[Nick Giurleo]: Alright.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Nick Giroleo, 40 Robinson Road. I'm speaking tonight in favor of this resolution, both originally or as amended. What's most stunning to me is how little it seems we're getting in return for this grant. In exchange for this huge sacrifice of cutting our trash collection pickup in half, we're getting, drumroll please, compost bins. Now, it's $200,000 worth of compost bins, but again, it's still just compost bins. I'm asking myself, do we actually need more? Is there a shortage? Are there answers to these questions? I can look up. And I think if we had discretion to spend this money any way we'd like for waste management funding, there'd be a case perhaps for this trade-off. But since it appears we're just stuck using it for these bins, I don't see anyone could make the case this is a good deal. Now, the city says if we generate too much trash, we can just buy overflow bags or lease for $12 a month another 64-gallon bin. No big deal, huh? For many people, the weekly pickup with the 64-gallon bin is hard enough as it is. And even with, I think, intentional efforts to produce less rubbish, it is still highly unrealistic people are going to be able to meet this quota. And all this is going to do is force them to pay these fees. Residents are already struggling under high taxes and fees and a climate of a cost-of-living crisis. This is only going to make that struggling worse. And it also makes you question when we're told that tax hikes are necessary to fund essential city services, and we say yes, why we are getting less city services in return. And we're also getting a vague promise here that this will save the environment. How do we know collecting trash less regularly is going to incentivize people to produce less trash? What will stop people from dumping their extra trash or just sucking it up and paying for overfill bags or renting a bin? As has been discussed, our neighborhoods are already infested with rats in many areas. Unsustainable density increases due to comprehensive residential rezoning changes, which do seem like an inevitability to me at this point, are only going to result in less sanitary conditions. To me, all this is just a recipe for disaster. It's my hope that the mayor will reconsider the wisdom of this grant and work with all of us to provide some answers to questions I think we all have. I don't care how many cities and towns across the state have accepted this program. We need to do what's best for Medford. Thank you. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening. Nick Joleo, Forty Robinson Road. I'm in favor of the amendment, but before I discuss why let me first just say that the agenda for this meeting tonight the whole agenda was not posted to the city website until 1115 this morning. I had to call the city clerk's office and ask where it was. And only then was it uploaded. This isn't acceptable. Residents need adequate notice of what the council is going to address at a meeting so they can do appropriate research, prepare their remarks, and make logistical arrangements to be here.
[Nick Giurleo]: Thank you for the apology and explanation.
[Nick Giurleo]: I'll continue now with my thoughts on why I'm in favor of the amendment. So I'm in favor of the amendment because the six-story height maximum allowed by MX2 is excessive in this area, which is residential. But I'm also in favor because rezoning that node, MX1, is going to eliminate, as we've discussed, this very vaguely defined use neighborhood medical office. And I think as others have pointed out before me, this would likely encompass a methadone clinic. And I hope we can all agree, regardless of what a person might think about the utility of having one of these anywhere, that putting one a few blocks away from a school, an elementary school for that matter, is not a good idea. And I don't think that requiring a special permit from the Community Development Board would be an adequate safeguard, and that we are better just forbidding the use altogether in this node. But again, I'm not opposed to having one of these in Medford. It's just a question of where we put it. It really isn't wise to put one near where their children, in my opinion. And I hope that the council will not only approve the amendment tonight, but also revisit other decisions made for this quarter. I don't think there's anything wrong with making changes to our zoning ordinance. I've never thought that our zoning ordinance, given how old it is, has been perfect and that could not use any revisions at all. It certainly should be revisited. And I would hope that the Councilors tonight would not view a yes vote on this as some sort of admission of defeat. I think this legislative process is designed for this kind of thinking let's look, what's not working, how do we fix it. And we want to make sure of course that our zoning decisions reflect what people who live in our neighborhoods want, you have to think of the overwhelming opposition at that Roberts meeting. And again, the CDB had originally recommended to you based on all the public feedback they had received, approval, and it was rejected. So we're just kind of wasting time here. We have to retrace our steps, revisit it. It's just not efficient. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Jaleo.
