[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: Just a question for you, sir, because I know there were a lot of motions, I'm sorry, amendments that were part of this.

[Nate Merritt]: Was there an amendment made to get rid of the one-year

[Nate Merritt]: I'll call it residency requirement for a ward Councilor that was proposed by the mayor.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: So, that and the rationale for that, I didn't I've been here the whole time.

[Nate Merritt]: So, I was paying attention.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't know if it was necessarily clear why the

[Nate Merritt]: So, if it was applied to every office, that's something you all would consider if it was applied evenly and the reason why I'm poking at this particular one is because I'm sorry, I'm not putting words in your mouth.

[Nate Merritt]: The reason why I'm poking at this is because it's been discussed, you know, by a number of people.

[Nate Merritt]: This is the city, right?

[Nate Merritt]: These

[Nate Merritt]: representation, especially in like a ward style, probably, you know, it's good to have someone that knows the ward.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't know how you establish really knowing it.

[Nate Merritt]: If say you moved in like six months before said election and decided to run for that ward, how much do you really know that ward kind of defeats the purpose.

[Nate Merritt]: So I guess that to me is a big deal that just changed between what was presented to you tonight

[Nate Merritt]: versus now it's gonna go back to the mayor.

[Nate Merritt]: But I see that this is one of those important things that really should be thought through.

[Nate Merritt]: And if it's not just for city councilor, great.

[Nate Merritt]: If it's for school committee or mayor, wonderful.

[Nate Merritt]: But I think the people should be electing people from the city that know the city and not necessarily just, you know, I'll use the term of Johnny come lately.

[Nate Merritt]: If there's a chance to codify that,

[Nate Merritt]: right, at least be around for a year, know your city, and especially if it's to establish that, knowing the ward, and that's the whole point, maybe a period of residency beforehand isn't a bad idea.

[Nate Merritt]: It's not saying homeowner versus renter, it's just saying you have to, I don't know if it's right, is it residency versus being a voter?

[Nate Merritt]: I don't know how that, it's registered voter.

[Nate Merritt]: But in essence, to be a registered voter in that ward, you'd be a resident, correct?

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah.

[Nate Merritt]: So, so it's it's semantics but but that to me is something y'all should really consider before striking because that I'm a big fan of that.

[Nate Merritt]: I think a lot of the members of the city would be too.

[Nate Merritt]: Not a tit for tat, I promise.

[Nate Merritt]: You have a minute.

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah, okay.

[Nate Merritt]: So if this doesn't get onto the November ballot,

[Nate Merritt]: But that could happen in November.

[Nate Merritt]: It doesn't necessarily have to happen in the spring.

[Nate Merritt]: I guess my only thing to consider is that this is a big deal that I don't know how turnout necessarily is for voters in spring elections versus November.

[Nate Merritt]: So I would think that this is probably one of those things you don't want to have in a special election if it's in the spring versus, and everyone knows, go out on the first Tuesday of the month in November, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Ebisu is closing.

[Nate Merritt]: That really sucks.

[Nate Merritt]: Yes.

[Nate Merritt]: So, you know, I got the email from, you know, because I'm one of the members and whatnot.

[Nate Merritt]: And I can tell you that, I mean, that's one of the reasons why I first found Medford when I was living, you know, before being resident of Medford would come to the Japanese market.

[Nate Merritt]: There used to be one on near Porter Square, and that building that the Japanese market was in there, I think it was called Miso Market, I think at the time, wound up getting torn down, turned into a department complex.

[Nate Merritt]: So this one really seemed out of the blue to me.

[Nate Merritt]: In fact, there aren't many Japanese markets in the whole region.

[Nate Merritt]: Ebisu is the only one in 20 square miles.

[Nate Merritt]: Kevin, the owner, is one of the most upstanding shop owners you could ever want.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't know if there's anything that the city can do to help him, and it's kind of weird right because it's, you know, oh my god one business, but that business is a grocery store in Medford Square, I mean you all, Clark Kirby's, I'm not going to put you on the spot but I mean if you want to go grab a bite to eat, it's a place where you can go buy something to eat.

[Nate Merritt]: There aren't many of the, there's plenty of restaurants, but not a store or shop there's a handful of them, let alone.

[Nate Merritt]: you know, Japanese.

[Nate Merritt]: It's just there's a lot of Chinese Korean shops, but not Japanese.

[Nate Merritt]: So I think it will be a hit to the community is something that made Medford unique.

[Nate Merritt]: The closest place now is to go to Arlington.

[Nate Merritt]: So it's one of those economic drivers where you were bringing people in especially Asian community from Malden from other places into Medford that now you won't have that draw.

[Nate Merritt]: So if there are vacant buildings,

[Nate Merritt]: that maybe you're looking for a small store I don't know if anyone's reached out to that business but any commercial business is a good thing in the city so just want to mention that to have some answers I think Councilor Tseng has some answers.

[Nate Merritt]: It's a business decision, you know, but

[Nate Merritt]: hopefully they know that there's a lot of us in the community that would hate to see them go, that that's a big hit, even though it's such a small store.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Mara, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: So I know we had a speaker who was from the Midwest.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm not from that far out west.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm just from Western Mass.

[Nate Merritt]: But some people here might think it's the Midwest.

[Nate Merritt]: And that's OK.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm all right with people laughing at that.

[Nate Merritt]: That said, there's plenty of housing out and availability for housing in Western Mass.

[Nate Merritt]: The issue of affordable housing is not just a Medford issue, it's a statewide issue.

[Nate Merritt]: So it's a tough nut to crack.

[Nate Merritt]: There's a lot of merit on all sides for trying to handle that.

[Nate Merritt]: But part of that is we wanna make sure what's good for the city, right?

[Nate Merritt]: There's people that live here and call this place home.

[Nate Merritt]: I was in emergency management myself at one point, I'm an EMT still, anyone's ever taken an airplane, it's the first thing they do when they say, when they do the emergency procedures.

[Nate Merritt]: right?

[Nate Merritt]: You put your mask on first before you go help out your neighbor.

[Nate Merritt]: We need to make sure that the city and the residents are taken care of here first.

[Nate Merritt]: Then we can help out other people.

[Nate Merritt]: That's just common sense.

[Nate Merritt]: So that said, my concern with Salem Street and especially biting the apple really big the way you are, you can call me an NB, but you've already developed my area before any of you were on the council, right?

[Nate Merritt]: They did the 61 Locust Street project.

[Nate Merritt]: It was not handled properly to procedure.

[Nate Merritt]: In fact, the city violated open meeting laws for all sorts of, the city council got their own attorney to sue the city.

[Nate Merritt]: Oh yeah, you should look into this.

[Nate Merritt]: So when they say, don't worry, the process is in place.

[Nate Merritt]: There's a history in this city where the processes don't always work out for the people that live there.

[Nate Merritt]: So I do have some concerns in that and what's happening on Salem Street affects the whole city.

[Nate Merritt]: Medford has roads.

[Nate Merritt]: Medford has an interstate highway, 93.

[Nate Merritt]: You know what you don't have in Cambridge?

[Nate Merritt]: Interstate 93 and easy access.

[Nate Merritt]: So I love commercial business because it offsets the residential taxes, two to one.

[Nate Merritt]: We want commercial business to thrive.

[Nate Merritt]: Salem Street's a great place for that.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't think you're gonna get that with this particular plan.

[Nate Merritt]: I'd love to see maybe a portion of it taken on.

[Nate Merritt]: Affordable housing, I can barely afford what I got.

[Nate Merritt]: I got two kids.

[Nate Merritt]: Daycare $3,000 a month.

[Nate Merritt]: Rent, mortgage, whatever you want to call it, $2,500 a month.

[Nate Merritt]: You start talking, you need $200,000 a year just to afford that.

[Nate Merritt]: That's affordable.

[Nate Merritt]: So versus just having luxury housing, which I have behind my house.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm sure people like it.

[Nate Merritt]: We fought for having them to have parking, and they use it.

[Nate Merritt]: So I guess I'd say, please consider

[Nate Merritt]: maybe scaling this back, and I know this is the gateway, and then you're gonna do it for the rest of the city.

[Nate Merritt]: I wanna see Medford thrive also, economically, not just by a number of people in there.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: State Mayor, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: Just a comment in terms of the benefits that this might bring.

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah, we've heard that before.

[Nate Merritt]: When they built what's now Windsor Place on the 61 Locust Street project, right?

[Nate Merritt]: And Wegmans and all that, there was gonna be linkage.

[Nate Merritt]: There was all these terms thrown around.

[Nate Merritt]: It's gonna improve the area.

[Nate Merritt]: My street still sucks.

[Nate Merritt]: You drive down Riverside Ave, it's pothole city and it still sucks.

[Nate Merritt]: So just,

[Nate Merritt]: Be careful.

[Nate Merritt]: It sounds good.

[Nate Merritt]: Unintended consequences happen.

[Nate Merritt]: Just consider this.

[Nate Merritt]: Maybe take a little more time.

[Nate Merritt]: Thanks.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave. I'm sure everyone's aware that, you know, the members of the city residents are maybe a little nervous concern you know upcoming tax hikes and all that, want to make sure that our dollars are spent.

[Nate Merritt]: most efficiently possible.

[Nate Merritt]: Was there a course of action given for just say replacement of the existing systems that, you know, replacement parts versus upgrades and it's not clear from the paper, what's an upgrade?

[Nate Merritt]: Is it, you know, is the roof currently leaking now or is the roof upgrade because of the solar panel installation that's also planned and is that an upgrade versus replacing the parts that are broken for the system?

[Nate Merritt]: And was there a cost associated with that, like a spectrum?

[Nate Merritt]: Option A, $5 million.

[Nate Merritt]: Option B, $15 million.

[Nate Merritt]: Option C is what we have here, which is what, $25 million?

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: And to that, that's great.

[Nate Merritt]: And I think, you know, please don't misunderstand.

[Nate Merritt]: I want schools to, right, but just saying form fit replacement versus the solar panels that weren't there, that's an upgrade.

[Nate Merritt]: Is there a dollar cost?

[Nate Merritt]: How many dollars is that, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Are there other upgrades?

[Nate Merritt]: If they make sense, that's great.

[Nate Merritt]: Just hoping that that cost breakdown for those options has been presented so people can understand the rationale.

[Nate Merritt]: And if it makes sense to buy, buy.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: Just a point of information for you all.

[Nate Merritt]: There's a number of reasons why needles can be used for very legitimate purposes.

[Nate Merritt]: Some people use them to administer fertility treatments on themselves.

[Nate Merritt]: Diabetes.

[Nate Merritt]: There's another number of legitimate medical concerns.

[Nate Merritt]: Maybe it's something that y'all could maybe get more specifics on the needle that was found and perhaps if it had a potential alternate

[Nate Merritt]: use for something non-nefarious.

[Nate Merritt]: You have three minutes.

[Nate Merritt]: Just something that came up with this last ordinance, I guess, is zoning change.

[Nate Merritt]: Drive-thrus.

[Nate Merritt]: So I live on Riverside Ave, literally down the street from a new drive-thru that opened.

[Nate Merritt]: Some of you may know it.

[Nate Merritt]: Raising Canes.

[Nate Merritt]: They haven't been yet?

[Nate Merritt]: I haven't.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't know.

[Nate Merritt]: I have.

[Nate Merritt]: Is it good?

[Nate Merritt]: I'm sure people assumed.

[Nate Merritt]: Is it good?

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah, the sauce is pretty good.

[Nate Merritt]: So they put it in my neighborhood, which is fine.

[Nate Merritt]: What, do you not like the sauce?

[Nate Merritt]: Chair, do you not like the sauce?

[Nate Merritt]: So that said, it's in my neighborhood, and I don't think my neighborhood is necessarily any less safe or any more safe because of it.

[Nate Merritt]: And my neighborhood has had a lot of development over the past few years since I've moved in here.

[Nate Merritt]: So now you have a major corridor on Mystic Ave, and we say, you can't have a drive-through at all?

[Nate Merritt]: I mean, what if Chick-fil-A opened up, which, by the way, is a gold mine.

[Nate Merritt]: And if you like King's Chicken, Chick-fil-A is awesome.

[Nate Merritt]: just my opinion.

[Nate Merritt]: And rightfully so, in Woburn, a lot of other people think so, and they get off the highway, and they go to Chick-fil-A, and they pick up their food, and they leave, and they're very prompt.

[Nate Merritt]: And considering commercial business is part of the lifeblood of this city, I think that restricting, you know, because of this particular issue, right, with drive-thrus, might not be a wise choice given our fiscal situation.

[Nate Merritt]: So maybe I don't know if that's something that can be amended or not to reconsider that particular part of this.

[Nate Merritt]: You might wanna reconsider it.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: I guess I'm a little confused at this, where, first off, is this a sanctuary city policy or not?

[Nate Merritt]: No, no, no.

[Nate Merritt]: Is it a sanctuary city policy or not?

[Nate Merritt]: You can call it whatever you want.

[Nate Merritt]: Is it a sanctuary city policy?

[Nate Merritt]: No, it was a question.

[Nate Merritt]: You have three minutes.

[Nate Merritt]: So you won't answer yes or no.

[Nate Merritt]: Two minutes and 30 seconds you have, Mr. Merritt.

[Nate Merritt]: It's been 15.

[Nate Merritt]: OK.

[Nate Merritt]: So how you do something is just as important as what you do.

[Nate Merritt]: I come from a family of immigrants.

[Nate Merritt]: My wife is an immigrant.

[Nate Merritt]: She was not born in this country.

[Nate Merritt]: My in-laws were not born in this country.

[Nate Merritt]: They are not in fear of anything.

