worry about the cost? And one of the things that we kept coming back to on the committee was that our job was to determine what the best form of government for Medford would be. So, you know, better government is priceless maybe, I would say. And the other thing is, yeah, there would be four more salaries, but the charter doesn't say what any salaries are. The salaries get decided on by the council for the next mayor, the next school committee and the next city council. So the idea of a council giving itself a raise is not they give the next council a raise or not. Salaries can be changed in any direction, so it's not set in stone the amount of money that it will cost. That's something that will get worked out and fitting for more people up there will also have to get worked out. The city hall chambers, the entire building has to be maintained regardless of whether we have ward representation. So it's not as though there's a zero cost to doing nothing. So, you know, those are some of my thoughts about that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, interestingly, there was a charter review in 1978. That was our last full review. Um, and. I have the report, and they actually did recommend district representation or more localized representation, but that charter didn't pass. The big issue that people cared about at that time was city manager versus mayor. Medford had a city manager, and that charter review commission did not recommend changing to mayor from city manager. We can't know for sure why that charter got voted down, but I think that's 1 of the reasons because that was the main issue. And then in 1986, it wasn't a full charter review, but the city switched to mayor. So. Yeah, so that's, um, so, yeah, that's the last time, but, you know, as I said, anecdotally, I know people talk about it a lot word representation and have been for a while. And, you know, it clearly from the survey and from talking to people when we did the committee, it was on people's minds.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And we did have a person on our committee who's in grad school and who's an expert in statistics. And, you know, he assured us that it was statistically significant, that it was a really good response.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, no, you did plenty, Danielle. You were a great, great member of the team. I'm glad you brought this up because, you know, I agree with you. I mean, one of the things about the sort of The thing that we sort of tried to keep focused on, which was that this is not about sort of the current situation now or who's in office now. And so we had to think about it that way and remind ourselves of that sometimes, but it was. It was inherently I feel that the process was inherently a political while we were doing it and I think that was really valuable and and especially in the current environment, you know, having a group of people be able to come together who don't. always see eye to eye on everything, but come together to work on something that's this important to the city in a positive way. Yeah, I felt really good about that. And so I'm glad that it worked out that way. And I think the balance was important overall. you know, for the city too.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So that's, and I'm glad you brought this up because this is actually one of the really most important things in the new charter. One of the most important things in the new charter is provisions for regular charter review. what the process that you just talked about, it's been on and off for about 15 years. There's a way that cities can do a charter review that involves collecting signatures from 15% of registered voters, which in Medford at this point would, well, you have to have a cushion too, just because some of the signatures will be rejected for various reasons. So you need about six to 7,000. There were residents, Michael Ruggiero, who used to live here, was a big proponent. Jim Silva, Neil Osborne, these people were working really hard just to get a charter review. And then we had a couple of home rule petitions to try to get the city council to agree to To review the charter and for various reasons that didn't work out. So, yeah, it was. It was years of trying to just get a look at the charter to review it. And then finally. We figured out that that we could just have an appointed committee and that's actually how most cities do it. And then once it's in the charter, then we will never have to worry about this again, because it will be reviewed every 10 years. The 1st review in our charter would would be required to happen within 5 years, which makes sense because it's been so long and we want to just make sure that sort of it's a check up on how things are working. Are these changes working? Etcetera. But then it will be reviewed every 10 years. So. As the city changes, as the needs of the city change, we can make sure that the city government reflects that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and the Charter defines what the next Charter Review Committee, how it will be chosen, and the way it's The way it's laid out in our charter is that the mayor will appoint it's 9 members. The mayor appoints 3, the council appoints 3 and the school committee appoints 3. So, um, so it will be appointees from those 3 bodies and. they will review the charter and, you know, it will be important to look at it and hopefully it won't be as big of a process as ours. Although maybe, I don't know. I mean, we were sort of like, okay. I remember when the Collins Center gave us that model charter and they gave us a document at the beginning of the process with a model charter that's a modern charter. And then they sort of put a little,
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and there's, you know, there's a regular review of ordinance required in the charter, which I think is also really important to the city. Just also procedures that don't exist in our current charter, like vacancies. We had a situation where a school committee member resigned a couple of years ago, and I think behind the scenes, it was a little complicated, and what do we do now? And they had to sort of try to figure it out. If that happened with the mayor, it would be probably a crisis for the city without knowing what do we do? The mayor can't serve. And there's literally nothing in our charter that says what would happen or what we should do. So passing this charter, you know, has, has that in it as well.
[Milva McDonald]: You know, just this, the city council also will get a little more, more power to confirm appointments to multi-member boards. So the mayor makes the appointments, but the city council can has 30 days to reject an appointment. So that gives them more, it's a more collaborative process than we have now. And You know, the other thing when you brought up the City Council, the, you know, the salaries or whatnot, the City Council will be able to hire staff, but subject to appropriation. And I think that's the piece that people, and also necessary expenses can be reimbursed, but it's all subject to appropriation. And those were provisions that, you know, are pretty common in other charters, but some people around town, I think, have been concerned about how much money that would cost. It's subject to appropriation, which means it has to go through the budget process. The City Council can't just say we're going to hire this person or I want expenses for this, that, and the other thing.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, but the charter doesn't say that. It just says that they can hire staff subject to appropriation. So if there's a need and they can appropriate it in the budget and the money is there, then they can hire people. It's not uncommon for cities, city councils to have a staff person other. I mean, our city council has a city clerk. They traditionally had another position called the city messenger. So that is actually retained in the charter as an assistant. So they do have those positions, but. You know, as a body, it's not uncommon for a city council to need help with things. And so that option will be there if the money is there and if it's appropriated.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, it is a time-consuming job. It is a public service, but there's plenty of public service jobs where people are compensated.
[Milva McDonald]: So, but, you know, the other you know, hopefully ward Councilors, a bigger council will also spread the work around and, and, and, you know, even if it costs the city more money, what we would get back. will make up for that and hopefully more than make up for it. Because the other constituent services can be improved with ward representation. You talked about the closer relationship that constituents can have with their ward Councilors. All those subcommittee work that has to get done, the work will be able to be spread around a little more.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. City councilors do have other jobs and need to. But and we, we can't know for sure who will run or how it will affect who is on our council, but we did, but it is well established in studies that word representation improves descriptive representation, meaning. you know, who is on the council. So more diversity, ethnically, racially, economically, what you mentioned. Because it just, it opens the door for more people to be able to do it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, it's just, You know, it's in Massachusetts to advocate for a ballot question or, you know, we wanted to get the word out with literature, with signs. And that is a, since it's on the ballot, you have to form a committee. It's not like a political action committee. It's just exclusively formed to advocate for this one question. And then that allowed us to raise money so that we could put out. So we have signs. If anybody wants to put up a Medford Charter Now lawn sign, you can just go to the website medfordcharternow.com or email info at medfordcharternow.com. We also have literature and we have a palm card with information about the charter because we just want to make sure that people know that this is going to be on the ballot and have information about it. So, uh, if if anybody wants to volunteer to do some lit dropping in their neighborhood, you can do that too. Just give us an email. Send us an email and, um, yeah, it's just. You know, I mean, a lot of people are busy. They're very busy. They don't always know what's going on before they, you know, get to the ballot box. So we're just, we want us to spread awareness and let people know that this is happening and that it's a big deal for the city. I mean, it's really huge. You know, it can be sort of not that exciting, I guess, to talk about the charter and it's a little wonky, you know. But it's a very big deal for the city and yeah, passing it means that we will have a modern charter, we will have provisions that are necessary that we don't have now, and it means that we'll be able to review it regularly and we won't have to go through this battle ever again of, come on, let's review the charter, which sometimes elected officials might resist because some of the changes are maybe a little concerning if you're an elected official, if they're going to change your term or put a term limit on or things like that. But we will have a review every 10 years and the first one in five if we pass this.
[Milva McDonald]: That's a good question. I'm actually, the day after election day, I'm supposed to go and do childcare for my granddaughter in Montreal. So I'll be celebrating maybe with her. But maybe, I mean, how I will celebrate actually really is rest. You know, because it has been a lot, it's been a lot for the last few years. It's a lot of work. I want to see the work through and get it all the way to the finish line. This is a huge accomplishment for the city. Charter change is not easy. So getting, getting this through is, it's a huge step forward really. For the city, so, um, so, yeah, I'll celebrate by sort of relaxing.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and thank you, Daniel. And I just want to thank you for being on the committee and all the other committee members and every single person who responded to the survey or came to a listening session, or it takes the time to even to learn about this and vote on it. And all the city officials that we interviewed, it really was a It involved a lot of people around the city. And now I'm excited that the voters get a chance. So thank you to everybody for whatever your role was.
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, sure. I'll take that question. Thank you. Um, so, uh, we currently have an all at large council of 7 members. And the proposed charter would switch that to hybrid ward representation. Since the city has 8 wards, that means we would have 8 ward Councilors, 1 from each ward. and three at-large Councilors. Hybrid ward representation is standard practice. We're actually one of the only cities in the state not to have it. And our council is also the smallest council in the state for a city of our size. So that switch to hybrid ward representation will bring the size and composition of our council in line with other councils in the state. Also, we looked at a lot of things when we had this discussion, but some wards of the city have been significantly underrepresented in recent decades. In fact, two wards, wards one and four, have had no Councilors come from them. And what's interesting is that voter turnout actually often correlates with the most highly represented wards. So ward representation will ensure that every ward has a representative, and hopefully open the door to more people running for office, because running for office at large is very difficult. And it's more manageable to really focus on a ward and focus on that number of people.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I think the current city council voted for it. I mean, all the ones that are running for re-election voted yes. So I take that as a support.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, so the actual form of government, which is a mayor council form is not changing. So, but there are a couple of things that will shift. For example, right now, the mayor has sole authority to appoint members of Medford's boards and commissions. The boards and commissions that are mostly volunteer bodies, but they're really important for the vibrancy and the operation of many aspects of the city. The city council will have a chance to be involved in that process, and that will make that process a little more collaborative. That's one thing.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So, you know, the way the budget, city budgets are created and decided upon is really outlined in state law. We can't really determine that in the charter, but There are some timelines that we can determine, and one of the things that we added that we hope will improve the budgeting process is that every year on or before February 15th, so right at the beginning or before the budgeting season gets going, the mayor will call a joint meeting of the city council and the school committee. Before the process gets going, Those three bodies, our elected bodies, will get together to review the financial condition of the city and share relevant information. So this hopefully is going to create a more collaborative budget process that will better reflect the needs of all areas of the city.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, we have a, we don't have, we have a whole section of the new charter, a whole article, article eight that's titled citizen participation mechanisms. And that's something that our current charter does not have. Um, so, uh, and there are different levels, um, of, of, um, actions that people can take under the, this proposed charter if it passes. Um, the first is, what's called in the charter a group petition, where if you want to put something on the agenda for the council, you can get signatures to have it put on the agenda. Obviously, probably the first thing that people would try is to contact their Councilors. But if that doesn't work, it might not always work, citizens will be able to get 100 signatures. And then the city council has to take up discussion of the measure. Yeah, yeah. Other things that people would be able to do is if if they get together and get the signatures, they can put a measure on the ballot. For residents to vote on, that's definitely a lot more signatures, but it's possible. Yeah, also overturning a measure passed by the city council. If there's enough opposition to it and residents can get the required signatures, they can put on the ballot and ask the voters whether they want to reject that. And the last one is a recall of the mayor. So again, it's not something that can be done frivolously. It takes a good bit of work to get the signatures. And then it would also go on the ballot. But it's something that residents will be able to try or have the option of doing, which we don't have now.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I would do you want to go 1st round or should I go?