[Nick Giurleo]: No problem.
[Nick Giurleo]: Thank you for the question. And I'd reiterate what my fellow panelists up here have said. Thank you all for being here tonight. Parking is a key issue in Medford. Many residents are concerned about it and its availability. There's a special concern about it given the zoning proposal on the table at the moment. How will it impact parking? have any studies been done indicating that. Unfortunately the answer appears to be no. So we don't really know if this massive residential rezoning plan how that's going to impact parking. And parking is very important I'd say economically and commercially for our city because it encourages people to go to our businesses and spend money at our businesses when it's available. Medford Square for example is significantly problematic because of the lack of parking. You go there where you put your car. How do you go to the businesses. So we really do have to take another look at parking and do much better with it. We need to make sure parking is available throughout the city in the event we pass any zoning changes. So that's a priority for me. I want studies done. I want input from residents and I want to make sure that we just accept the reality too that you know people have cars and not everybody drives a car but people have cars and they need a place to put the car. And we want to make sure we have places for that. That's my answer. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: This is a very good question. So for those who don't know, free cash might sound like something wonderful and magical, but essentially it's over-budgeted money that the city over-budgets in a given year. And with the debate over whether or not we should pass our Proposition 2.5 overrides that we had just about a year ago, there was a lot of discussion about free cash and its viability. So the important thing to know about free cash is it's a limited amount of money and If we spend too much of it too quickly, it affects our city's bond rating. So we want to be intelligent about it, and typically it's only used for one-time expenditures. That said, though, my position with the overrides was that free cash could have been used smarter to meet our spending needs and avoid having to essentially hike taxes and put a significant burden on residents to meet our spending needs. So I think we can use free cash much more intelligently. That's going to be my position going forward. We can use it to meet our spending needs while also not raising concerns about our city's credit. So, free cash is out there. It is an option. And really, you know, my position with any sort of, you know, need for tax hikes in the future has been, you know, we should really, really look at every other alternative before we put that burden on residents. And they're struggling. There's a huge cost of living crisis out there and taxes are going up and rents are going up and people are really having a hard time. So, let's look at every other option before we put that burden on residents. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Perfect pronunciation. A great teacher I had at the school we're in tonight once told me that you should always end a speech with a thank you for listening. I'll take his advice but flip the timing and begin by thanking all of you for being here and listening. Our city might be more divided than ever. Rather than brood on the reasons why in these two minutes I have with you, I'd like to instead reflect on the path forward. I have no doubt that everyone on this stage wants what is best for Medford. We may disagree on what is best and how we get there, but I think the most important thing to remember is that the system of government our city operates under was designed to handle these differences. Medford is an enormous city, nearly 60,000 people. There's no doubt that among the 60,000, we have residents with a very wide range of perspectives, ideas, and points of view. I've always been a strong believer that diversity in this respect makes government better. It avoids the many pitfalls of groupthink and leads to legislating that, while might not leave no one fully happy, represents workable compromise. Compromise is good and is something I believe we should all be striving for. I've said much in these many months of campaigning, but of all the themes I've touched on, the one that has given me the most passion to keep going is the value of the ordinary person's opinion. My first glimpse of this was in my professional life when I tried my first few cases before a jury, but I really learned it observing the many intelligent people in our community come up to the podium at our meetings and express their thoughts on the issues that matter to them. We need to preserve that voice. We need to be wary of a government that discounts it. The voice of the ordinary person matters, and their collective voice makes a difference. The greatest case I can make to you for electing me is I have a passion to preserve this voice, and it goes far beyond the voices of people I already agree with. I want to hear from people who don't. I want to hear from people whose perspectives differ from my own. I want to hear from all voices in Medford, because every voice matters, and the city we call home. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Nick Gioleo, 40 Robinson Road. So first, I just want to ask a question. I think it's a procedural question. I was just curious why the mayor's veto of the values aligned ordinance was tabled tonight. Was there a procedural reason for that?