[Nate Merritt]: They're not in fear of getting, my wife gets, you know, she has had a car accident, never got hauled away.

[Nate Merritt]: You have a city Councilor who's held to a higher standard to serve and protect this country, right?

[Nate Merritt]: And he comes under a whole different set of rules, federal rules, Uniform Code of Military Justice.

[Nate Merritt]: What are we saying if we say we're going to choose to enforce some rules that we like and not the others?

[Nate Merritt]: I have to teach my kids this.

[Nate Merritt]: And there are laws for a reason.

[Nate Merritt]: I think it's a slippery slope when this city chooses to get involved in certain things that they like with a current administration and then others that they won't stand with because the administration is going to change.

[Nate Merritt]: Why not just stay out of it, in a sense, and let the federal government and things at the federal level work?

[Nate Merritt]: the way they're going to work.

[Nate Merritt]: There's federal laws.

[Nate Merritt]: If we don't like them, elect new people.

[Nate Merritt]: That's been said tonight over and over.

[Nate Merritt]: This council won't pass a resolution to say, don't drug test people in a line, right?

[Nate Merritt]: No, I don't think they said not to.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't think that was the resolution.

[Nate Merritt]: It was to find out the financial impacts, but not to actually do it as a policy.

[Nate Merritt]: And it certainly didn't pass when it says don't follow people around or private investigators when they're using their civil liberties, your own citizens.

[Nate Merritt]: Definitely citizens, because I don't believe that the city can employ people who are not legal citizens.

[Nate Merritt]: Is that true?

[Nate Merritt]: Can they employ foreign nationals?

[Nate Merritt]: I don't know.

[Nate Merritt]: Absolutely.

[Nate Merritt]: But legal documented foreign nationals.

[Nate Merritt]: Can they employ undocumented people?

[Nate Merritt]: Because that's what this is talking about.

[Nate Merritt]: So if you're not willing to go to bat for your own employees, why are we doing this?

[Nate Merritt]: And literally, what's on the table is to pass a law to potentially ignore some law.

[Nate Merritt]: This doesn't make sense.

[Nate Merritt]: I get the intent.

[Nate Merritt]: but it doesn't make fundamental sense.

[Nate Merritt]: We're a nation of laws or we're not.

[Nate Merritt]: We're a community of laws or not.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm a parent of two.

[Nate Merritt]: My little guys are at home and I'm here instead with you.

[Nate Merritt]: So for anyone on the home gamers attacking me, well, I'm a white guy with Asian kids.

[Nate Merritt]: Let's play identity politics.

[Nate Merritt]: So, Councilor Leming, unsaid.

[Nate Merritt]: Go look it up.

[Nate Merritt]: Is that what you would report to someone if someone offered you a contract and said, this is how much it's gonna cost me.

[Nate Merritt]: Sure, through the chair, unsat, because that's not what a contractor would do.

[Nate Merritt]: Can I have 10 seconds back for yours?

[Nate Merritt]: Thanks.

[Nate Merritt]: No.

[Nate Merritt]: Wonderful.

[Nate Merritt]: So that said, question six is about the fire station.

[Nate Merritt]: $30 million, I think is the estimate.

[Nate Merritt]: There's a lot of unclarity and we could publish the facts in your assumptions, interest rate, bond, period.

[Nate Merritt]: Cambridge overran three times.

[Nate Merritt]: Their fire station was 25 million in 2019, it's now 77.

[Nate Merritt]: You're gonna knock down this firehouse, then what?

[Nate Merritt]: What's your contingency plan when the costs go up?

[Nate Merritt]: How many times are you gonna go back to the well?

[Nate Merritt]: And what are you gonna do in the meantime when there's no firehouse?

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: I do want to just do a shout out for someone I saw some

[Nate Merritt]: you know, bad blood going on between here.

[Nate Merritt]: Some spirited discussion.

[Nate Merritt]: It's my kid's first birthday today.

[Nate Merritt]: I was at home actually, you know, having cake and ice cream.

[Nate Merritt]: And my wife went out to go get a balloon for him earlier today at Wegmans and the wind took the balloon away.

[Nate Merritt]: And a really wonderful, I don't know where she's from, but this woman saw my toddler actually crying his head off and went inside and bought a replacement balloon to make my toddler happy, my three-year-old happy.

[Nate Merritt]: So I thought that was actually really cool.

[Nate Merritt]: I know it has nothing to do with, you know, the topic at hand.

[Nate Merritt]: But at the same time, you know, there are good people out there.

[Nate Merritt]: And I just had to acknowledge that, you know, that was really, really awesome.

[Nate Merritt]: That person did not have to do that at all.

[Nate Merritt]: So hopefully a little more levity here.

[Nate Merritt]: That said, I know we are talking about some serious things.

[Nate Merritt]: I think people need to understand that Proposition 2.5 overrides don't just affect homeowners, it affects all property owners.

[Nate Merritt]: Is that correct?

[Nate Merritt]: Commercial as well as residential?

[Nate Merritt]: All taxable property.

[Nate Merritt]: Another thing that is, as far as I know is true, is it's not just property taxes that you don't pay, like if you don't pay them right and there are plans.

[Nate Merritt]: If I don't pay my water bill, can the city put a lien on my property?

[Nate Merritt]: And they can own my property.

[Nate Merritt]: If you don't pay your bills, what happens?

[Nate Merritt]: They can put a lien on your property and then they sell it and they keep the entire property in some cases.

[Nate Merritt]: But right now, the state of the law is that they can take the entire property, not just the amount that they owe to the city.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, so just this misnomer that number one, you have commercial businesses here.

[Nate Merritt]: And I think one of the things I've seen over the years, we live around the corner from the Locust Street project, right?

[Nate Merritt]: And everyone was hot to trot, we're gonna build, build, build, build more residential properties.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, great.

[Nate Merritt]: So you have a giant megaplex, I'm sure people there are happy.

[Nate Merritt]: Where do they go to work?

[Nate Merritt]: It's a danger, right?

[Nate Merritt]: We need more, we need more places for people to live, but where do they go to work?

[Nate Merritt]: people don't live in the city and work in the city anymore, right?

[Nate Merritt]: That that model's kind of changed.

[Nate Merritt]: I work in New Hampshire, I got to drive back and forth to New Hampshire to go to work now.

[Nate Merritt]: And that's how I can afford to pay my bills.

[Nate Merritt]: You know, and I sit back and I hear that, you know, there's this

[Nate Merritt]: It's kind of this bad blood of people demonizing people who are fortunate to own property.

[Nate Merritt]: I gave my pennies a lot.

[Nate Merritt]: I bought a tiny little house in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: This was not my first choice of places to live 10 years ago.

[Nate Merritt]: Since I moved in, I had someone drive through my front yard, take out my house, the fence on my property.

[Nate Merritt]: Councilor Scarpelli, you were here for that.

[Nate Merritt]: That was my first appearance at a city council saying, what the crap?

[Nate Merritt]: And since then, my street is still a disaster, and nothing has happened, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Riverside is an abomination.

[Nate Merritt]: And the city hasn't been able to afford to pay back for a decade to actually fix that road.

[Nate Merritt]: And I don't see a good plan.

[Nate Merritt]: So if we sit there long term, right, we're gonna go develop Mystic Ave, we're just gonna develop, make everything residential, get rid of it, make it all residential, make it all affordable housing.

[Nate Merritt]: Who's gonna pay?

[Nate Merritt]: Who came in and built the locus street project?

[Nate Merritt]: That was a real estate developer.

[Nate Merritt]: And this city government, not you specifically on the council, you guys weren't here. You were here.

[Nate Merritt]: And actually the city council tried to fight that because there was a whole debacle of how that went down.

[Nate Merritt]: There was open meeting law violations.

[Nate Merritt]: The city council couldn't actually use the city solicitor because the mayor, Mayor Burke at the time, had the city solicitor working for the city to actually push that project through.

[Nate Merritt]: But how does the city make money?

[Nate Merritt]: The city makes money off of permits and fees.

[Nate Merritt]: And every time there's a building built, they want people to pay, developers to pay.

[Nate Merritt]: So the city wants these big buildings.

[Nate Merritt]: But now you're saying, I don't want big buildings.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't want big companies to come in.

[Nate Merritt]: Well, what are they going to build?

[Nate Merritt]: Are they going to build another 10, 56 square foot house like mine?

[Nate Merritt]: You think any developer is going to come in and pay all the fees and the fines that this city levies on to build anything?

[Nate Merritt]: You think it's worth their time?

[Nate Merritt]: I just got a quote for new siding on my house, cedar siding.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: Just the materials alone for white cedar, not even the good cedar.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: Good cedar, Western red cedar is $2,500 for a hundred square feet.

[Nate Merritt]: The crappy stuff is $1,700.

[Nate Merritt]: And that's what I'm looking at to fix my house.

[Nate Merritt]: And there are things I'd rather be doing.

[Nate Merritt]: I'd rather buy my kids toys.

[Nate Merritt]: I'd rather be spending time with them than being here.

[Nate Merritt]: But I have to make tough choices.

[Nate Merritt]: And the city's got some tough choices to make.

[Nate Merritt]: So before I keep hearing this demonization of property owners and this and that, you know what?

[Nate Merritt]: Nobody said you had to live in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: Nobody says I have to live in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm not from Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm from Western Mass.

[Nate Merritt]: First place I moved to, to get a job was in upstate New York.

[Nate Merritt]: You wanna know where there's plenty of land?

[Nate Merritt]: Western Mass in upstate New York.

[Nate Merritt]: You don't have to live here.

[Nate Merritt]: Nobody deserves to live here necessarily.

[Nate Merritt]: It's not a, you gotta work for it.

[Nate Merritt]: Yes, I wish we could sit there and wave and run and be like, everyone can have a house.

[Nate Merritt]: I work, I go to work, I'd rather not.

[Nate Merritt]: My wife goes to work, she'd rather not.

[Nate Merritt]: We pay for daycare.

[Nate Merritt]: So instead I can, you know, I can go to work to pay for daycare.

[Nate Merritt]: It's almost like a break even song.

[Nate Merritt]: I mean, these are real expenses that homeowners have.

[Nate Merritt]: So every time I hear, oh, we're just gonna pass prop two and a half, because we need, no, I haven't seen it for years.

[Nate Merritt]: I think we really need to take a look at where the expenses are too.

[Nate Merritt]: And Councilor Bears, no offense, but you and I have gone around before and you said, I will not make cuts to the school.

[Nate Merritt]: I will not.

[Nate Merritt]: Some things are absolutely off the table.

[Nate Merritt]: Then the same argument back at you.

[Nate Merritt]: Prop two and a half, absolutely off the table.

[Nate Merritt]: And then nothing gets done.

[Nate Merritt]: And we're at an impasse and the roads are still crap.

[Nate Merritt]: But I don't see a plan, even if you do the prop two and a half, it's an impulse of money.

[Nate Merritt]: You're gonna fix the damn streets?

[Nate Merritt]: There's no plan, you can't possibly afford to fix the streets in this city.

[Nate Merritt]: Councilor Marks mentioned that like six years ago.

[Nate Merritt]: The city doesn't generate enough revenue to do it, so what's the plan?

[Nate Merritt]: And it's not build more houses.

[Nate Merritt]: And this affordable housing thing that you're all talking about, great, so a young person wants to go buy a house.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, what are they going to apply to the city and get $100,000 free from the city?

[Nate Merritt]: Where's it coming from?

[Nate Merritt]: Sure, because I have nothing else better to do tonight besides be here, councilor.

[Nate Merritt]: No offense, but I have other things to do too.

[Nate Merritt]: But this is a long brewing thing.

[Nate Merritt]: When I hear terms of misinformation, and I see the keyboard warriors on Reddit coming after people like me that are homeowners, I got to wonder what's going on.

[Nate Merritt]: And I don't see any comments from you all defending us.

[Nate Merritt]: You know what's going on on Reddit, because especially you, Councilor Leming, I see you on Reddit all the time.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm sure you're very, very aware.

[Nate Merritt]: No, but demonizing homeowners is not okay either.

[Nate Merritt]: They are saying it on Reddit.

[Nate Merritt]: So what's the misinformation that you're not considering Prop 2.5?

[Nate Merritt]: No, it's not a case of revenue, it's revenue minus expenses.

[Nate Merritt]: So right now in the current state of expenses...

[Nate Merritt]: Oh, it's real easy to sit there and fire it up.

[Nate Merritt]: or maybe we gotta really get a handle on what our expenses are, and for the years that I've been here, the city council has never had a good handle on the city budget.

[Nate Merritt]: So maybe take a look at that first before raising revenue.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Avenue, Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: So I've been around for a little bit, only about 10 years, moved in in 2014, a lot has happened.

[Nate Merritt]: The roads still suck.

[Nate Merritt]: And there's been a lot of development.

[Nate Merritt]: No, no, no, no.

[Nate Merritt]: But here's the thing.

[Nate Merritt]: There was a ton of new housing development that happened right around the corner.

[Nate Merritt]: The 61 Locust Street project, right?

[Nate Merritt]: We're gonna build all new units and there's gonna be affordable housing.

[Nate Merritt]: I've been hearing about housing.

[Nate Merritt]: I've been hearing about linkage.

[Nate Merritt]: I've been hearing about all these other taxes that are gonna benefit the area, but my street still sucks and another car can come up over the curb and hit my house.

[Nate Merritt]: Nothing's happened in a decade.

[Nate Merritt]: So the first thing I ask is, well, where's the tax money?

[Nate Merritt]: So, you know, it's funny.

[Nate Merritt]: I haven't lived in Medford my whole life, right?