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So, um, I, the 1 thing 1 thing I do just want to point out sort of. Generally speaking, our current charter is. It's two pages. There's many things that are not in it. When we first started our committee process, one of the memos that the Collins Center wrote up for us, and that's the Collins Center for Public Management. They help a lot of cities and towns with charter review, and we were really lucky to have them. They wrote up a memo on the complexity of Medford's charter that basically, because it doesn't cover things, you'd have to go through state law, figure out, oh, what do we do about this? And so it's also makes it inaccessible for residents to understand how our government works. So, for example, there are no vacancy provisions in our current charter for mayor or school committee, and there's a 1 for city council, but it's not it's incomplete. So, when we had a school committee member step down a couple of years ago. there was some confusion and it was figured out, but, um, there was a period where it was like, what do we, what do we do about this? Um, if we had that situation with the mayor where a mayor had to step down or a mayor couldn't serve, I feel, you know, that could be a crisis for the city. What do we do? Um, so we have vacancy provisions. That's just an example of one of the ways in which our current charter is lacking.
[Milva McDonald]: Can I add one more thing? Sure. So, I just wanted to add, you know, we've talked about ward representation and it makes sense that we're talking about it a lot because it's really been kind of the major issue even before we got this charter review going. I've been hearing it for years. I meet people who just moved here from other cities and they say, what's what's going on? Medford doesn't have wards. That's weird. But I do know also that there's some concerns about, well, what are we going to do? That's four more people. How are we going to pay for that? I just wanted to say that you can't put a price tag on better government. We're going to if we have more Councilors, we have more people to do work for the city. So we'll also get that back. We'll get it back with a better system of government. We'll get it back with more people actually working for the city. And as far as the salaries, the charter itself doesn't say what salaries are. There's nothing that says the salaries have to be the same or more or less. So these are all things that can be worked out. They're really like small potatoes in the big picture.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I just wanted to, you know, just Ron, you made me, you reminded me of something that there's been a little bit of confusion about in terms of the city council because the charter says that the city council can hire staff subject to appropriation and they might get necessary expenses. But the key phrase there is by appropriation and the reality is that it's exactly the same as the system we have now. They can't hire a staff member or get expenses unless it's appropriated in the budget. That's really not a change at all. It's just laid out there.
[Milva McDonald]: It's really not changed. They do have the clerk, which is already an employee of the city council. And there is an assistant, which the city council has always had a city messenger. So they just changed the title of that, that's all. So it's really pretty much, it's exactly the same. It's just, yeah. And I also just want to say we have lawn signs. If you want to support the charter with a lawn sign, you can go to the website or email us at info at medfordcharternow.com. And to get those lawn signs, and we have literature, we'll be dropping all over the city. If you want to get involved in doing some lit drops, you can contact us. And we have donation buttons on the website if you want to, you know, support us that way, because it all costs money.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you to the Medford Democratic City Committee, the Library, my fellow candidates, and everyone for coming and tuning in. I'm Milva McDonald, and the story of why I'm running for City Council starts a long time ago, as a kid growing up with an immigrant working-class mom who came to America from Italy in the 1950s. She was the hardest worker I've ever known and she passed her work ethic on to me. Whether working at the Boston Globe while raising my four kids, sitting on the board of non-profits, or helping launch the Mystic LGBTQ plus youth support network, I have always put in the hard work required to get things done. A few years ago, I decided charter review needed to get done in Medford. In 2021, I convened a group of residents to pursue options, and in late 2022, at our request, Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn formed the Medford Charter Study Committee and appointed me as chair. For two years, I led our 11-member committee in a comprehensive review of our city's foundational document. As a result, for the first time in 40 years, a new charter is projected to be on your municipal ballot this November. My experience chairing the committee inspired me to run for office. I want to bring the same level of research, outreach, and deep listening to the work of being your city councilor. My priorities include growing the city's tax base through zoning, reviewing fee structures, and fighting for a better pilot agreement with Tufts. Addressing the affordable housing crisis is a necessity. We must support the Affordable Housing Trust and the Community Land Trust. To ease the burden on taxpayers and renters, we should explore a residential exemption for owner-occupied homes and look further at the good landlord tax credit. We need to ensure that we are meeting the goals in the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, which continues to safeguard Medford for the future while improving life now. Medford has great cultural organizations, but I believe the arts need an anchor at City Hall, so I support the installation of a City Arts Coordinator. As councillor, I would also work to create a commission to promote visibility, equality, and empowerment of our LGBTQ plus community. I think it's also the job of municipal officials to support our dedicated city staff and those in need, like seniors on fixed incomes and immigrant communities. I love people, hearing their concerns and stories, and doing my best to help. As a second-generation Italian-American with working-class roots, I will always put in the time, effort, and research needed to get the job done, and I will make responsiveness and respect priorities in all my interactions. I'm excited to get to work to make our beloved city an even better place to live, and I ask for your vote in September and November. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, thank you. I'm Milva McDonald. I use she, her pronouns. I'm running for a seat on the city council. A little bit about me, I've lived in Medford for a pretty long time. I'd say maybe 32 years. I live in West Medford and I love it. I worked in journalism for a long time. I worked about 30 years at the Boston Globe in the calendar section, which some people might remember people of a certain age, I guess. And then I worked in the regional sections, Globe West and Northwest. eventually worked for Boston.com, and now I work for a publicist, a very niche publicist. We promote exclusively jazz musicians. I have four kids and three grandkids. I love music. I sing in a few choruses, and I also took up pottery a couple of years ago, and I really, really love that. And you can see me at craft fairs around town this fall.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, I do have some things at the gift shop at the Arts Collaborative Medford, which is a great place.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, the charter, yes, definitely. We'll be talking about that tonight, I'm sure.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So that, you know, I thought about that and I'm like, well, you know, Goldilocks is always a good pick, but I know, but then I thought, well, you know, I think I said that last time and it's still, it's still up there. Um, but I thought maybe this time I would give a plug to the farmer's market. Um, because I love going to the farmer's market. Um, they, you can get empanadas, you can get samosas. you can get really delicious cupcakes. Um, these are all the things I like. I love the bread that you can get there. Um, and, and, you know, you can, you can just put, put together a dinner from these awesome vendors. Um, grab a nice loaf of bread, grab a nice hunk of cheese, get a nice fresh tomato and like have a picnic or something, you know? Yeah. And, and that's right. And they, um, They take snap too, so that's also a plus.
[Milva McDonald]: You know, sort of been a person, always been a hard worker. I kind of got my work ethic from my mom, who is an Italian immigrant. She came to the United States in the 1950s at the age of 27. And it was kind of a culture shock for her, because the first time she had experienced running water, electricity, and heat. So being raised by her and my Italian heritage and my experience as the daughter of a working class immigrant contributes to sort of who I am today and who I've sort of become and my views on the importance of tolerance and listening and empathy and kindness. I also like to get things done. And a few years ago, I decided that I'd been hearing about charter review in Medford for too long. And that it was time to get it done. So. In 2021, I sort of tried to rally people together, and we started this group, or we sort of continue to group. I mean, I was connecting with Jim Silva at that point. He had been very involved with charter review. Um, in previous iterations, or the attempts to get charter review to happen. Um, so we sort of revived the Medford charter review coalition, and we were pursuing different ways to get a charter review. And 1 of those was. To ask the mayor to form a committee, because what we learned was that most communities. Review their charters that way using. a special act, which is what Medford ended up doing. So the mayor said, yes, I will form a committee. And I was honored to be appointed as a co-chair initially. And then Laurel Siegel, the other co-chair, left and I became the sole chair. And we went from about 2022 to 2024, which you know, because you were on the committee. Thank you. And we, yeah, so we dove into all things charter. So, um, and I know we'll be talking probably about that more. But it was basically my experience on the committee learning about local government, listening and talking to residents. Um. All of it just was, you know, it was inspirational and inspired me to stay involved with the city council run. I'd like to just sort of continue that work and bring that level of research and depth and listening to work on the city council.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, in the charter is the sort of foundational document for the city. And It involves sort of how people are represented. And what sort of, because it's a structure of the government and so representation was 1 of the big things that we talked about and Medford being 1 of the only cities left in the state. For a long time, it's been one of the only cities that doesn't have board representation for particularly city council. I feel like that addresses some of what you just talked about. Not only because it allows people a more localized representative, it also creates more accessibility for running for office. So, you know, the, the hope is that when this charter passes, which I'm very much hoping that it doesn't November by 2027, we will have that new structure in place. And that could open doors for a lot, a lot more people to run for office that maybe couldn't do it or wouldn't have considered it before. And we heard some of that, you know, we heard that from some people in the listening sessions we did around the city. Um, You know, some people said, oh, well, maybe if there was ward representation, I'd run for office.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And covering, I mean, there's about 60,000 people in the city, and the wards are about 7,000 to 8,000 people. That's a huge difference in terms of mailings, in terms of canvassing. I mean, all that sort of work of campaigning, and it's a pretty big difference. So that's one thing. Also, the other thing, when we looked at Article 8, the citizen participation mechanisms, would hopefully give people more opportunity to be involved in government respond to issues, um, maybe, um, have the opportunity to be able to get something on the ballot if they sort of tried to go through, um, the local government and they didn't and they couldn't do it. They have a mechanism to use where they can make that happen. Um, so those things, I think also, um, I mean, if you're talking specifically about sort of equity and representation and things like that.