[Nick Giurleo]: OK. Does anyone have an answer or no? OK. Also, I don't know it off the top of my head, but I could look it up. I believe the Charter has a limit.
[Nick Giurleo]: Sorry, I had to get into my head. Okay. I believe the Charter has a limit in which the time a veto may be overridden. I don't know. Does anyone know that off the top of their head?
[Nick Giurleo]: Okay. Yeah, I can, I could look that up. Anyone could. And then the last thing I'll say is, with Councilor Scarpelli's resolution I don't believe there was a public comment on that but I just wanted to voice my support for it. and say that I think the charter, first of all, I think it's good to just educate the public in general as to what a charter is. My conversation with people, a lot of people don't even know what a charter is as like a legal instrument. So I think it's good to kind of educate on that as well as this process of how we got to this point on voting on it. So I like this idea of educating as well as just what it is. It's a very long document. And I understand that our current charter because it's a planned form of government, you know, it's essentially just taken directly from the general laws. So it's kind of like in several different places. So I think it's kind of hard to understand, you know, what is our charter now and what will it become later on? So I think it's a good idea to really emphasize the differences between what we have now and what will come later. You know, beyond the obvious switch to ward representation, some of maybe the more subtle differences. And I know the charter committee has done a lot of work educating people on that. I definitely praise them for that. And hope they'll continue to do that. And I hope the council will assist with that process as well.
[Nick Giurleo]: Hello Medford, my name is Nicholas Straleo. I'm a candidate running for City Council. I'm speaking to you today to tell you a little bit about who I am and my solutions to two very important election issues. Let me begin with a little bit about who I am. I grew up in Medford and have lived here my whole life. I went to the public schools and graduated valedictorian of my high school class. I then went on to attend college at Tufts University, where I graduated with degrees in history, international relations, and Italian. After Tufts, I went to law school at Boston College. The focus of my studies was municipal law and land use. I graduated BC Law and took the bar exam that summer. I passed on the first go and scored in a top national percentile. Since my admission to the bar, I've practiced as an attorney with a firm on State Street. I would now like to talk to you about two key election issues this election is about. I'd then propose for your consideration the specific solutions I'm offering. One of the biggest issues this election is zoning. On the table is a plan to comprehensively rezone Medford's residential neighborhoods. It will see essentially all of them upzoned to allow or permit a substantial increase in the number of units per lot. While some claim that this plan will make housing more affordable, serious questions have arisen regarding the process that has brought us to this point, and whether the proposed changes would even achieve the goal desired. Ultimately, in my view, zoning needs to be a reflection of what our neighbors want their neighborhoods to look like. This is simply because they are the ones living in them. As much as academics, activists, and consultants might think they know what is best for you and your neighborhood, zoning amendments that would fundamentally change the character of where you live need to be approved by you and your neighbors. The process concerns arose by how blindsided residents were when they became aware of what the changes would actually entail. To this day, many do not know or do not fully comprehend the amendments. This has been a failure of city communications, particularly communications from the council. Regardless of the number of meetings that have taken place and how technical the concepts are, the Council has a duty to ensure the public understands what is happening before it happens. It is patently clear to me that the public was not adequately informed. More importantly, in my many conversations with neighbors on the campaign trail, and in reviewing the comments received by the Community Development Board, residents are overwhelmingly against the changes. They don't want overdevelopment in their neighborhoods, and they are deeply concerned how the amendments will impact essential city services, like fire, police, our infrastructure, and our already overcrowded schools. To date, insufficient studies have been done. We have none on the economic impact or how services will be strained. All of this leads me to say unequivocally to you that I am opposed to the comprehensive residential rezoning plan on the table in its current form. I'm not opposed to reasonable revisions to our zoning ordinance, but this isn't one of them. I will vote no if the proposal comes before me as a councilor. The second major issue I'll discuss today is council access. We've seen in the past two years very alarming efforts to reduce the ability of the public to meaningfully contribute at our public meetings. We saw a reduction of public speaking time from five minutes per person to three minutes per person. We have seen meetings running very late, sometimes past midnight, with papers on local issues taking a second seat to papers on issues pertaining to national and international issues. We've seen Councilors talk at length, flattering and grandstanding to no end, at the expense of time that could be spent hearing from the public. We have seen Councilors laugh and belittle commentators, expressing viewpoints that simply differ from their own. All of this has led me to see the need for comprehensive procedural reform in how we conduct our meetings. My very first resolution, when elected, will be to restore the public voice lost at our meetings. I will propose an immediate return of public speaking time to five minutes a speaker. I will also work to implement reforms to our council's internal rules to limit councilor speaking time, ensure a hard cap on how late our meetings run, prioritize papers on local issues, and bring us back to weekly council meetings. The public voice should be a priority at our meetings. It currently is not. For all these reasons, this election is a critical one, maybe one of the most critical in our city's long history. Do we continue with the same failed leadership that is making Medford into a city we no longer recognize? Or do we elect new, independent-thinking leadership and restore common sense to our local government? The choice is clear. Thank you very much for listening, and I respectfully ask for your vote on November 4th.