[Nate Merritt]: When I came out of college, I couldn't get a job in Massachusetts.

[Nate Merritt]: I moved to upstate New York.

[Nate Merritt]: It's really cheap to live there.

[Nate Merritt]: There's plenty of housing.

[Nate Merritt]: If people wanna go live somewhere, I recommend the Syracuse area, okay?

[Nate Merritt]: I'm originally from Western Massachusetts.

[Nate Merritt]: If you wanna find some housing that's actually relatively cheap, go to Western Mass.

[Nate Merritt]: There's good people, good jobs, and they all have funny accents.

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah, I said it.

[Nate Merritt]: So I know people wanna play to identity politics.

[Nate Merritt]: Yes, I'm white.

[Nate Merritt]: My wife is Asian.

[Nate Merritt]: I have two half babies.

[Nate Merritt]: You know, they're whole babies, half Asian, half white, okay?

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you, a little levity.

[Nate Merritt]: I think everyone needs it a little bit here.

[Nate Merritt]: But seriously, I mean, this is now the third meeting in a row that's happened.

[Nate Merritt]: I have had to come and not put my kids to bed because this city has been a dumpster fire.

[Nate Merritt]: And there's no other good way to put it between the firemen issue and everything else going on.

[Nate Merritt]: It has been a dumpster fire and it's been going to 11 o'clock habitually.

[Nate Merritt]: So we're kind of in a sad state of events.

[Nate Merritt]: Upstate New York, you see your taxes in play.

[Nate Merritt]: They have volunteer firefighters.

[Nate Merritt]: That's what I did when I was out there.

[Nate Merritt]: People didn't have a lot of money.

[Nate Merritt]: They made due.

[Nate Merritt]: I went and found work.

[Nate Merritt]: I only moved back because my dad got sick.

[Nate Merritt]: Now I make okay money.

[Nate Merritt]: We bought a house we could afford.

[Nate Merritt]: You know what I want?

[Nate Merritt]: I want a gold brick to fall in my backyard so I can afford stuff and fix my crappy house that my wife and I saved up and bought without assistance from my folks.

[Nate Merritt]: My folks are gone now.

[Nate Merritt]: So there is no assistance coming from them.

[Nate Merritt]: Right, I have a single family house, you have some problems that y'all are trying to address, and I'm hearing a lot of convolution, it's, we need quantity of housing, we need affordability of housing.

[Nate Merritt]: Those two circles don't necessarily need to intersect, they're separate issues and they might have separate solutions.

[Nate Merritt]: An affordable house is a single family house.

[Nate Merritt]: It's not necessarily a multifamily house.

[Nate Merritt]: So if a person wants to sell their single family house to another family, like we got lucky.

[Nate Merritt]: It was a bidding war.

[Nate Merritt]: I mean, this is what, and we used to pay it all the taxes and da, da, da, da, right?

[Nate Merritt]: But we got into a single family crappy house.

[Nate Merritt]: I have an 1100 square foot house.

[Nate Merritt]: It's a three bedroom.

[Nate Merritt]: I got two young kids.

[Nate Merritt]: I wanna go somewhere else.

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah, have a little more room to move, but I can't necessarily make that move right now.

[Nate Merritt]: but I have a job, my wife has a job, we're middle-class.

[Nate Merritt]: I have no idea what the value of my house is.

[Nate Merritt]: I wanna say it was like 700,000 or something, which is just ridiculous.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, I sell it tomorrow.

[Nate Merritt]: Where am I gonna go?

[Nate Merritt]: I'm gonna go what, pay 800, 900 for the same house.

[Nate Merritt]: I would literally sell my house and then with the cap gains and everything else, I'd still be in the hole.

[Nate Merritt]: So now I have a job in New Hampshire just so I can go afford to pay my higher taxes, my daycare for my two kids so my wife and I can both go to work.

[Nate Merritt]: which is a mortgage in itself is 1400 bucks a kid and they're not even full time.

[Nate Merritt]: Grandma's helping them out.

[Nate Merritt]: You should shut this down tonight.

[Nate Merritt]: The councilor Scarpelli made a good suggestion.

[Nate Merritt]: So to councilor Penta, you don't have to take this.

[Nate Merritt]: A perfectly acceptable answer tonight is no.

[Nate Merritt]: And there've been plenty of other resolutions have been passed by this body, but without going to committee first.

[Nate Merritt]: So I think it was a little disingenuous council, what you said initially where it has to go to pay.

[Nate Merritt]: Sure thing.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: I have to agree with the last speaker, and that was my comment.

[Nate Merritt]: Sorry, this is so full that we got another separate room watching on the video.

[Nate Merritt]: Absolutely.

[Nate Merritt]: When I'm starting to hear questions about, well, how would you guarantee, how would this, how would that?

[Nate Merritt]: The position of fire chief is it's a leadership position, but it's not a dictator and it's not a king.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, all the men and women here are going to work for that person, and they give orders on a fire ground.

[Nate Merritt]: But you know, there's the emergency time, there's incident, you know, commanders and management that happens, versus them, there's the administrative and personnel side.

[Nate Merritt]: So let's say hypothetically, that whatever happened with sick time, this and that happened again, do you expect the fire chief to be able to sit there and unilaterally go, you're fired?

[Nate Merritt]: Does that happen?

[Nate Merritt]: Does that happen in any leadership position that you know of?

[Nate Merritt]: And through the chair to Councilor Leming, I mean, do you think that happens in the military?

[Nate Merritt]: I expect you know the answer.

[Nate Merritt]: It doesn't.

[Nate Merritt]: So it's kind of a conflated issue.

[Nate Merritt]: Whatever happened with sick time and this and that is completely separate from what to do with civil service.

[Nate Merritt]: This seems very reactionary on its face.

[Nate Merritt]: And you all know me, I've been here for over a decade.

[Nate Merritt]: I try to weigh in with logical, you know, logic on some of these things and be very balanced.

[Nate Merritt]: This appears and smells reactionary.

[Nate Merritt]: When do you install a sprinkler system in a building, before or after the fire?

[Nate Merritt]: They know the answer.

[Nate Merritt]: You do it before the fire.

[Nate Merritt]: So if you're putting out a fire now, right, it's kind of too little too late.

[Nate Merritt]: This is the wrong time for this particular topic.

[Nate Merritt]: It doesn't mean you shouldn't necessarily address it in the future.

[Nate Merritt]: But why are you doing it now?

[Nate Merritt]: Because the opportunity presented itself?

[Nate Merritt]: Well, okay, but now's not the time.

[Nate Merritt]: When would you rather buy a car?

[Nate Merritt]: Do you buy a car when your old one's crapped out or do you proactively think, you know, maybe I should upgrade while I still have wheels?

[Nate Merritt]: So before you make your decision, reactionary, maybe consider this in a proactive manner, maybe revisit it and table it, but now is not the time.

[Nate Merritt]: This stinks to high heaven.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Sure thing.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Avenue, Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: Councilor Leming, are you still in the Navy?

[Nate Merritt]: Yes.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: Um, so some of us are bound based on our jobs, so on and so forth, whether or not we can use controlled substances.

[Nate Merritt]: Isn't that correct?

[Nate Merritt]: I mean, you have the UCMJ, which you have to abide by for certain rules.

[Nate Merritt]: Others like FAA pilots, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Anyone with a DOT license.

[Nate Merritt]: And there's a reason for that.

[Nate Merritt]: And I'm not opposed to this at all.

[Nate Merritt]: I guess I would just want to caution this council before we start.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm concerned number one about distribution and what distribution means in your measure.

[Nate Merritt]: Because as the parent of a child I can tell you, I can't even give my toddler cough medicine.

[Nate Merritt]: I wish I could.

[Nate Merritt]: I can't.

[Nate Merritt]: So, I think there's some nuances that really need to be addressed which is why I'm glad that y'all are bringing it to committee, because there's always the unintended consequences.

[Nate Merritt]: And just to think about that there are reasons that sometimes people don't think of why certain things are controlled and this and that are certain situations.

[Nate Merritt]: So just before we wholeheartedly say this is great, everyone should have it all the time.

[Nate Merritt]: I really hope that the council will heed law enforcement and maybe others too, and that there's a time and a place for everything.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm not opposed to this, but I also don't like blankly saying, sure, it's great for everyone all the time.

[Nate Merritt]: because I'm pretty sure nobody would want the pilot of your airplane on a controlled substance at any period of time, especially if it's a psychedelic one.

[Nate Merritt]: That's all, thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you, Mr. Merritt.

[Nate Merritt]: Name and address again for the record, please.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Roofside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: I guess I'm kind of curious as to why the city of Medford thinks that it knows or should be able to determine whether or not a country should be on the state sponsor of terrorist.

[Nate Merritt]: This country has a wonderful defense and intelligence apparatus that knows more about the terrorist activities.

[Nate Merritt]: than anyone in this community.

[Nate Merritt]: So I guess I'm just questioning why this city feels like it maybe knows more than the federal government.

[Nate Merritt]: And if the motivation behind it is because Trump did something, and therefore we need to unwind what Trump did because it's something Trump did, that's a poor decision.

[Nate Merritt]: Things happen in time.

[Nate Merritt]: Different people are in different administrations.

[Nate Merritt]: But whoever the president is, they're not a dictator in this country.

[Nate Merritt]: There's a whole bunch of staff that work behind the scenes.

[Nate Merritt]: So before you pass something where I think you're kind of ill-posed, I'd really question, really, can you make that judgment to say they should be removed without having the data to back it up?

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Sure thing.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: I know it's getting a broken record.

[Nate Merritt]: So why I'm actually concerned about this, I'm not a business owner.

[Nate Merritt]: It is a little ambiguous.

[Nate Merritt]: Does it only apply to storefront properties or would it be all commercial and or industrial businesses?

[Nate Merritt]: Right.

[Nate Merritt]: I can't ask him.

[Nate Merritt]: I gotta ask you.

[Nate Merritt]: Sorry.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, great.

[Nate Merritt]: Awesome.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you, sir.

[Nate Merritt]: So and why I was concerned is because right across the street from my house is a vacant commercial property, 400 Riverside Ave, which I was just informed tonight that I guess is not at the moment now being considered for a migrant shelter.

[Nate Merritt]: However, one of the reasons that they're in that situation

[Nate Merritt]: is because it's a vacant commercial building.

[Nate Merritt]: Now, why it's vacant, I couldn't tell you.

[Nate Merritt]: Initially, it was supposed to be, I think, a biotech company was the intent, which to me is awesome.

[Nate Merritt]: I love commercial business.

[Nate Merritt]: I love private business.

[Nate Merritt]: Why?

[Nate Merritt]: Because it's a place for people to potentially work in their community.

[Nate Merritt]: That's awesome.

[Nate Merritt]: And a large space like that is great.

[Nate Merritt]: I caution if we start having

[Nate Merritt]: sticks, then people certainly can go out and rent out space.

[Nate Merritt]: This has been demonstrated where Hey, I've got a space, let's make it a migrant shelter.

[Nate Merritt]: I mean, there are plenty of other avenues besides business, right to one, they'd want to get income for that building, but then also to avoid on top of that a potential tax.

[Nate Merritt]: I really would like to see some sort of plan for the city.

[Nate Merritt]: For instance, city of Malden, right?

[Nate Merritt]: When I want to go, Justin, I'm looking at you.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, when I want to go and get dim sum with my family, right?

[Nate Merritt]: There's umpteen, you know, Vietnamese, Chinese restaurants, right?

[Nate Merritt]: I can go to dim sum in I think three or four places, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Not Songkran, I went to Songkran last weekend, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Because the other one I can't, the larger one in Malden Center, right, is full, right?

[Nate Merritt]: There was a plan behind that.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't think it was completely random where a bunch of Asian businesses said, hey, I'm going to go put one next to the other on their own.

[Nate Merritt]: I think there was some coordination by the city of Malden.

[Nate Merritt]: And it's a place where young people can actually go and get entertainment.

[Nate Merritt]: There really isn't a lot of that here in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: So I'd really love to see what a plan for this city is, and including these large industrial and commercial spaces that are vacant.

[Nate Merritt]: So not just at the state level, I think there's a lot of local incentives that we could do to, you know, populate some of these commercial spaces in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: So my caution is be very careful with the sticks.

[Nate Merritt]: They may have unintended consequences.

[Nate Merritt]: I'll make it quick.

[Nate Merritt]: Just one question.

[Nate Merritt]: Sorry, I can't ask you.

[Nate Merritt]: Ask me and I will.

[Nate Merritt]: Sure thing.

[Nate Merritt]: What about considering if the buildings can't be fixed, maybe it's worth selling the property as a revenue generator for the city, if it makes sense, as a possibility, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Versus if something's really bad and you'd have to tear it down and rebuild it, and you don't know what the city would wanna do with it, maybe it's in a location that's desirable to put something else, be it residential, commercial, industrial, I have no idea, but just as an option four in your list.

[Nate Merritt]: Sure.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: I am an abutter of this place.

[Nate Merritt]: The address is 400 Riverside Ave for the public that wants to know.

[Nate Merritt]: And I am not satisfied with how the mayor has communicated information to the neighborhood.

[Nate Merritt]: Absolutely.

[Nate Merritt]: Through the chair, I am not satisfied how the mayor has communicated information to the neighbors and the neighborhood and the abutters of that.

[Nate Merritt]: If this was the Locust Street project again, right, this council hired an attorney because the Zoning Board of Appeals dropped the ball, didn't even have a public meeting, violated public meeting law, and the mayor was part of that.

[Nate Merritt]: She understood that the residents had a right to information.

[Nate Merritt]: But I only hear things when I come here.