[Milva McDonald]: So, I mean, you know, there's definitely people talked a lot about. how long the council meetings are, and I know that the council is aware of that, and I know it's something that they're already thinking about. But that's one thing in terms of just operations. There's so many issues. Zoning is what people are talking about right now quite a lot, and that's definitely something that we need to change. We need to redo the zoning for because we need more housing we need and we need to increase our tax base. So, I think that is definitely a change that. I think it's, I think it's going to happen so much work on it has already been done. And at this point, the good news is, I think that that people are really aware of it now more than they have been in the past. So it gives people an opportunity to. uh, offer really constructive, specific feedback and so that we can move forward with that. Um, cause I think that's important. Um, there's also a lot of really important work to be done, um, like with, uh, uh, funding the affordable housing trust. Um, the board just recently released a really great action plan. Um, and part of that is a community land trust, which is also something that I really support. And, um, you know, hope that that can evolve. That's where this community land trust sort of becomes a non-profit that holds land to benefit the public basically. And so it's affordable housing units that aren't going to go away. I think traffic calming is kind of something that I would like to see change. Um, and that's important, um, especially with the, um, you know, this eventual change in rezoning and things like that traffic is increasing anyway. Um, so I think, um, and I know that that's been worked on, like the street where I near where I live, they just put speed tables on and it's making a huge difference, but, um, bump outs, things like that. I think we need to look at all those things. Um, I think climate resiliency is really important and our city's done a really good job at that so far, but we need to just like, keep on that and make sure that the benchmarks in the climate action adaptation plan are being met. Um. But, you know, some of them I'd like to even see increase, like, I'd like to see even more people use the curbside composting program. Um. The community increase in the tree canopy. Um, and and there's a lot of really great ideas. I loved some of the ideas I've heard from fellow candidates. Like, when I listened to Miranda on your show, she was talking about more benches and shelters at teas. And I just, yeah, I think that's great. I love that idea. Um. Another thing that I would really like to see happen is I'd like to see an arts coordinator at City Hall. I've talked to people in the arts community and we have so many great arts organizations in the city, but we don't have, we have the Arts Council, but there's not really a central kind of unifying anchor at City Hall. And I think that would, I think that could be really good for the city. Yeah. So those are just some of the things.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, you know, 1 of the 1 of the reasons was because I, I entered the race on the way side. So, you know, that was a practical reason. But I also, I tend, I feel like I just tend to be sort of an independent minded person. I do happen to align with a lot of the. Policy ideas, but I also. I, you know, I, yeah, I just, I consider myself independent. So, I mean, it wasn't like... Like I said, it wasn't so much of a tough decision because of the point at which I entered the race kind of made the decision for me anyway. So, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, one of the other things that I would really like to work on, um, if elected is the creation of an LGBTQ plus commission for the city. Um, I know that the council's working to overhaul the human rights commission, and I think that's great, but, um, you know, other cities have LGBTQ plus commissions, um, in Arlington it's called the rainbow commission and I'm a little partial to that. And I like that name, but, um, I think that that that would be an important step. In the city towards sort of promoting equality visibility for our LGBT plus community and empowerment. And I, I see that work as maybe separate from what. You know, or separate or enhancing and what might be done on the human rights commission. So I think. You know, there's different commissions in other cities. They do cool programming, obviously pride, but, you know, I think we don't have to limit things to just June. I think an LGBTQ plus commission would be a year round endeavor and. whatever the commission worked on, but the sort of, it would be focused around the mission statement, obviously, but they could look at policies, programs, advocacy, um, community conversations, community buildings, crosswalk painting. I mean, there's just so many, um, you know, so many options. So I, I would like to see that. I think that would be, um, a pretty great thing for the city.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, absolutely. I am having a couple of events with music, because I love music. I love to sing, but I love music, and I have musicians in my family. make sense for me to bring music into my campaign. So on, and they're both going to be at Mrs. Murphy's, which is an Irish pub on Salem Street. It's I believe 25 Salem Street. On August 29th, which is a Friday from six to eight, we're going to have Celtic music with Alistair White, who's a great fiddler and Eric McDonald on guitar. Alistair used to play in the Battlefield Band, which if anybody out there knows Celtic music knows that that's a pretty big name in Celtic music. And he's a, you know, he's a Scottish guy and he really knows the tradition. So that's going to be a really fun night of music and networking and etc. And on September 7th from 3 to 5 p.m. we'll have the Shereen Klezmer duo. And for people who aren't familiar with Klezmer music, it's really fun music. It's basically Eastern European Jewish folk music. Um, it's very, it's very fun. So, um, and both of those, uh, events, I will be there to meet people, talk to people about my platform, et cetera. Um, people will be able to order off the menu, um, and just have a great evening and afternoon and, uh, learn about the campaign. So those are the two events. Um, there's probably going to be other house parties too in the works, but those are the main things right now.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: No, just my website, if people want to sort of look more closely at my platform and there's information about the events and how you can get involved. It's www.milva4medford.com and Facebook and Instagram, it's the same handle. Uh, slash number for Medford. So, yeah, that's where you can find me. And if you want to. If it might the email is at for Medford dot com. If you want to shoot me a line, I'm happy to talk to anybody get together. have coffee. I really like, that was one of the things I loved about the Charter Study Commission committee was connecting with residents. So I'm happy to do that anytime. I love meeting people, talking to people and hearing about what they want for the city.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Thank you so much, Danielle.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you, and thanks for inviting me. I'm excited to be here.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I'm Milva McDonald, and I've lived in Medford for about 32 years. I've been in my current home in West Medford for about 25 years. I had several, three decades, I worked in journalism at the Boston Globe in the calendar section, if anybody remembers that.
[Milva McDonald]: That was a great section. LS. It was. It was great. I also worked in the Globe West and Northwest and then eventually Boston.com. Now I work for a publicist, a very niche publicist. We promote exclusively jazz musicians. I also do some teaching and tutoring. I have some students. I homeschooled all four of my kids. So, and during that time, I co-founded a secular nonprofit called Advocates for Home Education in Massachusetts, which is still thriving. And I'm also a writer. I've written a couple of books about homeschooling. I've written short stories that I've had published in various journals. I also love music. I sing in three choruses, one called the Holla Lisa Singers. And the director of that chorus lives right here in Medford also. And I just sang in the Harvard Summer Chorus. That was great fun. And another chorus called Mutamonia. I also am a potter. I took up pottery a couple of years ago, and I absolutely love it. So you can see me at craft fairs around Medford this fall.
[Milva McDonald]: And I also have a few things at the gift shop at Arts Collaborative Medford. Oh, okay, that's wonderful. That's a great background. A lot of experience. Yeah, and I said I have four kids. I also have three grandkids.
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely. Well, giving back to the community has always been important to me and I've always been a hard worker. I kind of got my work ethic from my mom. She was an Italian immigrant who came to the United States in the 1950s. at the age of 27. It was quite the culture shock for her. She had really never been 10 miles out of her village until that point and now she's in this country experiencing running water, electricity, heat for the very first time. So my Italian heritage and my experience as the daughter of a working class immigrant sort of contribute to who I am. And my views on the importance of listening, tolerance, empathy, things like that. So that's sort of a background. But I also really like to get things done. And a few years ago, I decided that I'd been hearing about charter review in the city for a very long time, and I thought, I really would like to see this get done. So in 2021, I kind of just rallied people and said, hey, I'm going to invite everybody over, talk about charter review. And some people that had been involved in the past, like Jim Silva and a couple of other people, we got together, we sort of brought, we created a group called the Medford Charter Review Coalition. And we were pursuing different ways to get charter review done. We said we're just going to try everything and we were collecting signatures. But we also learned that one of the ways and which is actually the most common way for charter review to get done in Massachusetts is for a city committee to be appointed. And then that committee would do the work of the review and then it would go through the city government and then to the state house and back to the voters. So we approached the mayor and said, would you please form a committee? And she did. And to my honor, I was appointed chair. Initially, I was co-chair with Laurel Siegel, but then she left to work in the city's planning department. And we spent, we started in about, I think it was like November or December of 2022. We finished up in late 2024, and I chaired the 11-member committee, and we dove into all things charter. We talked about Charters from around the state, we prioritize public engagement. So my experience chairing that committee, learning about local government and listening and talking to residents just really inspired me to stay involved with the city council run. I'd like to bring that same level of research and depth and listening to the city council.
[Milva McDonald]: It was, you know, before the committee was formed, you know, I was focused on we got to get this charter review done and then it was really a big shift. It was like, oh, okay, we got the review because there was just so, it was so long in Medford just to get the review to happen before anybody could really start talking about, okay, now what, you know, what about the actual charter? So it was a shift, but we did have help. We had the Collins Center for Public Management, which is a nonprofit out of UMass Boston that helps a lot of municipalities with this kind of thing. So that was very important to have that help. And, you know, with their guidance we started looking at charters from around the state. We had a template, a modern charter template that the Collins Center provided for us so we could sort of see, you know, what are the elements that are in a modern charter, which of course our current charter very much lacks. And it was very important to us to do a lot of public engagement. So we held three public information sessions at City Hall. We created a survey that we distributed in five languages. And we held over a dozen listening sessions around the city, which were great. We worked with different organizations like Housing Medford, the Chamber of Commerce, Medford Family Network. We went to the West Medford Community Center. We just tried to cover as much ground as we could. And we sort of collected all this feedback. And that was one of my favorite parts of the process was, you know, the listening sessions and talking to people and sort of listening to their thoughts and what they wanted to see. And once we had this gathered, we sort of dug in. And then we went through the charter article by article. It's a lot of work. Yeah. We did create subcommittees. So that was pretty helpful. So the subcommittee would like go in depth on a particular article and then bring it back to the whole committee. The Collins Center helped a lot with the drafting, but I think our committee was actually pretty ambitious and we did draft several of the sections on our own. And one of the important goals was getting it on the ballot this fall. So in order to make that, timeline we were working really hard at the end.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And then once we finished our final report, yeah, once we sort of hashed everything out, incorporated the feedback, we looked at studies and things like that. Then we put it all together in a final report, submitted it to the mayor, and then she reviewed it and sent it to the council, and then it did get to the statehouse. And it is projected to be on the ballot, which I'm very excited about.
[Milva McDonald]: That was going to be my... Everything I hear is that it is going to be. It just had its... third reading with the House. It's gone through the, it's almost through the Senate, so it should be at the Governor's desk very, very soon. That's what I hear.
