[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]: 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.