[Nate Merritt]: So I brought my wife with me tonight, who is an immigrant, and to all the Facebook keyboard warriors out there that want to say something.

[Nate Merritt]: She's first generation American.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm a grandchild of immigrants.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't have a problem with immigrants.

[Nate Merritt]: I do have a problem with the way that all the information has been communicated.

[Nate Merritt]: This project started in October.

[Nate Merritt]: And there's been nothing officially published until I came here and started asking questions to get them on the record.

[Nate Merritt]: And thank you that you all as a body are willing to entertain this, but the mayor is not publishing anything except one Facebook post.

[Nate Merritt]: And that's on set.

[Nate Merritt]: That is not a way you communicate information and especially to gain information from your neighbors.

[Nate Merritt]: She hasn't talked to me.

[Nate Merritt]: She hasn't talked to my neighbors that I'm on the phone with right now.

[Nate Merritt]: So no, I don't think she's got it.

[Nate Merritt]: You know, she does not have a handle on this.

[Nate Merritt]: And honestly, I don't think you do either.

[Nate Merritt]: I care about safety of my kid.

[Nate Merritt]: And again, for all the keyboard warriors out there that live up in the ivory tower in the hills of this community, you don't live where I do.

[Nate Merritt]: Wegmans has a police guard every night, obviously because it's so safe and they're not worried about any crime.

[Nate Merritt]: But yet New York City, which has one of the most fantastic police forces in the world, you had a Venezuelan migrant in a shelter stabbed by other Venezuelan migrants.

[Nate Merritt]: Bullets fly through windows, bullets fly through siding, and it's my house that could potentially be a target with my two little kids at home.

[Nate Merritt]: So yeah, I got concerns because it's my neighborhood.

[Nate Merritt]: Is anyone in this council within view of this building at 400 Riverside Ave?

[Nate Merritt]: Just posing the question here.

[Nate Merritt]: Anyone?

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, through you to anyone.

[Nate Merritt]: I'd like to hear an affirmative or a negative, quite honestly, from all the members.

[Nate Merritt]: Yes.

[Nate Merritt]: And so it's a simple yes or no.

[Nate Merritt]: I think that's fair.

[Nate Merritt]: The answer is no.

[Nate Merritt]: OK.

[Nate Merritt]: So I am concerned.

[Nate Merritt]: The neighbors are concerned.

[Nate Merritt]: So if they can't find more housing, this is temporary five days until you just said, there's no housing available.

[Nate Merritt]: So then what?

[Nate Merritt]: What is preventing actually the children from being enrolled in school?

[Nate Merritt]: Because how does the city stop it when the state law says that they have to be allowed to enroll in community?

[Nate Merritt]: These are, I think, some critical questions we need answers to in the utopian ideal situation, all's well and they move away in five days.

[Nate Merritt]: How long is this gonna go on for?

[Nate Merritt]: How many years?

[Nate Merritt]: There are some legitimate concerns, public safety.

[Nate Merritt]: How are we gonna address that, even for the neighborhood?

[Nate Merritt]: Trash and garbage and logistical things like that that happen.

[Nate Merritt]: We have some questions, but apparently now it's a done deal.

[Nate Merritt]: So the train's gonna roll over us and you have zero way to influence it, is what I just heard tonight.

[Nate Merritt]: That's unsat.

[Nate Merritt]: Madam Mayor, that's unsat.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm looking forward to the community meeting

[Nate Merritt]: I think you're gonna have some neighbors that are very concerned, and I hope this council can help us, at least like they tried to do during the Locust Street project.

[Nate Merritt]: So, who's gonna pay for this?

[Nate Merritt]: I mean, there's a lot of questions to get answered.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you for your comment there.

[Nate Merritt]: And I guess just to the for the record.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't think I'm a bigot.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm just a neighbor who's concerned and I have neighbors, you know, that are, you know, fellow neighbors that are concerned in the neighborhood.

[Nate Merritt]: And this can directly impact and people like, Oh, what do you mean trash?

[Nate Merritt]: What do you mean?

[Nate Merritt]: Whatever.

[Nate Merritt]: I find shopping carts in my yard all the time to begin with, I'd be happy to take them to some other person's address.

[Nate Merritt]: right and load them up in my truck and return them that way.

[Nate Merritt]: It's silly things like that.

[Nate Merritt]: But also, like I said, in New York, I'm not making this up.

[Nate Merritt]: This is on the news that there were people getting stabbed and I don't I'm sorry, I don't want that in my neighborhood.

[Nate Merritt]: So how do we fix it?

[Nate Merritt]: And if someone says, Oh, we're going to detail a state police officer at this building every day, then okay, great.

[Nate Merritt]: That's a potential solution.

[Nate Merritt]: But without any answers.

[Nate Merritt]: to get in front of it, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Are we just going to sit there and wait for all the problems to boil up?

[Nate Merritt]: I've heard from a reliable source that, for instance, that the state has had to train certain migrant communities, that it's not okay to sit there and grope a woman.

[Nate Merritt]: Because culturally, that's okay from where they're coming from, but it's not okay here.

[Nate Merritt]: So I mean, there are some serious issues that don't necessarily fall into the optimum narrative.

[Nate Merritt]: that we really need to address it for the good of everyone.

[Nate Merritt]: I'll keep it short.

[Nate Merritt]: No, but I did want to address.

[Nate Merritt]: something that Councilor Leming had mentioned.

[Nate Merritt]: I appreciate statistics, I'm a scientist also, okay?

[Nate Merritt]: So definitely some mind meld there.

[Nate Merritt]: That said, my particular home is probably the outlier.

[Nate Merritt]: And again, this is directly across the street.

[Nate Merritt]: So this is where I'm coming from.

[Nate Merritt]: When my wife was pregnant with my oldest child, just a few years ago, we had someone break into our house

[Nate Merritt]: Right?

[Nate Merritt]: Not okay.

[Nate Merritt]: And the only thing that saved her from getting hurt was me putting a door in front of that person.

[Nate Merritt]: Medford PD was great.

[Nate Merritt]: They came over the detectives, you know, did their thing, right?

[Nate Merritt]: I scared the person away.

[Nate Merritt]: And they eventually caught up with them down the street.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, that's a terrible thing to happen to anybody.

[Nate Merritt]: This is where I'm coming from.

[Nate Merritt]: Not only that, during that incident, I found out from Medford PD that, oh, yeah, we arrested someone under your porch a couple years ago.

[Nate Merritt]: Really?

[Nate Merritt]: When the officers are familiar with my backyard, because they've had to come in and find people, I think it was shoplifters or something like that.

[Nate Merritt]: This isn't about race.

[Nate Merritt]: My concerns are literally because number one, there's crime in my neighborhood.

[Nate Merritt]: It's a real thing.

[Nate Merritt]: The businesses that are there actually are concerned about, like there's a lot of mechanic shops and so on and so forth, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Vehicles, I'm sure you've heard like a legitimate thing where people were cutting off Cadillac converters for cars.

[Nate Merritt]: I mean, there's real things that are happening in this city.

[Nate Merritt]: So I'd love to hear from the police chief

[Nate Merritt]: right, what the actual crime is by zone to help give you some real data to work from.

[Nate Merritt]: But I'm going off my personal experience.

[Nate Merritt]: So now there were two, two crimes committed, literally in my house.

[Nate Merritt]: Right, like I said, Wegmans has a police officer for a reason, not because they want to go spend money.

[Nate Merritt]: And, you know, like I said, it's great when the police can show up at your house.

[Nate Merritt]: But at the same time, what happens if it's one of my kids?

[Nate Merritt]: Who am I blaming?

[Nate Merritt]: Who am I suing?

[Nate Merritt]: Right?

[Nate Merritt]: If we don't protect our people here first.

[Nate Merritt]: So that's where I'm coming from.

[Nate Merritt]: It's I don't care what your race or any of that is.

[Nate Merritt]: I really don't.

[Nate Merritt]: But I also know when you have like the Occupy Wall Street, when you've had a lot of clusters of people in places that aren't homes, they're not built for homes, bad things can happen to everybody.

[Nate Merritt]: So I'm a concerned dad.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm okay to say that, but I'd rather not have statistics thrown in my face and say, oh, you know, you're just a, you know, you're just a right wing nut job.

[Nate Merritt]: No, I'm not.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm a concerned dad where already bad things have happened in my neighborhood.

[Nate Merritt]: That's my concern.

[Nate Merritt]: Yes.

[Nate Merritt]: Cool.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli.

[Nate Merritt]: for inviting me here tonight.

[Nate Merritt]: So I came a few weeks ago as a concerned neighbor regarding a potential migrant shelter diagonally across the street from my house.

[Nate Merritt]: I saw on a Facebook post through my wife's Facebook, I guess the mayor sort of addressed some things that are happening, but I'm hoping maybe someone here can help shed some light.

[Nate Merritt]: Absolutely.

[Nate Merritt]: Would the residents also in the area be invited to this?

[Nate Merritt]: So just as a FYI, Mr. Clerk, I don't know if it's just me not able to work the website correctly, but I couldn't even find the agenda for tonight's meeting because it's bucketed under 2023.

[Nate Merritt]: There is no link for 2024 agendas on the website.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, but the 23 link will still get you to the right Google Drive page to get there.

[Nate Merritt]: So that's fine, and I can help then once you guys settle on that date.

[Nate Merritt]: And just for clarity, I mean, I'm not opposed to this.

[Nate Merritt]: It's just as a resident literally across the street, my concerns are my family safety.

[Nate Merritt]: That is number one top dog.

[Nate Merritt]: And if there's a plan and

[Nate Merritt]: So I work with government myself and sometimes I find that if you package ideas ahead of time, you can help contribute and shape those things versus waiting for the train to hit you and then backpedal.

[Nate Merritt]: So my hope is that maybe we can get some engagement locally and have some asks that are constructive to then help the state shape their decision.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside at Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: Councilor Knight, it's gonna be, I'm sorry to see you go.

[Nate Merritt]: So it's been a pleasure.

[Nate Merritt]: Sorry, I had to pull myself away from-

[Nate Merritt]: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you did that already.

[Nate Merritt]: Absolutely.

[Nate Merritt]: Or words, or words.

[Nate Merritt]: No, but other things too, I'm sorry.

[Nate Merritt]: No, I was just gonna give him some, cause he was gonna end this before I could talk.

[Nate Merritt]: Transparency seems to be like a common theme here among my years in the city.

[Nate Merritt]: I've been here since 2014.

[Nate Merritt]: This council was actually very much a proponent of trying to bring transparency back to a process with the 61 Locust Street project, to which I commend the council at the time, and some of you were still a part of that, which is great.

[Nate Merritt]: So then I find out that through the grapevine that there's a potential for having 50 to 75 migrant families directly across the street from my house, sorry, diagonally across the street from my house on Riverside F in a commercial project.

[Nate Merritt]: Haven't heard anything about it.

[Nate Merritt]: So the good councilor Scarpelli's point about no transparency or lack of transparency from folks in the administration.

[Nate Merritt]: We have the CEO who was part of the council at that time of the 61 Locust Street project, who was very much a proponent of transparency from the city.

[Nate Merritt]: So I got to ask like, what is going on?

[Nate Merritt]: And can someone please make public the rumors that have been talked about?

[Nate Merritt]: Because as a resident in an adjacent building,

[Nate Merritt]: and a neighborhood, and I know that my neighbors know nothing about this, it's kind of a big deal, especially because these sorts of things are also on the news, especially in New York City, where they can't handle what's happening to their properties.

[Nate Merritt]: So this, I guess, is a commercial property that now we're going to all of a sudden start housing people in.

[Nate Merritt]: And I just want to know what's going on because I live there.

[Nate Merritt]: I know some of you don't, and it's not in your neighborhoods, but it is in mine.

[Nate Merritt]: And I have two small kids at home, and so I'm concerned about things like safety.

[Nate Merritt]: That's my number one thing that I'm concerned about.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't have a good feel either way.

[Nate Merritt]: It's not that I'm opposed to it, but with no information, it seems like it's kind of underhanded.

[Nate Merritt]: And it's kind of a theme that I'm seeing in this city's government to the point of two topics ago between elections and zoning, so on and so forth.

[Nate Merritt]: So I'd really appreciate some answers if someone can give it.

[Nate Merritt]: And let's make this for the public record instead of just rumors.

[Nate Merritt]: I guess just one last comment.

[Nate Merritt]: I certainly appreciate Councilor Collins.

[Nate Merritt]: He's saying that nothing has happened yet.

[Nate Merritt]: I also remember being part of the community where with the 61 Locust Street project, we were told the same thing.

[Nate Merritt]: It was basically, sorry, too late.

[Nate Merritt]: And the time to address it was beforehand.

[Nate Merritt]: So there's certainly folks in my neighborhood that, you know, if they're made aware of something early, would definitely like to voice their opinion when it can be heard versus being told, sorry, too late.

[Nate Merritt]: So that's where we're coming from.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Name and address for the record, please.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: It's not necessarily in opposition, but you don't have another option of like just questions.

[Nate Merritt]: So that's why I'm doing it there in the opposition portion.

[Nate Merritt]: So out of the city councilors, who here shops at stop and shop?

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: Do you ever go out like five o'clock at night?

[Nate Merritt]: have to work.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: Uh, some that live in the neighborhood do it's great.

[Nate Merritt]: It's convenient.

[Nate Merritt]: I live a half mile away just for, for the folks there.

[Nate Merritt]: I love chicken.

[Nate Merritt]: I love small business.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm, I'm, I'm a big, you know, capitalist, you know, proponent.

[Nate Merritt]: So yeah.