[Milva McDonald]: And I just want to, again, thank every member of the Charter Committee, because it was a lot of work, and people really donated their time, and we had a lot of fun, too.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, they proposed an alternate scheme of district representation which would have resulted in a majority at large council. I knew that they would look at it and there was an expectation that there would be changes made. That particular change, I was a bit surprised at because we didn't really have indication from many of the council members that that would be their view. Um, and the other thing that I was mostly concerned because if there was one thing that we heard over and over again in our public engagement piece, um, it was ward representation. please give the city ward representation. So it was very clear that that was what people wanted. And, you know, knowing through the process, we learned about charter reviews in other cities and, you know, charter review isn't always guaranteed to succeed. And often charter review will hinge on kind of like one major issue for the city. For instance, in Medford, there actually was a charter commission in 1978. that created a charter that got voted down. And the big issue then was mayor versus city manager. And that particular charter commission didn't recommend that and the voters said no thank you. And then in 1986 the voters did get the switch to the plan A mayor and replacing the city manager. So to my mind the big issue that I heard from most people in the city, was word representation and it didn't surprise me because before the committee even, it was something that I had been hearing about. So, you know, I felt like, Just look, I tried to speak to the council about our findings. Statistically, we are one of the only cities in Massachusetts to not have ward representation. Our council is the smallest in the state for a city of our size. It's 9 or 11 is the standard size. And with the new charter we would have 11, 8 ward and 3 at large. And I was also, in my mind was also the ultimate goal of success at the ballot box. And I felt like that was an important piece for that to happen. I think it resulted in a good public discussion where the merits and the challenges of ward representation were discussed. It was good to see people coming out to share their views communicate with the council and the mayor and I was just very glad that in the end that the council reached a compromise with the mayor that kept ward representation for council and I just want to reiterate that what you were actually doing was This is what the people want
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, you know, and there was sort of, some people countered that with, well, we don't know what the people want. There's 60,000 people in Medford. And that is true, but we have to base it on what we were hearing from people.
[Milva McDonald]: And that's what we did.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, it was great. I mean, there were some, like some people say, well, you didn't listen to the people on everything. For instance, the mayor being on school committee, which became, I mean, that in the end, that was part of the compromise made between the mayor and the council. And, you know, what we did as a committee was we did take that public engagement very seriously. But we also talked to, I mean, we talked to almost every sitting elected. We talked to prior electeds. We talked to prior mayors. We talked to city staff. And we looked at a lot of things. And the school committee subcommittee, which was chaired by Paulette Van der Kloot, looked very carefully chair, mayor being the chair, and you know, there were various reasons that the committee decided to recommend that. It was changed, that's fine. You know, term limits was another one, because term limits are very popular, but when we dug into the data, It just, it didn't make sense for various reasons to recommend it for council and school committee. We did recommend it for mayor. But I never heard the council complain about the fact that we didn't, well, there was one time actually, once they complained. But, you know, I mean, we did our best. We took the public engagement seriously, but we also had other information that we incorporated.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I hope everyone votes yes.
[Milva McDonald]: And I just want to say one of the really important things in the new charter, if everybody votes yes and it gets voted through, is that we will have regular charter review. So we will not go for decades with our charter languishing again.
[Milva McDonald]: We did our best.
[Milva McDonald]: So my position is that the city does need a zoning overhaul. There's not really a question and I don't think there's disagreement about that. I think that there's been a lot of work done and we have these sort of visionary documents that have been guiding the process like the comprehensive plan and the housing production plan. And we've had 18 months with an outside consultant. So a lot has been done. But based on my conversation with residents and watching the community development board meetings, I think that slowing things down, especially with the residential zoning, was the right call. The good news is that people are learning about it. They know about it now. For whatever reason that didn't happen, I prefer to look forward and look at the sort of the upside of that, which is that now we actually are hearing from people. And they will have a chance to share specifics about their neighborhoods. And I think that's important because, you know, the consultants have done their best, but they don't know every neighborhood in Medford. So, now that we have residents aware and on board, they can share specifics about their neighborhood with the community development board and the council, and that can help guide the process to a good final outcome. I think that... That kind of detailed attention is important. We also have to give that detailed attention to the squares and corridors. I know the Community Development Board is working really hard on everything that's been sent over to them, which is a lot.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, it's a tremendous amount. And I think it's probably prudent to take the time that it needs and look at details. Like right now, I know one of the things they talked about at their last meeting was the boundaries of the squares, for instance. I mean, that was a question that I asked a month or two ago, because I noticed that in my neighborhood, the boundaries of the squares had been stretched so that some really beautiful old residential houses were potentially going to be zoned to mixed use. And so they're looking at those kinds of properties and those kinds of things and those details. And I think that that's important. So I'm glad that that's happening. One of the things that residents that I've talked to have been concerned about, several, is Teardowns in their neighborhood. Yes, and we have already seen yes, you know a house in South Medford That's slated to be torn down That's a beautiful perfectly wonderful house. So and and people are worried about things like that so those those are some of the concerns I've heard and and What I don't see disagreement on is I don't see disagreement on the need for new zoning and the need for new housing. We particularly need commercial zoning. So I think that the good news is that I think most everybody in the city agrees that this is important.
[Milva McDonald]: And that it needs to happen. I don't think that anybody's trying to stop rezoning. I think it's just let's make sure that we're listening to people and figuring out what's really the best for Medford. What is the right zoning for Medford?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, no, that's a that's an excellent question. And it's a very important question. It's also a tough question because we have limited options, right? Yes. I think what we were just talking about zoning, particularly in the commercial sectors, is is very important. I mean, that's maybe one of the biggest things we can do is to make Medford business friendly. with the zoning process, looking at permitting processes, incentives, things like that, so that we can grow our commercial tax base. We have a lot of potential for that, and it just needs to be realized. State aid and grants, identifying opportunities, I think the planning department works hard at that. But that's something that, you know, the council could conceivably work with them on, is identifying those kinds of opportunities and making them happen. We should be doing regular reviews of our fee schedules. Like, we just, parking fees were just looked at, and I know some people might not like that, but our parking fees are very low. You know, I personally will, you know, look and say, okay, well, will I get the same number of permits this year? You know, I don't know if I will. But I might. But, I mean, everybody will have to weigh that decision, but things like, you know, Permitting fees just every and also looking at our contracts like I mean even the shovel year, which is amazing It's also Been a great business opportunity and it's proven to be highly successful. So maybe renegotiating some of these contracts where we have now a proven track record and And also, I know that this is something that's being looked at, but linkage fees, developer fees, so basically looking at fees, looking at opportunities for state grants, beefing up our commercial sectors, and renegotiating the pilot program with Tufts, looking at, you know, where we can, so those are some of the ways I think. They're all good ones.
[Milva McDonald]: I am a proponent of affordable housing. Um, and I, I think that it's great that this, that we have an affordable housing trust now. Um, then we need to figure out how to fund it. And we have, uh, the affordable housing trust has a board that put out recently a great comprehensive report with ideas for that, including a community land trust, which I think would also be great. That would be, um, like sort of a city owned property that would be available to, Build affordable housing on so and that would stay affordable, right? No, it'd be nice a city-owned. Yeah, I mean that's So I think that's those are important. So and and also in the affordability issue I think looking at a residential exemption for taxpayers for homeowners would be a good thing to investigate Other cities have that Malden has it.
[Milva McDonald]: And that is basically where if you live in your property, then you are eligible to apply for an exemption to your tax bill. I think that climate resiliency is important, and we have a great climate action and adaptation plan, so I think keeping an eye on that and making sure we're meeting the benchmarks is great. I think a lot of great things have already happened. Expanding the tree canopy, and these things are great for climate resiliency, but they also improve people's quality of life. So the tree canopy is going to make a nicer city. The bike share program, I think, has been great for people. And I think safe streets are important, so infrastructure improvements, things like that. And I also am a big supporter of the arts. I would like to, as a Councilor, advocate for the installation of a city arts coordinator. One of the things that I hear from people is we have so many great arts organizations, and we do.
[Milva McDonald]: I agree. Yeah, we do. But part of sort of what happens is we don't, you know, the people are picking up the slack, kind of. So a city arts coordinator could be kind of a unifying, an anchor, basically. Right, yeah. And support the arts council and sort of unify arts in the city So I and that's what I've heard from the arts community that that's something that they would like nice Um, and I also would like to advocate for an lgbtq plus commission Okay, which would be um, just a you know, one of another one of the city's volunteer commissions, right? um to sort of advocate for that community. So those are some of the things.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, I have a couple of really fun ones coming up. I love music, I said that, and I have musicians in my family, and so there's a couple of events coming up at Mrs. Murphy's, which is the Irish pub on Salem Street. on August 29th, which is a Friday, from 6 to 8. We will be there with Celtic music, a great fiddler named Alistair White, and guitarist Eric McDonald. Alistair is Scottish, and he used to be in the Battlefield Band, which if anybody knows Celtic music, that's a very big name. So that's going to be really fun. We'll be there from 6 to 8. Come on over. Order off the menu. Chat with us. You know, talk to me about my platform. Get to know me. I would love to see you. There's another one at Mrs. Murphy's on September 7th, which is a Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m. with the Shereem Klezmer duo. And Klezmer music is Eastern European Jewish folk music, and it's really fun.
[Milva McDonald]: That will be a clarinet player and an accordion player, both who live in Medford. Yeah, so I'm excited about those. Very nice, very nice.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's hard. Thinking of the least favorite thing is hard, because I'm like, oh, there's nothing I really don't like to do. But then I thought, oh, OK, driving. That's probably my least favorite, because the traffic, so many people use Medford as a cut through, which is something I would like to sit down and think about. Is there some way to discourage that? But anyway, so I would say that's probably my least favorite, driving. My most favorite? That's much easier, although hard to pick one. So I probably picked a few. You could pick a few, that's fine. The library is one of my favorite things, go to the library. Our second poet laureate Vijaya Sundaram runs a poetry club there and I love going to her poetry club. She also runs a poetry open mic at the Arts Collaborative Medford. So I love those things and I love the Arts Collaborative Medford. I also love the farmer's market. And the other thing I love to do in Medford is my husband and I have a tandem bike, which is like a bicycle built for two. So we like to ride that. Yeah, we ride it over to the Mystic Lakes and look for the eagles and the herons. And yeah, so that's definitely one of my favorite things.
[Milva McDonald]: I have a website, www.milva4medford.com. I'm also on Facebook with that handle, milva4medford, and Instagram, same handle, milva4medford. So I would invite everyone to check out the website, check out the social media, follow me. You can email me at milva4medford.com. I'd love to hear from people. Please contact me. Any questions or comments or if you just want to have coffee, I'm available.
[Milva McDonald]: Hi. Thank you. Thanks for taking my question, and thank you for your work. My question is about, I live near West Medford Square, and When I look at the map, I'm just curious about how the boundaries of the square were determined and how you made the decision to make some residential properties mixed use. When you walk out from the square, when you walk down Harvard Ave, there's maybe a block to max of businesses and then the residential area starts. And it looks to me like the, It's being stretched now further so that, for instance, there's a gorgeous old house on the corner of Harvard and Boston Ave that is being zoned for mixed-use 2A, which I believe means it could go to seven stories. And then I think the house next to it is mixed-use 2A. And then some of the other properties around are urban residential, too. So I'm just curious what the thought process was around that and how you decided to make some residential properties mixed use and basically change an area that is currently residential to something else.
[Milva McDonald]: No, thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: I believe it's Yeah. I mean, I think the house next to it is also zoned as mixed use too.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, this one's not because I know who lives there and I've been in it many times.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Mildred McDonald, 61 Monument Street. I just have three quick questions and I'll be brief. One is about the interactive map. Thank you for making it. It's really awesome. My question about it is... dived in too heavily, but the nuances that were referred to earlier, will those be, will those show in the interactive map? If you're looking at the interactive map at a particular property, will you be able to tell some of the nuances that were mentioned earlier about, or will you just see, oh, they can go seven stories, but the nuances that might prevent that, will those show in the interactive map? That's one question. My other question is for the squares. Does this process at all look at some of the traffic issues or particular hairy intersections? I'm thinking in particular of the Route 60 and Playstead and Harvard Ave where the commuter rail crosses, where the train crosses, and it's pretty precarious right now. So I think there's some concern of residents that increased density could create safety issues and difficulties. And so how does this process incorporate that? And I know you don't know what's going to happen exactly as a result of the zoning. So I know that's part of it. But just wondering where along the line, maybe does that come in? And my third question is a little unrelated to the squares, but since private ways have come up. I could be wrong about this, but my understanding is that there's a process to change private ways to public ways, and that could potentially be initiated by the City Council. And since we have so many, and based on the map I looked at, sometimes they cover a whole neighborhood, like Lawrence Estates, for instance. Has the City Council ever considered trying to make some of those roads that really do function as public ways, public ways? So those are my questions.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, like what Zach earlier was saying how, you know, if you look and see, oh, nine stories can go up here. with the incentive and you live near it and you're freaked out about that, it might not necessarily be true because there's other factors that would prevent that from going up.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I think the map is awesome. Thank you so much.
[Milva McDonald]: So basically the map is great and it gives you good general information, but don't make assumptions about individual parcels based on the general information.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I'm not correcting you. You get credit for digging up those newspaper articles. Thank you. I just was able to disseminate them. But I believe also on the website is the legislative package from 1986, which I collected from the Mass Archives. So that's another piece of information that people can look at. and also the report from the 1978 Charter Study Commission in Medford, which created a whole charter that actually didn't make it. So there's a lot of charter history available on the Charter Study Committee website under resources, if anybody's interested. That's all, thanks. And thank you all. And sorry, Milva McDonald, 61 Monument Street.
[Milva McDonald]: Milton McDonald, 61 Monument Street. I understand that this resolution is symbolic, but I think it's an important statement. So I thank you on a somewhat separate topic, but I believe it's related. There's also been an attack on DEI in this country. And I know that I personally have reached out to our DEI director to offer my support. And I don't know if the council has, and I don't, I'm not aware that any public statement has been made, but I would like you to consider offering support to our DEI director at this time as well. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Milva McDonald, 61 Monument Street. I'm gonna try to be quick because I know I only have three minutes and it's late. There's been discussion about the formation of the committee. I just wanted to say that the mayor formed this committee because the Medford Charter Review Coalition requested it. It was part of our work. Despite the fact that we were the mayor's committee, we were independent. And I wanna just clarify that because I feel, I just wanna make sure that some remarks were not interpreted to make it seem as though the mayor was in charge of us. We were independent. We had our meetings independent of the mayor. She never influenced any decisions or discussions. We did consider balance of power. The, this, what we learned when we looked at other municipalities is that Medford's mayor is pretty much like all the other mayors in Massachusetts. We have a mayor council form of government. There was no will among the people. We interviewed all the Councilors, most of the Councilors here and many other elected officials. Nobody said they wanted to go to city manager. Um, We still considered balance of power, and I understand that it's an issue. Taking the mayor off the school committee would make Medford one of a very, very few communities that doesn't have the mayor on the school committee. Changing the charter committee to 333 would make Medford the only city in the state that gives the school committee that many appointees. The school committee has a very narrow focus. It focuses on the schools, not the entire city. The charter focuses on the entire city. The part of the charter that addresses the school committee is small. It addresses the composition. The operations of the school committee are defined in state law. Those are some of the reasons that we didn't make it equal. And if you look at other charters, the school committee almost never has an appointee, but we didn't want to do that. I'm just explaining this so it's understood because we weren't asked, but I feel like it's important. Anthony Wilson from the Collins Center is on tonight and I don't know if you'll have him next week. You might ask him about these changes before just deciding on them. We actually looked at best practices. We looked at the reasons why mayors are on school committee. So it's maybe something that you want to get a little more information about. I guess that's all I'm going to say right now. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Milva McDonald, 61 Monument Street. I'm going to try to talk fast. There was a lot of things said about the committee, so I just want to address a few of those. I may have misunderstood, but I thought I heard someone say that the Charter Study Committee left information out of the survey that we didn't want to include. So if I misunderstood that, I would like, please correct me. But I would just want to say, if you have that impression, please come and talk to me. Because as far as I know, it is absolutely not true. I also just wanted to say, and this has been said before, district representation was not asked about because it does not happen in Massachusetts on city councils. And there have been references by Councilors to communities that have it. And I would love to hear the names of them other than Boston and Worcester. Boston is essentially not comparable. State law even separates it out from other municipalities. And Worcester is the second largest city in the state. So I am truly interested in hearing about the other communities that have it on city council. Ward representation has a definition that is understood. People know what it means. So when all of you ran on it, that's what they understood. When all of you have said for five years, 100% in favor of ward representation, when you said to us in interviews that you were in favor of ward representation, everybody knew what you meant. So the reason it wasn't asked was because it wasn't on our radar, because it's not really done. When the school committee subcommittee started digging in, they found that it is, there are a few school committees that have it. And I won't go into the, I've said it before, it's in the final report, why it was considered to school committee, but not city council. I also wanna say, this is not like the Senate. The problem with the Senate of our country is that you have senators who represent very small numbers of people and others who represent massive numbers of people who have the same power. each ward representative would represent the same number of people. So you may have a problem with the fact that some wards have low voter turnout and ward three that has high voter turnout has had a disproportionate number of representation. And I personally don't think that's an accident, but please don't say it's like the Senate because it's not. The demographic research that has been done is great, but the demographics will change. And this charter is going to be in place for, if it passes, for at least 12 years. If you're confident that the demographics are going to be exactly the same and the district method will serve, will fix whatever you think ward representation won't, That makes sense, but I don't think, okay. I don't think any of us think that demographics are gonna stay the same. The housing studies that have been mentioned, we also addressed that. If there are more, I want to see them. Please show them to me. There's one study that we were able to find. I've asked repeatedly, several people, no one has been able to produce anything but that one study, which is not very conclusive. So, and just one more thing. It has been said, no system is perfect. This isn't a moral issue. This isn't something, there's no perfect system. So a district system is not gonna be perfect either, but you're willing to ignore your constituents because on the idea that this is some moral issue, that it's right. And I don't understand that, because charter review is not easy. There are a lot more stops that this charter has to go to after you. The last one is the voters. And people have talked about word representation in the city for years. It was the biggest issue. When we talked to people, that is what they talked about. So, I don't understand why you would abandon that when you have all supported it in the past and your constituents are asking you for it. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't. Whatever the situation with the Collins Center is, that wasn't something that we negotiated, so I can't speak to it. But the members of the Charter Study Committee were all volunteers. Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: We didn't have a budget. We didn't have a staff. Some charter committees actually have support staff. We did have a city liaison who was very helpful.
[Milva McDonald]: Frances Nwaje.
[Milva McDonald]: Milva McDonald, 61 Monument Street. I don't really, I just wanted to, because I had asked the question about other communities that have district representation, but as has been pointed out, it is a semantic issue. What we're talking about is representation where two of the designated sections of the city, whether they're called wards or districts, are combined. Yes, Methuen and Amherst, they also have multi-member, but as we heard from the Collins Center, that probably wouldn't fly at the Statehouse. And they also said that one of those communities was changing their form of government. It's also notable that those communities have home rule charters, which means the Statehouse never saw those charters. Lowell says district on their website, but they are just it's their
[Milva McDonald]: That's okay. And it looks to me like Amesbury is the same. So the only two that I could find outside of Worcester and Boston were those two, and also Worcester is also a home rule charter. So those are all home rule charters. So we really don't know if the state has seen a charter that does this for city council. I just wanted to make that point.