[Nate Merritt]: Um, in fact, I like chicken so much that I've been to Chick-fil-A so many times.

[Nate Merritt]: I know it's the other company, right?

[Nate Merritt]: But they're awesome and they run a good operation.

[Nate Merritt]: So I guess one of my questions for you is, are your peak hours going to be around that five o'clock, six o'clock dinner time?

[Nate Merritt]: Uh,

[Nate Merritt]: which there's already a traffic issue where that don't block the box is always blocked.

[Nate Merritt]: It doesn't matter how many lines you put on there because nobody can move.

[Nate Merritt]: It gets gridlocked to begin with.

[Nate Merritt]: So without a higher level plan, I don't know how some lines are going to fix that issue.

[Nate Merritt]: And then for those of us that just want to go to the grocery store, we'll turn down commercial av.

[Nate Merritt]: There's some ways to get around there, but I can see that clogging up pretty quick if this place is successful, which I hope it is.

[Nate Merritt]: I guess my other concern is the actual footprint.

[Nate Merritt]: And again, I'm going to cite Chick-fil-A and Woburn because that place is a goldmine.

[Nate Merritt]: And they have a really good operation, similar to what you're talking about with the two drive-through lanes.

[Nate Merritt]: They've got their act together.

[Nate Merritt]: And it's like a minute or two, if you do your online ordering, you can stop it.

[Nate Merritt]: You literally can pull in, get your food, get out.

[Nate Merritt]: It's wonderful.

[Nate Merritt]: Do you have the right footprint to accommodate the traffic that you might see based on this?

[Nate Merritt]: Someone did some market research and said, this is a good area to put one of these restaurants.

[Nate Merritt]: And I don't know anywhere else you can get chicken besides Popeye's in Everett, which again has a one-sided access.

[Nate Merritt]: It's difficult to get in there.

[Nate Merritt]: But have you done the homework comparably to see that if you get the business like you get in Woburn, are you going to be able to accommodate it without causing a bigger problem to the neighborhood?

[Nate Merritt]: I appreciate you Rick Councilor for addressing the commercial have entrance there's also another truck entrance right for stop and shop on 16.

[Nate Merritt]: If you're coming from the south you can turn left and there's that that dumb little sign for stop and shop.

[Nate Merritt]: This is turn right and go through the loading area for stop and shop and all those other businesses to that's another access.

[Nate Merritt]: Right.

[Nate Merritt]: So instead of just commercial where you have all the other, you know, 18 wheelers parked over.

[Nate Merritt]: My final question is regarding the hours of operation.

[Nate Merritt]: The other restaurants in the area it looks like they close up at nine or 10 o'clock at night on some nights and 11 on others.

[Nate Merritt]: Do you think you're really going to have the business to drive having extended or require the permit all the way to having normal business till midnight, and then deliveries at one that you don't have in Boston.

[Nate Merritt]: or BU, which quite honestly has a lot more young people that are probably hungry for chicken after 11 o'clock at night.

[Nate Merritt]: So those are my comments.

[Nate Merritt]: Hopefully you guys can take those into consideration and maybe we can get some questions answered.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave, Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: I love this idea.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm a loyal BJ's customer in the fact that your gas is cheap, it works, it gets me to work back and forth.

[Nate Merritt]: I think we've already talked tonight about the conditions of the economy, right?

[Nate Merritt]: 6% inflation is not what it really is with gas compared to last year.

[Nate Merritt]: So as a parent, this is a great idea and it saves me a trip from going to Stoneham and back every time I wanna go fill up my gas tank, because you guys have the best prices in the area.

[Nate Merritt]: I understand that there's concerns for the residents in the neighborhood and at the same time, I live right in the corner of Lucas street where there was a lot of development forced down our throats.

[Nate Merritt]: So the fact that you guys been able to help work out something that's mutually mutually beneficial.

[Nate Merritt]: It will actually benefit the community.

[Nate Merritt]: I applaud you for that.

[Nate Merritt]: So thank you Councilors, because we need some more commercial business in the city.

[Nate Merritt]: We really do.

[Nate Merritt]: Residential side is good, but anything we can do to help support commercial business and also people live in Malden, people live in surrounding communities, they will come to BJ's to go get gas.

[Nate Merritt]: They will help bring money into our economy.

[Nate Merritt]: So I fully support this.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Ethan Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: It's more of a question for you, Councilor Bears.

[Nate Merritt]: Did you hear about a high school in Western Massachusetts that couldn't turn the lights off since October of 2021?

[Nate Merritt]: I do watch Saturday Night Live.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: So I know some folks don't necessarily know what I'm talking about, but I'm actually from that town.

[Nate Merritt]: That was the new high school that replaced the one that I went to.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm also a taxpayer in that community.

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah.

[Nate Merritt]: So I just found out that, you know, we've been getting a bill for approximately $220,000 because we couldn't turn the lights off with switches because

[Nate Merritt]: good intentions for having centrally managed green buildings, but yet

[Nate Merritt]: Information's fuzzy, there isn't a lot out there in the public domain.

[Nate Merritt]: Sounds like it might be because of a computer hacking or something, and therefore it's a centrally managed issue.

[Nate Merritt]: We had teachers literally trying to unscrew light bulbs, I guess, to try to turn the lights off because there weren't local light switches.

[Nate Merritt]: So if you adopt this in its current form, are you handcuffing people to build buildings like that where they don't necessarily have local control over their HVAC systems and or lighting, especially when you wanna have, even as,

[Nate Merritt]: as a backup, but also just because it makes sense, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Local control.

[Nate Merritt]: So if you can turn the lights off, if you want to, and not necessarily rely on the internet and a program because it's free.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: Like I said, good intentions right by all I'm sure that we're involved but at the same time, it's really embarrassing.

[Nate Merritt]: And you've kind of shot yourself in the foot from the green objective when you've literally been just setting energy and money on fire, and yeah, the city can't afford it, quite honestly, to make that kind of mistake.

[Nate Merritt]: So just making sure that

[Nate Merritt]: Sure, sure.

[Nate Merritt]: As long as you're not handcuffing even private businesses that want to, you know,

[Nate Merritt]: build a building, right, that they all of a sudden have to adopt something that's remotely, you know, internet only control.

[Nate Merritt]: Because chances are, if you did, they'd probably end up hiring him here at Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: Actually, it may have been, I'm not positive.

[Nate Merritt]: Totally agree.

[Nate Merritt]: But, and just as you're doing other, you know, projects in the city, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Not just the high school, but.

[Nate Merritt]: Yes, yes, no, I'm with you.

[Nate Merritt]: When I find out, I'll let you all know, but as a taxpayer, yeah, we want some heads on pikes for that one.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: You're good.

[Nate Merritt]: OK, thanks.

[Nate Merritt]: Has anyone looked into if there's a gap in service, is there something the city can do, and perhaps maybe generate some revenue while helping out the citizens.

[Nate Merritt]: No, no, no, I'm not saying compete with the MBTA but if the MBTA isn't going to move and you do have some infrastructure in place we have school buses we have drivers, perhaps there's an opportunity where the city can help the community and fill in the gap of the MBTA isn't going to cooperate.

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah, but this could actually make money instead of the parking department which is losing money.

[Nate Merritt]: I didn't want to say it, but if there's other options for folks to use, even just information about what's available is probably helpful in the short term.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you, Councilor, and I'll keep it quick because I have a little one at home.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm here as a parent, but my child is not even in school yet.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm here because I'm looking at, do I want my child to go to Medford Public Schools?

[Nate Merritt]: My wife asked me a question last night.

[Nate Merritt]: She says, because she read and saw everything on the news.

[Nate Merritt]: So in fact, Councilor Scarpelli, I may ask you a couple of things to get through the chaff.

[Nate Merritt]: What we saw in the news was it was three hours.

[Nate Merritt]: People were in lockdown.

[Nate Merritt]: There was no official communication on what happened.

[Nate Merritt]: And the only way that students could communicate to their parents was with this.

[Nate Merritt]: Is that pretty accurate, sir?

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: I hate these.

[Nate Merritt]: What really bothered me and when I saw Councilor Caraviello this morning, first question came to my mind.

[Nate Merritt]: why were people doing this?

[Nate Merritt]: And I will respectfully disagree with you in the terms of what happened 30 years ago and so on and so forth when I was in high school and longer when you were, because I think there are things we can learn from that, especially in policy.

[Nate Merritt]: Yes, situations change, environments change, technology changes, and policies change.

[Nate Merritt]: But it doesn't mean that maybe all the changes that we have made are good, and maybe we can learn from history

[Nate Merritt]: and try to tweak things for the better.

[Nate Merritt]: So I think we should respect our history and not ignore that.

[Nate Merritt]: Absolutely, I'm sorry.

[Nate Merritt]: I didn't mean to sound accused or that,

[Nate Merritt]: but just we should keep in mind that, you know, things that were policies when I was in high school or when you were in high school, maybe you're not necessarily bad things to revisit or consider.

[Nate Merritt]: So I think as a policy action, right, something that doesn't take a lot of money, we could figure out within a week, right?

[Nate Merritt]: People do hot washes in jobs, in corporate, in the fire service,

[Nate Merritt]: In the military, you do an operation right afterwards, you do a debrief.

[Nate Merritt]: What happened?

[Nate Merritt]: How do we do it better?

[Nate Merritt]: In the medical community, they'll do what they call M&M rounds, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Unfortunately, if a patient passes away, they want to figure out how do we get better?

[Nate Merritt]: I think that's something that we should be asking the schools to get within the next week or two.

[Nate Merritt]: Why did it take hours?

[Nate Merritt]: for the school to communicate to parents.

[Nate Merritt]: I personally don't understand the purpose of a lockdown given this incident and why it was ours.

[Nate Merritt]: There's difference between preserving a crime scene versus locking everyone in because you think it's an active shooter.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't wanna debate that.

[Nate Merritt]: I have no idea what that is and there may be a rationale.

[Nate Merritt]: That rationale should be communicated to the parents, but also within a week or not even,

[Nate Merritt]: Why did it take so long?

[Nate Merritt]: Because I'd love to see all these gotten rid of from schools.

[Nate Merritt]: But at the same time, if a student, if a parent can't know that their students are safe or their children are safe, then what other mechanism do you have?

[Nate Merritt]: So it's kind of a catch 22.

[Nate Merritt]: So I think we really can do better and this doesn't cost a nickel.

[Nate Merritt]: So last quote that I will leave you all with, we must all fear evil men.

[Nate Merritt]: but there's another kind of evil, which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.

[Nate Merritt]: It's a quote, sorry, but that said, I think it rings true, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Especially in situations, we can take action, right?

[Nate Merritt]: I think these are things that could be taken, you know, done now, because otherwise, when my wife asked me, do we send our kid to other public schools?

[Nate Merritt]: My answer is no.

[Nate Merritt]: I will work more and send my kid to private school.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you, Councilor, and I'll keep it quick because I have a little one at home.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm here as a parent, but my child is not even in school yet.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm here because I'm looking at, do I want my child to go to Medford Public Schools?

[Nate Merritt]: My wife asked me a question last night.

[Nate Merritt]: She says, because she read and saw everything on the news.

[Nate Merritt]: So in fact, Councilor Scarpelli, I may ask you a couple of things to get through the chaff.

[Nate Merritt]: What we saw in the news was it was three hours.

[Nate Merritt]: People were in lockdown.

[Nate Merritt]: There was no official communication on what happened.

[Nate Merritt]: And the only way that students could communicate to their parents was with this.

[Nate Merritt]: Is that pretty accurate, sir?

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: I hate these.

[Nate Merritt]: What really bothered me, and when I saw Councilor Caraviello this morning, first question came to my mind.

[Nate Merritt]: why were people doing this?

[Nate Merritt]: And I will respectfully disagree with you in the terms of what happened 30 years ago and so on and so forth when I was in high school and longer when you were, because I think there are things we can learn from that, especially in policy.

[Nate Merritt]: Yes, situations change, environments change, technology changes, and policies change.

[Nate Merritt]: But it doesn't mean that maybe all the changes that we have made are good, and maybe we can learn from history

[Nate Merritt]: and try to tweak things for the better.

[Nate Merritt]: So I think we should respect their history and not ignore that.

[Nate Merritt]: That's my intent.

[Nate Merritt]: Absolutely, I'm sorry.

[Nate Merritt]: I didn't mean to sound accused or that,

[Nate Merritt]: but just we should keep in mind that, you know, things that were policies when I was in high school or when you were in high school, maybe you're not necessarily bad things to revisit or consider.

[Nate Merritt]: So I think as a policy action, right, something that doesn't take a lot of money, we could figure out within a week, right?

[Nate Merritt]: People do hot washes in jobs, in corporate, in the fire service,

[Nate Merritt]: In the military, you do an operation right afterwards, you do a debrief.

[Nate Merritt]: What happened?

[Nate Merritt]: How do we do it better?

[Nate Merritt]: In the medical community, they'll do what they call M&M rounds, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Unfortunately, if a patient passes away, they wanna figure out how do we get better?

[Nate Merritt]: I think that's something that we should be asking the schools to get within the next week or two.

[Nate Merritt]: Why did it take hours for the school

[Nate Merritt]: to communicate to parents.

[Nate Merritt]: I personally don't understand the purpose of a lockdown given this incident and why it was ours.

[Nate Merritt]: There's difference between preserving a crime scene versus locking everyone in because you think it's an active shooter.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't wanna debate that.

[Nate Merritt]: I have no idea what that is and there may be a rationale.

[Nate Merritt]: That rationale should be communicated to the parents, but also within a week or not even, why did it take so long?

[Nate Merritt]: Because I'd love to see all these gotten rid of from schools.

[Nate Merritt]: But at the same time, if a parent can't know that their students are safe or their children are safe, then what other mechanism do you have?

[Nate Merritt]: So it's kind of a catch 22.

[Nate Merritt]: So I think we really can do better and this doesn't cost a nickel.

[Nate Merritt]: And that is the indifference of good men.

[Nate Merritt]: It's a quote, I'm sorry, but that said, I think it rings true, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Especially in situations, we can take action, right?

[Nate Merritt]: I think these are things that could be taken, you know, done now, because otherwise, when my wife asked me, do we send our kid to public schools?

[Nate Merritt]: My answer is no.

[Nate Merritt]: and address for the record, please.

[Nate Merritt]: State Merit 373 Riverside Ave in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: I live on a small, narrow street.

[Nate Merritt]: Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: It's not a side street.

[Nate Merritt]: So I think some, I appreciate what some of the Councilors have said tonight.

[Nate Merritt]: I was watching this on TV.

[Nate Merritt]: I had to come down because my kid didn't want to watch this on TV.

[Nate Merritt]: He'd rather watch Paw Patrol.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't blame him.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm sure some of all of us would too.

[Nate Merritt]: I think that there's a lot of, I'll call them corner cases that maybe where some of these blanket policies don't address, you know, if you live on Riverside Ave and you're having work done in your house and you can't pull into your driveway,

[Nate Merritt]: and you don't have a permit and you come down to the parking office and they say, no, you can't have a permit to park on this side street.

[Nate Merritt]: Really?

[Nate Merritt]: No, because you don't live there.

[Nate Merritt]: No, I don't.

[Nate Merritt]: But if I actually want to go to work so I can pay my mortgage, pay my taxes, pay the salaries of the fine people working in that office, what am I supposed to do?

[Nate Merritt]: So I think a lot of care and consideration needs to be taken before some blanket policies are put out.

[Nate Merritt]: I really appreciate Councilor Knight, something that you brought up, which was, you know, what is the purpose of having parking?

[Nate Merritt]: What's the scope?

[Nate Merritt]: Is the intent to make money for the city?

[Nate Merritt]: Or is it instead to keep people from say parking on Governor's Ave and kind of abusing the parking and preventing other people from coming into the city and shopping?

[Nate Merritt]: It feels like the scope has been lost.

[Nate Merritt]: If you wanna tax your citizens, tax it.

[Nate Merritt]: If you're gonna have people pay, yeah.

[Nate Merritt]: But at least come out and say it.

[Nate Merritt]: But at least come out and say it.

[Nate Merritt]: Because if you're having people pay to come shop and spend money in the city of Medford, and most of those people are your residents, then that's in effect a tax.

[Nate Merritt]: If it's to keep people from say outside the city, you know, from parking and abusing and using the commuter access that we have, that's a different story.

[Nate Merritt]: And there's different ways to address that.

[Nate Merritt]: So the city of Arlington, town of Arlington, I think it's a town.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: Do they have a parking department enforcement and stickers?

[Nate Merritt]: When I lived in Arlington, I didn't have a sticker and I was a resident.

[Nate Merritt]: I could park on the side and all I had to do is like if I had an extenuating circumstances, you call Arlington PD and say, hi, I'd like to park my car on the street because they have no on street parking for the most part, right?

[Nate Merritt]: They have a, the process is communication and otherwise, okay, we know that plate number.

[Nate Merritt]: We're not going to ticket it.

[Nate Merritt]: It works pretty good as far as I know.

[Nate Merritt]: City of Cambridge, you can have a parking permit, you get a sticker and that sticker is, you know, it's a permanent resident sticker.

[Nate Merritt]: and you can park anywhere in the city.

[Nate Merritt]: Councilor Scarpelli, how does it work in Sutton-Merville where you work?

[Nate Merritt]: I mean, there's a lot of different ideas in here, and I think we need to find something that fits for Medford, but let's keep in mind the scope.

[Nate Merritt]: If the scope is to raise revenue for the city, that's one thing.

[Nate Merritt]: If the objective is different and it's to keep people from abusing streets and preventing people from coming outside the city to spend money in our city, which is, I think, what everyone wants, that's a whole different objective.

[Nate Merritt]: So I appreciate y'all maybe keeping that in mind as we go forward and maybe trying to refocus the scope.

[Nate Merritt]: Just one other point that I wanted to ask.

[Nate Merritt]: Councilor Knight, I thought I heard you correctly, but I want to be sure.

[Nate Merritt]: Did you say that $500,000 of ARPA funding was spent

[Nate Merritt]: I'm sorry.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm sorry.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, so we spent half a million dollars to buy parking meters for infrastructure.

[Nate Merritt]: Instead of fixing roads, we bought parking meters.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: When people say generate revenue, that's great.

[Nate Merritt]: But there's another side of the coin and that's the expense side.

[Nate Merritt]: So the city's currently looking at a shortfall of at least depending on who's math, Councilor Bears, your math had somewhere around 12 million.

[Nate Merritt]: Mayor says somewhere around 3 million.

[Nate Merritt]: She said, she said eight.

[Nate Merritt]: Excuse me, I'm sorry.

[Nate Merritt]: She said eight, she only wanted to fix three.

[Nate Merritt]: Eight, oh, okay, okay.

[Nate Merritt]: I guess the point is that even if it's a revenue generator, and I'm sure the gentleman behind me might be disappointed what I'm about to say, I'm sorry, but if we're paying more salaries for a problem that doesn't exist versus if the cost is $0 from the city, if we don't enforce parking, right?

[Nate Merritt]: We just went back to before, no enforcement.

[Nate Merritt]: We're unfortunately probably not gonna pay those people working that office.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, yeah, as long as it's not just a revenue side, but it's actually net revenue minus expenses, if that's the objective.

[Nate Merritt]: And otherwise, if it's generating revenue, but it actually costs more to do the enforcement, even though you're generating revenue, that's not a good solution either.

[Nate Merritt]: So I want to point out there's a difference between revenue and expenses.

[Nate Merritt]: Please, Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: Regarding receivership, Chelsea, is that the closest community that was involved in that recently?

[Nate Merritt]: Chelsea, Lawrence, Springfield.

[Nate Merritt]: So I'm gonna throw wacky idea out here.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm looking at you, Zach.

[Nate Merritt]: You're the money guy.

[Nate Merritt]: You're the numbers guy.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: If we can't pay our bills, okay, you go into receivership, there's some sort of restructuring that happens, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Usually when that happens with businesses at least, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Some people, you know, people lose work, people get fired or laid off or so on and so forth because there's, usually there's a plan and part of that plan is painful.

[Nate Merritt]: What if there's no more Medford?

[Nate Merritt]: We take the East side and it goes to Somerville, right?

[Nate Merritt]: And we take the West side and that goes to Arlington.

[Nate Merritt]: or Winchester, and we just carve it up.

[Nate Merritt]: Take the land, dissolve it.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm against it.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm not saying anyone's for it.

[Nate Merritt]: No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah, where I'm going with this is unfortunately, I just want people to be careful that as far as services.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm not suggesting we had, but it also might be out of your hands.

[Nate Merritt]: I guess I would ask you this, because I know you do a lot of homework, Zach.

[Nate Merritt]: There's other communities that have gone there.

[Nate Merritt]: What's the trigger?

[Nate Merritt]: and maybe we can be proactive and not dig ourselves into that spot.

[Nate Merritt]: Good evening, Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: I fully support fixing Riverside Ave, because I'm the guy that lives on the street that has to drive up and down that terrible road every day.

[Nate Merritt]: And I've been saying it for years.

[Nate Merritt]: So on that point to the gentleman out in Zoom land, fully agree with you on that.

[Nate Merritt]: I've been saying that one for years.

[Nate Merritt]: And in fact, they've been digging that thing up, National Grid, the water, this, that.

[Nate Merritt]: It's a disaster.

[Nate Merritt]: It's been a disaster for years without a plan.

[Nate Merritt]: We have a DPW that doesn't have a plan.

[Nate Merritt]: I think there are some efficiencies we can pick up.

[Nate Merritt]: Councilor Bears, I appreciate the situation you're in.

[Nate Merritt]: It sucks.

[Nate Merritt]: Let's just put it that way, okay?

[Nate Merritt]: Nobody wants to talk about tax increases ever.

[Nate Merritt]: It's a crappy spot.

[Nate Merritt]: Everyone loves slings and arrows.

[Nate Merritt]: And I think the residents do appreciate, you know, like I said, nobody wants to take anything in the shorts.

[Nate Merritt]: Please know people do appreciate the work you do.

[Nate Merritt]: And we know that there's some hard decisions to be made.

[Nate Merritt]: So thanks for letting us be heard.

[Nate Merritt]: That said, I do have a list of things so I could try to be efficient.

[Nate Merritt]: I live on Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: There's been a crap ton of development on Riverside Ave and Locust Street and all around my side of the city.

[Nate Merritt]: And I'm not gonna get personal attacks.

[Nate Merritt]: I am gonna say that there are folks that live in one half of the city where you would never be putting mega apartment complexes and doing a whole bunch of development.

[Nate Merritt]: And they also have different schools their kids can get into.

[Nate Merritt]: If you live on the wrong side of the city, now I've got to try to get my kids into a lottery in order to go to the better schools.

[Nate Merritt]: Arlington doesn't do that.

[Nate Merritt]: Lexington doesn't do that.

[Nate Merritt]: If we're trying to keep up with the Joneses, then let's keep up with the Joneses.

[Nate Merritt]: Is that what's happening?

[Nate Merritt]: Is that why we need a new school?

[Nate Merritt]: Because Arlington built one?

[Nate Merritt]: I don't live in Arlington because there's no way in heck I could afford it.

[Nate Merritt]: No way, my house, you can say on paper and I agree with you what the paper says, what Zillow says and this and that about my house.

[Nate Merritt]: My house is a crap hole, okay?

[Nate Merritt]: I bought it for $340,000 because that's what I could afford before my wife and I were married, before I had a rug rat.

[Nate Merritt]: Right?

[Nate Merritt]: Kids just make everything cheaper, don't they?

[Nate Merritt]: All those tax credits you get, sure, no problem, right?

[Nate Merritt]: I'm being facetious.

[Nate Merritt]: Tell me I'm wrong.

[Nate Merritt]: Just wait, just wait.

[Nate Merritt]: Daycare, there's other things, right?

[Nate Merritt]: I'm a young family.

[Nate Merritt]: So you can sit there and tell me, great, my house is worth $500,000.

[Nate Merritt]: There's a reason why I paid 340 for it.

[Nate Merritt]: One, that's what the budget I could support.

[Nate Merritt]: And my parents are gone.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't have a well to go back to.

[Nate Merritt]: I gotta work more.

[Nate Merritt]: My wife has to work more, if we can.

[Nate Merritt]: We're both salaried already, maxed out.

[Nate Merritt]: Someone's gotta actually watch the kid.

[Nate Merritt]: I appreciate y'all being here.

[Nate Merritt]: I wanna go home to my kid too.

[Nate Merritt]: In fact, I missed bedtime an hour ago.

[Nate Merritt]: So I know you know how that is, right?

[Nate Merritt]: So, but we have personal budgets.

[Nate Merritt]: We have to stick to them because there's no more well to go to.

[Nate Merritt]: We do that in our families, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Responsible people.

[Nate Merritt]: The city has a spending problem.

[Nate Merritt]: The city's had a spending problem since I moved here in 2014.

[Nate Merritt]: It was painfully obvious.

[Nate Merritt]: And when I hear the council say, there's nothing I can do.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, dissolve the council.

[Nate Merritt]: There's $210,000 saved in the budget right now.

[Nate Merritt]: If there's nothing you can do, why are we here?

[Nate Merritt]: That's just quick math, sorry.

[Nate Merritt]: I know it's a little fudgy.

[Nate Merritt]: It might be more, it might be less, but 30,000 times seven is 210, right?

[Nate Merritt]: So, sometimes you still.

[Nate Merritt]: All right, so that said, other things that we've done here.

[Nate Merritt]: Let's see, we've already increased tax revenue on the residents with this thing called parking since I moved here.

[Nate Merritt]: You didn't have to pay for parking.

[Nate Merritt]: Who pays the most for parking?

[Nate Merritt]: Do you think it's people from the outside?

[Nate Merritt]: Are they really flocking to Medford Square to go pay for parking?

[Nate Merritt]: Or is it your residents that are keeping your businesses alive, and now they gotta pay effectively in addition to tax?

[Nate Merritt]: Great, get rid of the parking and save a million!

[Nate Merritt]: But who's footing that bill?

[Nate Merritt]: It's your residents.

[Nate Merritt]: This isn't Cambridge.

[Nate Merritt]: This isn't Somerville.

[Nate Merritt]: There is no assembly square to go to.

[Nate Merritt]: If I wanna go to a bar around here, where do I go?

[Nate Merritt]: I go to Somerville.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm spending my money somewhere else.

[Nate Merritt]: Now I'm a parent and I have a budget and I can't afford to go to a bar.

[Nate Merritt]: So I gotta stay home.

[Nate Merritt]: And that's a choice I gotta make.

[Nate Merritt]: That's a tough choice.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't go out to eat.

[Nate Merritt]: It's not that I'm poor.

[Nate Merritt]: Right?

[Nate Merritt]: But I mean, this is what we have to deal with.

[Nate Merritt]: So, you know, we've got parking now that is taxed on your residents.

[Nate Merritt]: We hired an outside consultant

[Nate Merritt]: Martha Coakley, during the Clipgate incident.

[Nate Merritt]: Do we not remember that?