[Milva McDonald]: Donald 61 Monument Street. It's getting late. I'm very tired. So there, the committee, the language that Eunice just referred to was supposed to be in the draft charter. So technically, it should have been considered as part of it. But there was also language on residence requirement for multi-member boards that the committee crafted that got left off. We were very rushed at the end, as was previously mentioned. We had no staff. Um, we were trying to meet a deadline and and a couple of things fell off the radar But there is language that the committee created about a residency requirement from multi-member boards, which I sent Several weeks ago probably months uh to uh, councillor sang so I just want to say that thanks Yeah, and we had discussed it and then we said that counts I think we'll if we wherever we have that we'll run it by the collins center because there was also about to have the collins center draft it Maybe it just got lost in translation who had drafted it
[Milva McDonald]: There's a red. Yes, yeah, you're live. Milda McDonald, 61 Monument Street. I just wanted to make the point that because there's been discussion that the city council should mirror the school committee in its structure. And I just wanted to make the point that the two bodies are very different. Their jobs are very different. The city council legislates for the entire city, represents constituents across the city, and the school committee has a more narrow focus there. Addressing only the school. So that was one of the things that the committee considered. We did not consider them the same because they're not the same. Communities all across the state have different configurations for city council and school committee. In fact, I think it's probably less common for a city to have the exact same structure for both bodies, but the call-in center could maybe correct me if I'm wrong on that. There are plenty of communities that have ward councils and at-large school committees. So I just wanted to make that point. That was not something that the committee thought about because simply because they're different bodies. And as far as voters getting confused, voters would have their ballots and their candidates would be on their ballots. We have systems across the state and across the country where people living in the same community have different elected representatives. Right here in Medford, our state reps, depending on where you live, are different. So voters figure this kind of thing out all the time. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Milva McDonald, 61 Monument Street. I just wanted to take a moment to shed some light on the committee's process for this particular section. First, I just want to say one of the overarching values of the committee was public participation, citizen participation, and that we've reflected that in the preamble. And that was the lens through which we explored this section. This, as we've heard from the Collins Center, this is not uncommon. It's in charters across the state. When we looked at it, we examined charters and we saw that the range was between about 25 and 150 signatures. because of the value of public participation and citizen participation, we erred on the low side, but that could be a number that's fluid. We also, in these discussions, while we held public participation and citizen participation as a high value, we were trying to balance that with what could possibly be a potential for abuse, which is why the provision is there that only Once it won a petition on once one subject can only be presented once a year So the same petition can't be submitted over and over again So I just wanted to sort of talk about that and just so that you all know kind of what informed our process I also just want to make a point that I feel is getting missed and This discussion about whether this adds value to the present system doesn't, the fact is that the system now is in your rules and your rules can be changed. They can be changed tomorrow, they can be changed next year by a new council or two years from now. The charter means that it can't be changed. So that there's an inherent difference in what is in the charter and when you're talking about, well, people already have the right to do this. As has been said by the Collins Center, the charter is for the future. So I feel like just sort of comparing it against what people can do now misses that point, and I just wanted to make that point. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: When the committee discussed Milton McDonald 61 Monument Street, when we discussed referendum, when we were discussing the timelines, we did see them as initiative and referendum as inherently different. And one of the things that we discussed was that a referendum pauses a measure that was passed by a duly elected body and that it didn't that that time frame, we didn't want it to be extended any more than it had to. So we wanted to give the citizens the right to do it while also making sure that the elected body that passed it wasn't, that the measure wasn't put, held at bay for too long. I just wanted to point that out.
[Milva McDonald]: Milford McDonald, 61 Monument Street. I just want to say that the language that the committee put into the charter regarding compensation is standard language that's in charters across the state. The compensation committee that Councilor Bears mentioned is not in the charter. That was something that we recommended that you consider creating in an ordinance to address some of the issues that have been talked about in the last several minutes. I just want to say that we looked at many charters and we didn't see anything remotely like this in any charter and And that because of that, the Collins Center might be, it might be a good idea to ask them their thoughts on it because we know that something that's really unusual in the charter could raise a flag at the State House. That's all I have to say.
[Milva McDonald]: Mildred McDonald, 61 Monument Street. Thank you for the question. Strong mayor, weak mayor is terms that get thrown around a lot, but we basically have a mayor council form of government. And we did look at balance of power, and we had also heard talk around town about Medford having an inordinately powerful mayor. So we asked the Collins Center for an analysis. and they provided an analysis, which is in the final report, and you can see that Medford's mayor is in line with other mayors in the state. Our mayor does not have more power than other mayors in the state. But we did talk about balance of power when we looked at a lot of different things, and we talked about it with the budget. It was a consideration.
[Milva McDonald]: Test one, two.
[Milva McDonald]: Hi, Milva McDonald, 61 Monument Street. As part of the discussion, we looked at other charters and we talked about it and that seemed like a reasonable provision, so we included it.
[Milva McDonald]: You mean the process of creating the survey?
[Milva McDonald]: The feedback we got was that we wanted the survey to be accessible, so not too complicated. We asked about major questions that voters are most concerned about, which is the composition, term limits, things like that. The results are all in the final report. So, I mean, I can get them, but you all have them, right?
[Milva McDonald]: Whether, for council, you're talking about? Yes, for city council. Whether to remain all at large? to be ward-based, hybrid-based. I mean, we can't be all ward-based, because we only have eight exclusively ward-based, because we only have eight wards. So that's not really an option on the table. Anyway.
[Milva McDonald]: The combining of the wards? Oh yeah, combining of words or... No, that was something that came up in the discussions about the school committee to address the challenges of making school committee, applying word representation to the school committee, because that would have increased the body size. I see. And so that's how that came up.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, it's. very common cities all over the state have a different composition for city council and school committee. So I think voters can figure it out. I mean, they do in most other cities or many other cities. You know, I think this is laid out in the final report, but I don't think we saw a call to increase the size of the school committee. But we also recognize that the community still wanted board representation for the school committee. I actually was not on the school committee subcommittee. And I think when you have that discussion, maybe Paulette Van der Kloot would participate. She chaired that subcommittee and they had extensive discussions. So I would actually prefer to let her speak more about that. I can tell you in general, because obviously they came back to the full committee. And we then discussed it, so I can tell you more in general, but if you want more specifics of how they reached that, she did give you a more detailed answer. But that was the gist of it, was trying to incorporate ward representation without necessarily increasing it to a body of 11, which we felt was appropriate for council, but not for school committee.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. they don't collect that information. I do just want to say that the discussion about competitiveness, we didn't look at that. That's not, but what we did look at was representation of the wards. And we looked back to 2005 and found that two wards in the city had no Councilor from those wards. So they had zero representation and that two wards that those were words one and four and two words two and three had disproportionate representation. And in terms of the competitiveness, you know, like I said, we didn't look at that we didn't research it, but. I can say anecdotally that in my approximately 30 years living in Medford, I've never seen an incumbent city councilor lose an election, and I wouldn't call that competitive. So I just wanted to say that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, we did some of those, and they should be in the final report. Some of the graphics didn't transition well, and so there's actually a new version on the website, I think, with better graphics that you can check. But Jean Zotter worked on that a lot. So if you wanted more details on that, you could speak. I don't know if she's on Zoom, but she collected a lot of that information and presented it.
[Milva McDonald]: Jean, if you don't mind, if I could just add that one of the reasons, as she mentioned, not everybody gave demographic information, but one of the reasons we chose to collect it was so that we could try to do outreach to populations that we didn't get as many responses from. And Jean was an amazing organizer of listening sessions around the city. And we tried to go and we, I mean, it's all in the final report. So you can sort of see, but I just wanted to add that.
[Milva McDonald]: We wanted the charter to succeed with the voters and at the state house. So we didn't necessarily look at alternatives that aren't used. Ranked choice voting did come up. That is something that we believed would see a hurdle at the state house, especially because Medford during the state question voted for ranked choice voting only with a small majority. So I think, you know, the success of the charter, the ultimate success of the charter was a consideration for us.
[Milva McDonald]: Could you just repeat? I'm not sure I cut that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, we had a spreadsheet of cities in Massachusetts. We didn't look at other states. We don't know what the interaction of municipal governments with state government is in those states. There's just so many other factors that could come into play. So we stuck to Massachusetts.
[Milva McDonald]: I believe not. You know, I don't have it in front of me, so I can't say 100%, but I don't think we did.
[Milva McDonald]: To be honest, I mean, just there is a graph in the final report that represents the number of Councilors who ran from each ward and then who won. So there is information about that in the final report.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think that would be my decision. So, I mean, I think that would have to be between you and the mayor. I don't, I mean, you know, We've officially finished our work, so I don't know. I just don't feel like I can answer that.
[Milva McDonald]: Possibly.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, are you referring to multi—I mean, the— Sorry, it's getting late. The options you talked about before.
[Milva McDonald]: So what are you talking about exactly?
[Milva McDonald]: Just simply district versus.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: But we explained why.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, we wouldn't be the only city that has this configuration with a different configuration for school committee. Lowell, for instance, has an exact, you know, they have eight wards. They have 11 ward Councilors, one from each ward, three at large, and then their school committee is broke down with districts at large. And they have a seven-member school committee as well.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm just saying it's not unheard of.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, there are timelines also. So that's something to consider as well.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm sorry, of what?
[Milva McDonald]: It's the census data.
[Milva McDonald]: I feel like that's a question for the Pollen Center, because they have more knowledge about that in general.
[Milva McDonald]: We did look at that and we asked, we looked for the research and we asked the Collins Center and we only found one study. If there are more, we didn't find them and we couldn't, the Collins Center didn't know of any either. And we also mentioned that in the final report that that was the finding that you quoted, but there were also caveats, which included that it was a, it was mostly looked at towns and that more study would be warranted for the kind of area, areas like Medford cities, and also that he didn't, the author didn't consider potential benefits of ward representation, including increased diversity. So it just didn't, it was one study, looked at one thing, and it wasn't a really broad, there wasn't much broad agreement on that. and the issues of representation and the potentiality for increased diversity, more accessibility to running for office were just more compelling to us.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Melvin McDonald, 61 Monument Street. I want to thank Anthony for speaking and sharing his thoughts. I do just want to say that we all on the committee have different perceptions and different experiences, but we did consider other numbers besides 11. I could bore you with the details of that, but I don't feel like I have to do that. I think it shows up in the minutes of our meetings. We did not simply only consider 11. Other than that, I think we did take a comprehensive look and I think our final report shows that. So I feel like it speaks for itself. The one thing that I did wanna point out because there's been talk about voter turnout and numbers were given about voter turnout in particular wards and the wards with low voter turnout correlate directly with the underrepresented wards. When candidates run for office, they naturally go where the voters are, so it becomes a, a cycle. And one of the hopes is that with representation. voter turnout could increase. So I just wanted to point that out, that the low voter turnout correlates with the underrepresented or zero represented in the last couple of decades' wards. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Hi, Milva McDonald, 61 Monument Street. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. I'm the chair of the Medford Charter Study Committee. As you know, charter review has been discussed in Medford for many years, and we are at an exciting moment right now with volunteer residents undertaking the task. As we work with the Collins Center for Public Management, a nonprofit entity out of UMass Boston that has guided many communities through the process of charter review. We are examining the charter as a whole and learning, among other things, about how pieces interact with each other, best practices, and trends. The goal is to propose a sturdy, fair, transparent charter that provides a strong framework for our city government in the long term. This holistic look at the charter is especially important in Medford because of how much time has passed since the last review. As the blueprint for how our city government operates, the charter is a vitally important document that affects every person who lives in our city. Now, for the first time in decades, we are finally giving it a checkup, looking at our form of government, the balance of powers, the composition of our elected bodies, length and limits of terms for elected officials, budget procedures, mechanisms for citizen participation, and more. I have heard this council reiterate many times that charter review should come from the people, and that is exactly what is happening. We are all residents who volunteered for this task because we care about our city. Our process prioritizes community engagement and input. We will use the public feedback we collect to draft a proposal that must make its way through several portals, including this council, before ever becoming official. The final step is at the ballot box with the voters. The voters, the people, will have the final say. Our webpage at www.medfordmad.org slash charter study has a wealth of information, including a form inviting public feedback. You will find us at Circle the Square in June, the Farmer's Market in August, and other events around the city. We will also be circulating a survey very soon. But the main reason I'm here is to extend an invitation. We are especially excited about our first public information and listening session this Thursday, June 8th at 7 p.m. right here in City Hall Chambers. All are welcome and encouraged to join us. It's going to be fun. regardless of which are events or meetings you can or cannot attend. Your voice is important, and we want to hear from you, the residents of our city and the leaders of our city about your thoughts, hopes and dreams for our municipal government. We hope to see you on Thursday evening right here. Thank you. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Second.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, I think John is the last committee member we're waiting for.