[Nate Merritt]: Because we couldn't have Medford PD figure out why there was a magazine found in one of our schools.

[Nate Merritt]: Really?

[Nate Merritt]: We couldn't have Medford PD figure that out.

[Nate Merritt]: We had to contract that out.

[Nate Merritt]: This city has a spending problem.

[Nate Merritt]: The DPW has a night watchman, last name of Pellegrini.

[Nate Merritt]: He likes to yell at people that, you know, pull up in front of the recycle bin and don't sit there and park in parking spots that don't exist.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't know whether the added value he's bringing when the DPW wants- Again, just no personal attacks.

[Nate Merritt]: No, no, no, this is something I was gonna bring up anyways, is as a complaint.

[Nate Merritt]: Fine, you have a person who functions only as a night watchman according to his own admission.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't know how much his salary is.

[Nate Merritt]: It's nine o'clock on a Friday or Saturday night.

[Nate Merritt]: Nobody's coming in and out of that parking garage or the DPW garage.

[Nate Merritt]: You couldn't contract that out to Securitas or some other function instead of paying that person's salary plus their retirement.

[Nate Merritt]: I think there's things that we can do to look at the budgets and spend more efficiently

[Nate Merritt]: There's plenty, Tufts University, we've talked about this, Zach.

[Nate Merritt]: There may be ways we can actually bring in some metrics and bring in some data analysis.

[Nate Merritt]: I think it's time.

[Nate Merritt]: It's been long overdue.

[Nate Merritt]: What's the number of personnel in the city by department and how much has been, what is that number year over year?

[Nate Merritt]: I don't expect you to have the answer.

[Nate Merritt]: The problem is it's not published.

[Nate Merritt]: Let's put it to the voters.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, well, the voters gotta be educated.

[Nate Merritt]: The voters need to be able to find the data and make educated decisions.

[Nate Merritt]: And no offense, you're not gonna take Zach Baer's word for it because you're only one person.

[Nate Merritt]: And even you don't have all the data, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Trust me.

[Nate Merritt]: Trust me, I'm from the government.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm here to help.

[Nate Merritt]: You know?

[Nate Merritt]: No, you wanna present the data and let people make educated decisions.

[Nate Merritt]: There's no possible way you could do that.

[Nate Merritt]: I think it is when you have someone saying, hey, let's put it to the voters and they can't, they don't have the information to make the educated decision.

[Nate Merritt]: It's not about trust.

[Nate Merritt]: It's about, they don't have the information.

[Nate Merritt]: It's trust, but verify.

[Nate Merritt]: I wanna be able to verify.

[Nate Merritt]: And I think that's fair.

[Nate Merritt]: You would too.

[Nate Merritt]: I am.

[Nate Merritt]: Well, we can suspend the rules.

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah, if I'm running over my time, then suspend the rules, please.

[Nate Merritt]: So I think we need the data.

[Nate Merritt]: I think we need it published.

[Nate Merritt]: Did the city hire a person specifically to figure out how to use the COVID-19 funds?

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, but the point is you still spent the money ahead of time for a person to figure out how to spend money.

[Nate Merritt]: There's ways that happens in this city to say there's no way.

[Nate Merritt]: It doesn't matter.

[Nate Merritt]: It's different sources.

[Nate Merritt]: It's a pattern of, it's not the bucket you draw from.

[Nate Merritt]: And that's part of the spending problem is there's always been proposals.

[Nate Merritt]: Oh, well, there's this match we're going to get for the state.

[Nate Merritt]: So we got to do this project now.

[Nate Merritt]: The library wasn't supposed to cost anything for the taxpayers.

[Nate Merritt]: I am.

[Nate Merritt]: You have a spending pattern.

[Nate Merritt]: So just to clarify, did I just get cut off?

[Nate Merritt]: And if I do want to finish my points, I have to come back next week.

[Nate Merritt]: Okay, so I'm cut off for the night.

[Nate Merritt]: That's, right Councilor Knight?

[Nate Merritt]: Um, comes to Carve yellow.

[Nate Merritt]: Thanks for taking the time this morning to address the city.

[Nate Merritt]: Um, so for the rest of you, um,

[Nate Merritt]: The parks that we have in this city are awesome.

[Nate Merritt]: So I just wanted to start with that really appreciate now they have a small child, especially when it's warm out, you know, we have things like a splash pad that's available to the public as well as a dog park actually exists, you know, behind the Andrews and McGlynn schools.

[Nate Merritt]: If I recall, those though, weren't paid for with city funds.

[Nate Merritt]: Councilor Knight you might actually remember how that was funded.

[Nate Merritt]: Sure, but it wasn't solely done.

[Nate Merritt]: It was like you said, a public partnership.

[Nate Merritt]: It might be something you want to look into with the Tufts Park area as well, instead of just maybe temporary fencing, because the dog parks that we have behind there are actually pretty nice.

[Nate Merritt]: They were segregated for like large dogs versus small dogs.

[Nate Merritt]: So a general theme, I think that I'm starting to see though, and it sounds apparent that it may be it's happening at Tufts Park as well.

[Nate Merritt]: As you know, the McGlynn schools is, there's kind of some neglect happening in some of our parks, and you know, to the good Councilors point about just in the city, right?

[Nate Merritt]: If we take care of the city, the city will take care of it.

[Nate Merritt]: In a sense, right, the townspeople in the city folk will get into it, right, and wanna keep things nice, but if you let it get junky, then people just don't care.

[Nate Merritt]: So this Saturday morning, I went with my child to go play on the swings in the park at McGlynn, and there were cases of beer left over, there was a bunch of trash everywhere, there was clothing left over from the middle of the night, so I don't know what was happening with that, but it was adult clothing.

[Nate Merritt]: These aren't the things that we should be having, especially at our elementary schools.

[Nate Merritt]: I think the administration needs to do something in terms of personnel to start paying attention to your city, because the city cannot afford to keep doing overrides and debt exclusions and so on and so forth.

[Nate Merritt]: Gas is expensive for everyone.

[Nate Merritt]: Most of us have to drive to get to work.

[Nate Merritt]: Everyone's feeling the pinch.

[Nate Merritt]: Let's take care of what we have.

[Nate Merritt]: And if that means maybe spending a little more on personnel to help monitor these places, that might be cheaper in the end, net net,

[Nate Merritt]: right, with all the benefits, everything else that person would be paid versus constantly repairing the good things we have already.

[Nate Merritt]: So if that is a person who drives around and looks, you know, throughout the day.

[Nate Merritt]: looks at the parks.

[Nate Merritt]: During school, it's one thing, right?

[Nate Merritt]: I mean, there's teachers there.

[Nate Merritt]: It's the after school hours at those parks, but maybe a Tufts driver.

[Nate Merritt]: And that way, if someone does have their dog off their leash, and they're not supposed to, there's someone with some authority to say, hello, would you please put your dog back on your leash?

[Nate Merritt]: Because I don't want my children to be eaten, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Which I know it's an exaggeration.

[Nate Merritt]: However, these are problems that can be reasonably solved with, I think, a person.

[Nate Merritt]: So, but it's more than just the dogs, it's making sure that we're not trashing the city, that we've worked so hard to build some nice things for the city.

[Nate Merritt]: So I'd appreciate if, I don't know if that's something that can be made an extra motion or whatnot, you know, to the administration.

[Nate Merritt]: I certainly appreciate it.

[Nate Merritt]: I guess the only other thing I would add is that if we can at least make sure that those decisions are made consciously, then they can also be held accountable later for those same decisions.

[Nate Merritt]: and lack of decisions.

[Nate Merritt]: So I'd urge you to push for that.

[Nate Merritt]: And the other thing is that, I mean, there was COVID money that was given to this city that is still trying to be figured out how to be spent.

[Nate Merritt]: And if I recall infrastructure of various types was, you know, is a category that that could be spent on.

[Nate Merritt]: Now hiring a person to figure out, and their sole job of getting paid is trying to figure out how to spend money and salary.

[Nate Merritt]: I'll do that for you for free.

[Nate Merritt]: There's plenty of things to spend money on in this, you know, like I said, I hope improve our city that we don't need to wait six months or a year seven different committees to act now, or not necessarily act now but at least be judicious, and maybe we can be pound wise, instead of penny wise and pound foolish.

[Nate Merritt]: So, but, but I do appreciate you.

[Nate Merritt]: You looking in that and helping fight for so thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: That actually, in this particular case, that was a Saturday morning.

[Nate Merritt]: I guess one last piece to that is that, you know, maybe if we can stop some of this at the source, I know maybe I'm sounding old school, but I know that if I was like caught littering and whatnot, my parents would drag me out and make me clean it up instead of paying someone else overtime to do.

[Nate Merritt]: I see you later.

[Nate Merritt]: Likewise, but in all seriousness, maybe it is just a patrol, you know, of someone, I understand the police are busy and whatnot, but if they- It's called taking a little pride in your community.

[Nate Merritt]: You know, take a lap around and if you see people trashing, you know, if they happen to see people trashing up the place, well then there you go.

[Nate Merritt]: However many people there are trashing the place, that's, you know, 12 more volunteers that can be voluntold to, you know, clean up their area that they made a pigsty.

[Nate Merritt]: So not everything has to be, we pay to fix other people's problems.

[Nate Merritt]: Name and address of the record please.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: Besides marking, is it possible that there's something you could put around the casting so that you can drive over paint and you'll still wind up with a flat tire?

[Nate Merritt]: But I can't imagine that there isn't something around the casting that slopes so that if you do happen to drive over it, you don't wind up with the flat tire and you can see it.

[Nate Merritt]: Just something to consider.

[Nate Merritt]: Mayor, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: So a lot of you have actually met since 2017 when I moved in here, and there's been a lot of excitement on the corner of my street.

[Nate Merritt]: It's a busy area, understand that.

[Nate Merritt]: We now have Wegmans right at the Meadow Glen Mall.

[Nate Merritt]: I had a car crash through my house the first year I came through here, so I kind of understand what it means when there's an emergency that happens, especially in the middle of the night that might wake you up.

[Nate Merritt]: Literally, the foundation of my house shook, and there was like bricks flying from the house next door.

[Nate Merritt]: I know you work here at Councilor Bears,

[Nate Merritt]: Yeah, it was kind of a disaster.

[Nate Merritt]: I felt bad for the car too, actually, when I saw it.

[Nate Merritt]: So that said, I do try to come here and not just complain, but also offer some solutions if we can.

[Nate Merritt]: So that's really my goal.

[Nate Merritt]: That said, I'm also now a dad.

[Nate Merritt]: So since I've moved here, some things have changed.

[Nate Merritt]: I have a 13-month-old son who's actually not feeling well tonight.

[Nate Merritt]: So I'm going to go home and probably have to take care of him.

[Nate Merritt]: So definitely some shifting priorities, just like you, Mr. President, in terms of your age, mine also.

[Nate Merritt]: So now that I have a newborn, a couple weeks ago, starting on October 20th, I put my kid to bed and around nine o'clock at night, all of a sudden it's like, all right, what's going on here?

[Nate Merritt]: And in fact, I wasn't home.

[Nate Merritt]: My wife put the kid to bed and I went to come in.

[Nate Merritt]: I couldn't get in my own driveway because someone decided they were going to dig a hole in front of my house to go fix a gas leak.

[Nate Merritt]: Excellent.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you for fixing gas leaks, especially when they need to be fixed.

[Nate Merritt]: So no gripes with that, especially as it's approaching winter.

[Nate Merritt]: Let's not try to fix gas leaks in the wintertime if we learned anything from the North Andover instance.

[Nate Merritt]: OK.

[Nate Merritt]: So that said, hey, how long would this take?

[Nate Merritt]: No notice whatsoever.

[Nate Merritt]: And I'm not the only resident that was like, oh, what's going on?

[Nate Merritt]: Didn't even know they were necessarily fixing a gas leak.

[Nate Merritt]: It's got the giant national grid truck and they've been poking holes in that intersection for the past four years, chasing gas leaks here, there, everywhere.

[Nate Merritt]: So jackhammer in the middle of the night, right?

[Nate Merritt]: Going through the middle of the night to like three, four in the morning, what's going on?

[Nate Merritt]: So when I came back the next night and said, hi, what's, you know, there's no one really to talk to, and I'm not going to go walk in a construction zone, but there are some nice police officers on both ends where they shut down the street.

[Nate Merritt]: And of course, I want to go home.

[Nate Merritt]: Where do I put my car so I can get home?

[Nate Merritt]: Not very good answers from one officer that asked it.

[Nate Merritt]: Sorry, I don't know.

[Nate Merritt]: You have to go talk to someone and see.

[Nate Merritt]: Well, someone hired you for the detail.

[Nate Merritt]: And I know when they have these jobs that they list the details and who can sign up to actually work the road job.

[Nate Merritt]: So that was kind of a poor answer.

[Nate Merritt]: Didn't really like that one.

[Nate Merritt]: So I tried to do some homework.

[Nate Merritt]: I actually wrote an email eventually to, cause this lasted for like a week, Monday through Friday.

[Nate Merritt]: And what's going on here?

[Nate Merritt]: We're starting work at nine o'clock and it's wrapping up, you know, three, four in the morning.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm trying to keep the kid asleep.

[Nate Merritt]: and my neighbors are asking, what's going on?

[Nate Merritt]: None of us have any answers.

[Nate Merritt]: So they stopped for the weekend.

[Nate Merritt]: Oh, they must be done.

[Nate Merritt]: No, they started up Monday morning back at it.

[Nate Merritt]: So that's when I, you know, send an email, asked the chief engineer McGivern, what's going on?

[Nate Merritt]: And the answer I get is, oh, well, I don't approve anything during the day.