[Milva McDonald]: And thank you to Mike for being the Zoom administrator tonight, and Matt for taking minutes. We also, we have Janelle Austin from KP Law, Anthony Wilson from Collins Center, and we'll also have, I think, a couple more Collins Center people, and we'll be hearing from them over the course of the meeting. But we wanted to start by reviewing, or has anyone had a chance to review the minutes from our December 12th meeting? Yes. do we feel like we need to review them here or can we just go ahead and vote on accepting them or not? Move approval. I'm sorry, Eunice. Move approval.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Eunice, did you make the motion?
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so all in favor of approving the minutes as per Eunice's motion?
[Milva McDonald]: Aye.
[Milva McDonald]: Any opposed? Okay, great.
[Milva McDonald]: So the minutes have been accepted. That's great. Now we're going to move into the business of the meeting and Laurel is going to take over.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, now we are very excited and grateful to be working with the Collins Center during this process. We have Anthony Wilson from the Collins Center, Michael Ward, and was Marilyn also coming? She, okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. So I'm going to hand over the program to you. And I know that you all are interested in connecting with the committee members and you can start your presentation. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Does anybody do you want us to just sort of introduce ourselves to start with?
[Milva McDonald]: Awesome. Okay. I'll start and then I'll call each committee member and invite you to introduce yourself and comment on some of the things Michael mentioned. I'm Melva McDonald. I'm one of the co-chairs. I've been hearing about charter review in Medford for several years and started to get involved in trying to get a review to happen. uh, about a year ago and it's taken, it's taken a while just to get this committee up and going. So I'm really excited about it. Um, I think for me, the fundamental issue is what Michael and Anthony and others have alluded to about the charter sort of being the core document that guides the city. Um, and that's my main reason for being interested, um, in, in looking at it and updating it and. seeing what would work best for Medford. So, and Laurel, do you wanna go next?
[Milva McDonald]: Anthony, do you wanna go next?
[Milva McDonald]: Mike, do you want to go next?
[Milva McDonald]: Matt, do you want to go?
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you so much for this presentation. I think we have a lot to look at. I have a question. When you talked in your slides, there was the option of a complete rewrite or revisions. And given that we currently have a planned government, if the committee decides we, Does that mean we have to decide not to keep the plan and just write a charter that's separate from the plan government? Would that qualify as writing a new charter? Or if we just want revisions, does that mean we can keep plan A and make revisions to it? How would that work, given that we already have a plan government? So you could- Go ahead, Mary.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. Hi, Danielle. I'm really excited to talk with you today. My name's Milva McDonald. I've lived in Medford for almost three decades now. Raised my kids here and Lately, I've been working on charter review, which has been talked about for many of the years that I've lived here. And a group of residents and I are trying to get it to happen.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, thanks. It's she her.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I think I'm going to give a shout out to a couple of bakeries. Colette. I really like Colette. I like their pastries and Goldilocks bagels.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, charter review. So the charter of a city or town is often people will compare it to the Constitution of the city or town, it just sort of lays out the form of government. So we have a form of government in Medford called Plan A, and it was adopted in 1986. And it's known as strong mayor. So it means that we have a mayor and a city council. And So the charter just sort of lays that out how many city Councilors we have the terms of office, what to do if one of them resigns or can't serve anymore. Just a lot of things like that and also the school committee. the composition of the school committee. So just sort of the basic form of government, how it operates, whether there are term limits, things like that. The mayor is the head of the school committee. All those things are laid out in the charter.
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely, yeah. Whether we don't have board representation, which is actually unusual for a city of our size. So, you know, that's something that could be looked at in a charter review.
[Milva McDonald]: Exactly. So there's eight wards and, um, if let's, let's say the, the. Charter got reviewed and ward representation was implemented for the city council. It could mean that you'd have eight. Ward representatives and then a certain number of at-large or maybe the wards would be maybe a council would run for two wards. I mean, these are all things that a charter review committee or commission would closely look at to determine, you know, what might work best for Medford. The thing about at large, one of the things about at large is that it makes it harder for people to run for office in some ways, because it takes a lot more resources. You know, you have to come up with the money and the time to campaign all over the city. And the other issue is that some people feel underrepresented because they don't have a Councilor that's from their ward, even though all the Councilors are at large and they represent the entire city. There's maybe certain awards that have had much less representation over the years. So I think that that is definitely an issue that people are interested in exploring.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I mean, it could, or maybe not. I mean, and the other thing with the charter review is, We don't, I mean, it would be looked at, but we don't know. That's not, it doesn't guarantee that we would have board representation. It's definitely one of the pieces that would be looked at. And, you know, and whatever group does review the charter is gonna look at other communities, you know, actual data and just, you know, information that will really help them determine what's best for Medford.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, well, it was specifically mentioned at one of the recently the mayor put forth a home rule petition to ask the city council to vote on putting electing a charter commission to review the charter charter review the commission and be voted for three. but that's probably not enough to get it over the hurdle at the state house so our group is looking for other ways now. But during those meetings there was ward representation was specifically mentioned by one of the Councilors as a concern and part of the reason for that was because a different Councilor had asked for ward representation to be part of the elected charter review commission that the mayor was trying to get going. So yeah. And, and, uh, you know, there were, there weren't big discussions about it, but yeah, there definitely was one Councilor who expressed concern about it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, it's the whole it. It is. I mean, it's definitely complex and right now, our group. I've learned a lot myself in the last few months we've only been meeting for a few months and we're all learning as we go. right now we're just in the process of trying to get the charter review to happen and there's a certain level of frustration that it's so difficult to do that because it seems you know it seems sort of like a given um gee yeah let's look at it let's review it the the review process however it unfolds is going to take Time and then, and the voters will be involved and no changes, you know, any changes that that are proposed will not happen quickly so it's not like a radical or, you know, rushed idea to. to have voted on this home rule petition or to get it going. I mean, it's going to take a lot of time. So the fact that it's taking so much time just to get to the review is kind of a little frustrating. But we're really committed and we're going to make it happen one way or the other. There's two ways to do it. The way that Medford has tried to do it is kind of a different way from the, like, if you look at sort of, if you Google charter review in Massachusetts, you'll find documents that say, well, there's two routes to charter change. And the route that Medford took was actually sort of a hybrid of those two. So one is outlined in Massachusetts general law, chapter 43B, and it involves collecting signatures from 15% of registered voters in the city. And then the question of once that's done the question of whether to review the charter and candidates for an elected commission bow on the ballot. And at the next municipal election, which in our case would be 2023 and then that commission works for 18 months. the changes they propose, if any, then go to the voters. So that's, you know, we're talking at that, with this process, assuming that we collected all the signatures, we would have a new, potentially have a charter changes on the ballot in 2025. So the other way is to do it through, it's called the special act, and that kind of charter is called a home rule charter. A special act charter, basically just goes through the city council as a home rule petition. So most cities in town to do that, they form a committee, the committee reviews the charter, takes as long as they need to. And there's many cities and towns, most of them probably do it this way because the burden of collecting the signatures is pretty high. So this committee takes however long they need to take. example of a community community that's doing that right now is Somerville, and they have, you know, clearly, it's a process that can involve a lot of public participation in there in their case, there's tons of public participation. They're constantly communicating they're constantly trying to get people involved to hear what What kinds of things, you know the community wants, and then when they propose their changes they go through mayor and the city council and then they go through the state house, and then most likely to go on the ballot so. So what Medford did with that home real petition was took. portion of Chapter 43B and made it into a Home Rule petition. So it was kind of a mix. It was like, we're going to try to elect the commission without collecting the signatures and doing it through a Home Rule petition instead. But it hasn't worked. So we're pursuing these other avenues now.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, they, the, basically it goes to the city council as sort of amendments to the charter. And, um, and then that. And then it sort of becomes, it's a home rule petition and then it goes and becomes a piece of legislation so a home rule petition becomes a piece of legislation at the State House. You know, I mean, part of what I've done in trying to understand all this is I'll go to the Massachusetts legislature website and just search charter review. And you can see there's any number of bills from different communities. And they all have different things in them, but like amendments, you know, it's the language of whatever they want their new charter to be. And so they have gone through the process of however they came up with those amendments, whether they had a committee of residents doing it, or then it's gone through the city government and then it goes to the state house and then they vote on it. And it's not in the law that it has to go back to the voters of the community, but when there's significant changes, generally the state wants the people of the community to vote on it. So any significant changes most often either whether whether you use the signature route or the special act route, go back to the voters to vote on.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Or as my husband keeps saying, well, you need a flow chart. And, uh, I said, yeah, we do need a flow chart. I mean, the, one of the issues in Medford is that we, we still don't exactly know which route we're taking. Um, we don't know, you know, our group is like, we say we're, um, we're doing parallel tracks. We're working on, we're laying the groundwork to collect those signatures if we need to do it. Um, but we're also trying to work with the mayor's office to see if we can get a committee going. So we're kind of doing both. Um, so that, uh, cause, cause we were gonna, we're gonna get this one way or the other. Um, but, uh, But yeah, once we know which route we're taking, it will be much easier to talk about it, because then we'll just sort of be ready to go. Right now, we're just trying to get it going.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, absolutely.
[Milva McDonald]: It does. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, COB.: : Think there is no I mean our group, you know, I mean I HAB-Charlotte Pitts, COB.: : There are people from all over the city. It's not, you know, I mean, it's, it's actually kind of awesome, you know, to to get together with other residents and get to know neighbors and I've worked on and off in different groups in Medford, but this group, it's really, and everybody's kind of there for the same reason. We're like, we really want charter review to happen. That's what we're working on. That's the sole agenda. And yeah, it's great.