[Nate Merritt]: You'll have, you know, we'll do some homework, but you know, it's the chief of police.

[Nate Merritt]: Is that chief Buckley?

[Nate Merritt]: Is that right?

[Nate Merritt]: Okay.

[Nate Merritt]: So

[Nate Merritt]: Finally get a response, oh, this is an emergency, it had to happen at night.

[Nate Merritt]: It's an emergency, got it.

[Nate Merritt]: Takes a week to fix an emergency for a gas leak.

[Nate Merritt]: Apparently takes two weeks, because that's how long this thing took.

[Nate Merritt]: We couldn't give anyone in the neighborhood any notice.

[Nate Merritt]: Couldn't find a slip in my mailbox, something on my door, right?

[Nate Merritt]: I get those in the mail all the time.

[Nate Merritt]: Those work fine, they come great.

[Nate Merritt]: Nobody could walk around and put something in there.

[Nate Merritt]: Who's the person, the community person from National Grid that we contacted?

[Nate Merritt]: Dan Cameron.

[Nate Merritt]: Yes.

[Nate Merritt]: So, I spoke with Dan Cameron.

[Nate Merritt]: He said, oh yeah, apparently, and he was nice, very nice, very cordial.

[Nate Merritt]: Apparently, there was a failure in communication.

[Nate Merritt]: My point is, this isn't the first time this has happened.

[Nate Merritt]: In fact, in June of 2019, there was a sewer lining project on Locust Street that someone decided was a good idea to put a, you know,

[Nate Merritt]: basically make a giant hissing noise for hours starting at 10 o'clock at night and they said, oh, we didn't realize it was going to make noise in the neighborhood.

[Nate Merritt]: There's people that live there.

[Nate Merritt]: There's people that get up in the morning to go to work.

[Nate Merritt]: They have kids, they have, you know, so on and so forth.

[Nate Merritt]: And there's a lot of residents.

[Nate Merritt]: I think we need to do better, especially communicating if projects are going to happen at night, whether they're emergencies or not, we can put some signs out.

[Nate Merritt]: And the mayor offered a solution that was, well,

[Nate Merritt]: Even if National Grid doesn't, we'll send out a robocall.

[Nate Merritt]: So I'm going to pick on you for a second, Councilor Falco.

[Nate Merritt]: You have a cell phone?

[Nate Merritt]: Awesome.

[Nate Merritt]: So you get phone calls on it.

[Nate Merritt]: Do you get spam calls on your phone?

[Nate Merritt]: Yes.

[Nate Merritt]: What happens when you get a phone number you don't recognize?

[Nate Merritt]: You probably don't answer it.

[Nate Merritt]: So you think you're going to wind up necessarily hearing the phone call, the robocall?

[Nate Merritt]: That's not a good solution.

[Nate Merritt]: And more so is when you go ask for, you know, where's the buck stop?

[Nate Merritt]: Who approved these things at nighttime?

[Nate Merritt]: Why do they have to happen in the middle of the night?

[Nate Merritt]: I understand traffic can be an inconvenience.

[Nate Merritt]: Got it.

[Nate Merritt]: I drive around here too.

[Nate Merritt]: Traffic's always an inconvenience.

[Nate Merritt]: What's the policy in terms of like, how is that determination made besides it's easy for me to get a detail at night versus during the day?

[Nate Merritt]: Maybe that's part of the calculus.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't know.

[Nate Merritt]: But I think it would be nice if, you know, maybe this council could take a look at what that logic path is.

[Nate Merritt]: When we start approving projects at night, didn't it generate some noise?

[Nate Merritt]: And I don't know about you, but I would think it's a person.

[Nate Merritt]: Well, apparently, according to the engineer, he doesn't authorize the permit.

[Nate Merritt]: The police chief authorizes anything when they open the road at night and they do construction at night.

[Nate Merritt]: Well, and especially if it's going to go on, you know, it's supposed to happen a day or two and that like what defines an emergency is a two week project and emergency or is it two week project to project?

[Nate Merritt]: And stuff happens.

[Nate Merritt]: So in this particular spot, it was one area.

[Nate Merritt]: And they would dig and then cover it over for the traffic to go during the day and open it back up.

[Nate Merritt]: So you actually have that lost time too, where it takes them a couple hours to open up the same hole and then cover it back over.

[Nate Merritt]: And if you total those hours up over two weeks, let's say it's like two hours a day times 10 days, that's 20 hours, almost 24 hours worth of work.

[Nate Merritt]: National grid says they'll work 24 seven.

[Nate Merritt]: So I'm with you Councilor Knight.

[Nate Merritt]: If this is an emergency, fix it and get it done.

[Nate Merritt]: Don't drag this out over two weeks.

[Nate Merritt]: And a lot of you have heard plenty of complaints of residents.

[Nate Merritt]: When you hear the airplanes flying overhead, when they're taking off runway three, three, you drag the FAA in here saying, Hey, it's too loud at night.

[Nate Merritt]: It's waking up my kids, blah, blah, blah.

[Nate Merritt]: I challenge you to then deal with someone with a jackhammer outside your house till four in the morning.

[Nate Merritt]: You want to know some noise?

[Nate Merritt]: In fact, I can, you know, I have DB levels that I was measuring and talking about, you know, a thousand times sound that's, you know, happening.

[Nate Merritt]: It's 30 DB, right?

[Nate Merritt]: When they're wearing hearing protection, operating the equipment, it's not just the abutters.

[Nate Merritt]: It's not a magical line that sound then up, it only touches the property lines, sound travels.

[Nate Merritt]: So that's why I think there's maybe we can look at the criteria.

[Nate Merritt]: Yes, it was an emergency.

[Nate Merritt]: But once it starts moving past a couple of days, maybe we're not in emergency territory in terms of how we get the work done.

[Nate Merritt]: Maybe then we take a look and go, hey, this is getting out of hand.

[Nate Merritt]: We can't keep dragging this out over two weeks.

[Nate Merritt]: Let's wrap it up and get it done.

[Nate Merritt]: So I guess my ask of you, is there something that we can do, pass a motion to revisit the logic tree of when work is done at night in this city versus during the day?

[Nate Merritt]: I would hope so.

[Nate Merritt]: And if not, I think that's a problem too.

[Nate Merritt]: And if you guys don't know what that is, that's a problem.

[Nate Merritt]: Sure.

[Nate Merritt]: And like I said, I'm sure there's rhyme or reason, but you know, sometimes things change and it's good if we can understand and we can communicate what is that decision logic?

[Nate Merritt]: They tried to do that last winter.

[Nate Merritt]: Right, right.

[Nate Merritt]: And we said, that's probably not a good idea to play with gas lines in the winter.

[Nate Merritt]: And he did.

[Nate Merritt]: And he owned up and said, you know, they could have done a better job.

[Nate Merritt]: So totally agree.

[Nate Merritt]: But, you know, and in terms of coordination, if you're going to rip open the street again, well, don't pave over Riverside Ave anytime soon until they do that.

[Nate Merritt]: I mean, it's like a war zone there anyways, but, but at least save some money and not let, you know, pave it over and then rip it up again.

[Nate Merritt]: Well, I'll tell you what, if you want to take all the granite curbs and pull them out and give them to the, well, I was going to say they're useless where I am anyways, because there's no curbing left.

[Nate Merritt]: That's a whole nother thing that needs to happen there.

[Nate Merritt]: Take the granite curbs, give them to the gentleman that was talking two weeks ago that was saying, Hey, I need some granite curbs because they're useless to us.

[Nate Merritt]: and then fix the street right after they do the National Grid project, but just don't play with our gas in the wintertime when we depend on it for our heat.

[Nate Merritt]: Because God forbid something goes wrong, you're not running gas lines up on the street.

[Nate Merritt]: Otherwise, I'm coming to bunk in with one of you and my family so we can stay warm in the winter.

[Nate Merritt]: So some of you better sign up.

[Nate Merritt]: Motion for approval, Mr. President.

[Nate Merritt]: Dave Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave, Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: Not related to free speech or anything like that, but as a resident, and I'm sure some of you have actually driven by my house.

[Nate Merritt]: I live right near Wegmans.

[Nate Merritt]: Trash pickup.

[Nate Merritt]: Normally our trash is picked up on Monday.

[Nate Merritt]: My trash barrel is still out from waste management.

[Nate Merritt]: It is Tuesday.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't know when they are coming.

[Nate Merritt]: Should everyone on Riverside Ave be calling the phone number that's given to report this trash pickup, or is this something that could be handled?

[Nate Merritt]: I think they missed the whole street.

[Nate Merritt]: Great, and just because I know you do have a budget coming up, maybe one thing to consider are metrics in terms of, because this isn't the first time that this is happening with waste management.

[Nate Merritt]: So perhaps if you do have missed pickups or whatnot, that's something y'all being interested in, perhaps you can use this some leverage to set the rate in the future.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you, sir.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave in Medford.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you all for taking my comments.

[Nate Merritt]: Just for a point of information for Councilor Martz, last time I checked, the fire department also runs 24-7, 365.

[Nate Merritt]: So that would be two departments minimum in your city, not just the police department.

[Nate Merritt]: But just wanted to give credit where it's due.

[Nate Merritt]: I actually have a very personal story and I know some of you on the council have known me for a number of years.

[Nate Merritt]: Last Wednesday, someone decided to break into my home.

[Nate Merritt]: I have a wife, I have a baby on the way.

[Nate Merritt]: And I will tell you that the Medford police responded very quickly, very professionally, and we couldn't thank them enough for being available as quick as they were.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm from a small town in Western Massachusetts.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm very familiar with, you know, how it can be where you live in a town where it can take 10 minutes, right?

[Nate Merritt]: 10 minutes for help to arrive.

[Nate Merritt]: And it's just sheer distance.

[Nate Merritt]: It's not because there's, you know, it's a lack of budget, but it's also sheer distance.

[Nate Merritt]: And if someone's on the wrong side of town or the opposite side of town, it's just sheer distance versus time versus how fast can they go down the road.

[Nate Merritt]: People in the Eastern Massachusetts area should be very thankful for the fact that they have the resources they do.

[Nate Merritt]: You don't have volunteer fire departments in the greater Boston area.

[Nate Merritt]: You do up on the North shore, you do in Western Mass.

[Nate Merritt]: When I lived in Syracuse,

[Nate Merritt]: I know what it's like to have sheriffs respond because you don't have a local police force.

[Nate Merritt]: And when someone needs your help, it, you know, minutes seem like hours.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm a public servant myself.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm an EMT basic.

[Nate Merritt]: I've been one for over 20 years.

[Nate Merritt]: There are probably people, you know, that have been helped trained by me.

[Nate Merritt]: I just want to say that I would take very much a bit of caution when we start talking about removing funding or reappropriating funding from your public services here.

[Nate Merritt]: I'm a taxpayer just like everyone else.

[Nate Merritt]: I want to use money efficiently.

[Nate Merritt]: and put it in the right spot, but we shouldn't be having knee-jerk reactions because when you want the help, there is nothing that you will want to stand in your way to enable them to come help you.

[Nate Merritt]: So before we say we're going to reappropriate funding and reduce funding, instead, let's try to look at problems that need to be solved.

[Nate Merritt]: I don't disagree with anyone that's talking about, lack of better term, cleaning up the act when there's bad behavior.

[Nate Merritt]: the police that we have here, in my opinion, are already overtaxed to begin with.

[Nate Merritt]: And when seconds are counting, you're gonna want the help when you can get it.

[Nate Merritt]: So again, thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: My personal thanks to Medford PD for responding as quickly as they did, being professional as they were.

[Nate Merritt]: And to Councilor Scarpelli's point, I'd actually like to be very much part of that public discussion that occurs,

[Nate Merritt]: the police department and whatnot.

[Nate Merritt]: And also, just a note for Councilor Knight, you can use the dialing number for Zoom and it might be a good alternative.

[Nate Merritt]: I know being a person that used it myself a lot for meetings, that's a good alternative.

[Nate Merritt]: You can call in on your cell phone and sometimes you have a much more reliable connection.

[Nate Merritt]: You can still keep the video up on internet, but at least you can get your audio through without having a text message.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you very much.

[Nate Merritt]: Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave.

[Nate Merritt]: I just want to second Councilor Marks just to make sure that the fire department has all the communications gear it needs, especially with the recent development of all the large apartment complexes in the area, especially using 700 800 megahertz radios like is described in the paper.

[Nate Merritt]: They can have difficulty penetrating even through the building.

[Nate Merritt]: So we just want to make sure they get the equipment they need, especially with a lot more residents that could be using the fire department services.

[Nate Merritt]: You know, the repeaters are important.

[Nate Merritt]: Backup power, if there really is an emergency for those repeaters.

[Nate Merritt]: Just want to make sure before we take money back before the new fiscal year budget, that they have what they need.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Specifically, it's actually towards the end, page 20, section 5B, compliance, where it states that compliance with federal law, since as I'm still aware, unless I'm wrong, that distribution of marijuana is still not compliant with federal law.

[Nate Merritt]: You just wanna tighten up the language so you don't permit someone to set up an establishment and then have them get in trouble.

[Nate Merritt]: That's all, thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: Thank you.

[Nate Merritt]: And besides federal, I'm sorry, besides that item, there was a similar throughout page six at the top.

[Nate Merritt]: There's something that says this isn't supposed to supersede federal law, although the whole content therein kind of does.

[Nate Merritt]: It's avoided on page 14 in section 12 there.

[Nate Merritt]: They don't mention federal law, but did you mention state and local law?

[Nate Merritt]: So you might want to have someone take a look and tighten up the language.