[Milva McDonald]: I think that's three times the council has voted that same way. This current council has voted that way twice. And the council before this council also was 4-3. And, you know, that was also particularly frustrating for us because one of the first things our group did, because we knew that homeowner petition existed, was we reached out to all the city councilors and we tried to have meetings with the councilors who had voted no last time. And we were able to meet with two of them. One of them just didn't respond to us. And they were both really supportive. And in fact, the ward, one of them said, I really want word representation on this commission. And so we contacted the mayor, we got that into the home rule petition. And we felt really, really positive about those conversations and about the support that the Councilors, I mean, we, our intention going into those meetings was let's hear what their concerns are. And what we heard was that their concerns were about representation and then we were able to address them, which felt great. And they both expressed support and then they changed their minds. So it was tough, it's hard, but we're moving forward.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, we're the Medford Charter Review Coalition, and we do have a website, medfordcharterreview.org. I mean, I consider us to be sort of an ad hoc group that we've come, I mean, this particular group has come together, I think it was like December or January, January, I think, but I don't wanna take away from the fact that people have been working on charter review in Medford for many years. Jim Silva, a big part of the group now. He has been working on it for a long time. Michael Ruggiero, who actually has since moved out of the city, but he worked on it for a long time and they undertook the Herculean task of the signature collecting and actually got close to 5,000. So, you know, I mean, right now our estimate is that we'd have to get about 7,000 signatures. It's just, 15% is just under that, but you kind of need a pad. So, and, you know, so they came and it would have been fewer when they were doing it, because they were, you know, it's probably the, there were fewer registered voters, but they came really close. And so, you know, that just sort of is a testament to how many people want it and the amount of work that people have put into it.
[Milva McDonald]: I feel like it's fundamental. I mean, and I've felt this way for a while because I, you know, I hear so many people talking about issues that they're concerned about. And I always think, you know, charter review could make a difference with that. I mean, in particular representation, people are concerned about representation. Charter review could make a big difference with that. You know, I hear people talking about I mean, there's, you know, I, I don't have an opinion on this because I haven't looked at the details or I haven't really looked at it closely but some people say well the mayor. You know, if the mayor wasn't the head of the school committee, then it would be better for the school committee. It would be better for the mayor. I, like I said, I don't know, cause I haven't looked at it, but that's an issue that would have to be looked at through charter review. I hear people saying, you know, what about term limits? I mean, we had a mayor in office, I think for, was it 28 years or something like that? We have Councilors in there for decades. I mean, I don't, again, I don't know, because I haven't really looked, I don't have an opinion really on, a strong opinion on any of these issues because I haven't looked at them closely enough. But I do think, I do have enough of an opinion to say, yeah, that's definitely something we should look at. And the only way to look at those really and to make a change is through a charter review.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I've heard that many times over the years. And that's, again, comes back to charter review.
[Milva McDonald]: That's absolutely that. And many other communities have provisions in their charter that say the charter will be reviewed every 10 years or every eight years or whatever. And that's definitely something that people are interested in doing so that every decade or whatever is decided when the committee or commission looks at the data. So this doesn't have to happen again. We don't have to go and try to fight to review our city government. I mean, because it's starting to feel like, yeah, we have to fight for this, which, astonishes me.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, yeah, I yeah. Definitely. I agree with that.
[Milva McDonald]: We meet once a month, and we will sometimes have smaller groups or meeting. I mean, there's subcommittees, but everybody is invited to them kind of every two weeks, in the middle of the month, we might do that. If we have something, like recently, while we were making brochures, things like that, getting the website up and running, I'm trying to get plan out the game plan for the signature drive if we ultimately have to do that, talk about you know how we're going to approach the mayor. So, so if we have something pressing then we'll, we'll add an extra meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: definitely check out the website, because the website sort of it's it talks about the group, but there's also a resources section where people can look at. I mean, I think looking at what other communities have done and are doing is really helpful. And, you know, if anybody sort of interested in, you know, I mean, the details about how charter review works or how it happens, we have resources on our website. So I would say just learning about charter review is a great way to get involved. And the meetings are open to anybody in Medford, so come to a meeting. And if we collect signatures, we'll be looking for volunteers for that. And the more people that get educated and get involved the more they can interact with the committee or commission and perhaps even decide to be on or to try to apply to be on a committee or to run for the commission. Because we do need, I mean, we do need representation on whatever committee or commission that's up and running. So yeah, so those are some ways.
[Milva McDonald]: That's a question that has been asked and I haven't been able to get the definitive answer, but the answer that most people I've asked seem to think that it's not, limited that anybody can run for those positions, even people who are already elected to office. I don't know that they would, but you know, it would be a process of running for office. It would mean that the people would have to collect signatures to get on the ballot, you know, nomination papers, and I mean, I don't know how many people ever run for officer know what's involved, but you have to get you have to get signatures, get on the ballot, and then you get on the ballot, and then you have to campaign, you have to get your name out somehow. And, and this is, you know, completely volunteer position. So, again, there's a huge burden in collecting the signatures is a huge amount of work. And then once those signatures are collected, people have to run, and then whoever chooses to run has to put in the work to get on the ballot campaign, and then put in the 18-month term of learning about the charter, coming up with those recommendations, and it's all volunteer. So it's a big ask. So from that point of view, appointing a committee of people, they're still volunteers, it's taking away some of the burden that, you know, maybe somebody who really wanted to be involved in charter review might be willing to do it, but if they found out they had to run for office, which is a considerable amount of work.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, exactly. It is cost if you want, create literature. You want to, you know, do a mailings are very expensive. So yeah, there's that.
[Milva McDonald]: Exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think so. I mean, I just, I really hope that people just continue to get involved in Charter Review. I know, you know, we started, like I said, meeting, I think our first meeting was in January. And it was pretty good turnout for first meeting. I just put it out like on the, you know, Medford politics groups on Facebook and And there were about 30 people. And since then, we have over 100 people on our list now. And one of the things that we talk about is outreach. We really wanna find ways to reach out to just different groups in the city, go to like the West Metro Community Center, the Senior Center, the churches, the Chamber of Commerce, just as many places as we can to reach different populations that hopefully will get involved in this and either learn about it. We really want people to learn about it. Either maybe they'll be interested in actually trying to serve on a committee or commission or just communicate with whoever does that so that this review is truly a community voice, you know, we want the voice of people in the community to be involved in this because it's our city government and it makes a difference in everything, in our lives, in our daily lives.
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely. I mean, that's another group that we want to reach out to. Well, there's the CCSR. I think that's the right acronym at the high school that gets involved in a lot of civic issues in the city. But yeah, absolutely. I mean, getting young people involved is very important to me. I'm glad you brought that up.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's right.
[Milva McDonald]: It is complicated. I think the complicated part is understanding the roots to charter review, and that's where we are right now, because we haven't been able to actually, once the charter review is initiated, then we'll just be talking about charter review. Right now we're talking about getting the charter review to happen. So, and, and we don't know which route we're taking, but we're, you know, like I said, we're, we're preparing the signature drive if we need to go that route, but we're also communicating with the mayor, and to see if we can get an appointed committee. And once that happens, we'll be more focused on actually talking about the things that matter to people. Right now we're just like, hey, we want this to happen.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks. I mean, it feels really good. It just feels like, I have no doubt that it is going to happen. We are going to have a charter review one way or another, and that feels really exciting. And so it just feels good. It feels good to work on something that I know is going to be successful.
[Milva McDonald]: Milva McDonald, 61 Monument Street. Every city has the right to charter review. You've heard it before and you'll hear it again. The charter, the instrument that dictates how our city government is structured and implemented is a living document. Wisdom and smart governance would dictate periodic review. Yet Medford's charter has not been looked at for more than three decades. That means the last review happened before my 29 years as a resident and has been pointed out here before more than one member of this council was even born. Charter review has been attempted several times, for at least two of those times, the barrier has come from you, the city council, and you are the body that today will determine the fate of another home rule petition to initiate charter review. I started joining some of my fellow residents a few months ago to organize around the issue. We contacted each of you to hear your thoughts. To those of you who met and talked with us, thank you for the productive discussions and the chance to listen to your concerns. Some of you felt the elected charter review commission outlined in this paper might not be representative of all the neighborhoods in our city. We responded to your specific asks and we got word representation applied to this petition. Now, some of you who expressed support have flip-flopped for reasons ranging from complaints about social media comments to declarations that charter review should come from the people. First, I would like to say, councillors, you are the people. You are our elected officials, and we have spoken to you on this. I have here a letter, which I ask to be entered into the record, endorsed by 227 residents, urging you to vote yes on this paper. In recent years, nearly 5,000 people have signed a petition to get a Charter Review Commission on the ballot. That's well over 50% of the entire number of votes each of you received in the last election, and in many cases, it's closer to 100%. In addition, this paper will put candidates from each ward, as some of you requested, on the ballot to be elected by the people to a charter review commission that will engage the community in its 18 month process. Recommendations for modifications to the charter, if any, would go on the ballot before they could be implemented. In light of all this, how can you argue that this process would not come from the people? I ask that you honor the support you expressed to us and vote in favor of this paper. While it is not the only route to charter review, it is the most expeditious in the current moment. And it offers you a chance to respond to your constituents and show that you value their concerns and you value their civic engagement. For what better way to promote civic engagement than inviting every resident of this city to join in reviewing how their city government works. We are determined to partake of that opportunity, indeed of that right. Collecting signatures is not the only other alternative available. We are exploring all of them. And if this petition fails, we will pursue them as swiftly and as transparently as possible. Every city has the right to a review, and we will have ours. It is up to you to decide whether you will help to honor that right in this moment or choose to delay it. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Hi, I'm Milva McDonald, 61 Monument Street, West Medford. First, I'd just like to thank the council for considering this. I'm also strongly in favor. And I'd like to thank the council members who took the time to speak with me and a group of other residents that really has been working to try to get this to happen. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli and Councilor Caraviello. As others have said, I would just be repeating, it's been a very long time since the charter has been reviewed, and this petition is just to elect a commission to look at the charter, and it will be a long, transparent process that will get the residents involved in thinking about Our charter is basically the roadmap. It's like the constitution of our city and it really needs to be reviewed. And I thank you for taking the time and attention to look at it. And I hope to continue to be involved. And there's a group of people who really support this and want this. So thank you.