[Nick Giurleo]: Hi, John, thanks for having me.
[Nick Giurleo]: I think you're right, John, that this certainly is the talk of the city at the moment. So this is, in my opinion, a very critical election issue. Who we decide to be in the council will influence our zoning going forward. So first I'll just talk about, for anyone who might not know, just a summary of what is happening. So currently on the table is a proposal to comprehensively rezone the residential neighborhoods in our city. Under this proposal, they'd be creating five new sub-districts. and essentially everyone would be getting up zoned. The idea behind this is to try to create a larger housing supply under the belief that more housing will result in affordable housing. So this proposal, we'll see upwards of six units as of right in neighborhoods, historically zoned to be single family. And the zoning, it's really been under the radar for a while, but it really came to public attention recently. People are very concerned, very concerned about the dramatic impact that density increases will have on our neighborhoods. Some opposition groups formed and there was major public backlash at a meeting of the Community Development Board. And this actually prompted the mayor to intervene and essentially say that she'd be refusing to extend the contract with the city's zoning consultant unless the proposal was scrapped. Council President Bears responded, essentially punted the issue and says, we'll take up residential rezoning in the spring. So to me, this is obviously his attempt to try to see what will happen with the election, which is why I said at the beginning, this is really an election issue. I think we're seeing with the council this kind of concept of, well, we know it's best for you, as opposed to, well, let's ask neighbors what they want and what they want their neighborhoods to look like. So my position has really been, we need to do what neighbors want. We need neighbors to have a say in what their communities look like. So I'm opposed to the plan on the table. I think it should be totally scrapped. And if I'm elected, I'll vote no on it, if it comes up before me. And ultimately, there's been a lot of process concerns, process issues. This process needs to reflect what the majority of our neighbors want. Not what consultants say we need, not what academics say we need, not what activists say we need, but we need to talk to ordinary people. They should have a say in what their neighborhoods look like because they're the ones living there. I think that makes perfect sense. I think it's very common sense. For me, you know, particularly, I also want to see studies too about, you know, if the zoning is approved, how will services be impacted? How will our fire be impacted? How will our police, our infrastructure, our schools, which are already overcrowded, And we've seen it, you know, with the council, just this unwillingness to listen. I can point to specifically the Salem Street corridor, for example. The CDB recommendation for one of the critical nodes of that, the Salem and Park Street node, it resulted in this sub-district designation that would have allowed up to six stories. And currently that's what's in effect. So there's efforts now to try to reverse that, but we're seeing, you know, this just unwillingness to listen. And it's very concerning to me. So, you know, I want to and I'll put out there, you know, I think it's okay to make reasonable revisions to our zoning ordinance. I would just like to make sure that those changes are what neighbors want and ultimately don't result in excessive density, overcrowding, overdevelopment. I think we'd be better spending our time more focusing on the commercial side of it. To me, we need to be preserving, not only preserving our commercial tax base, but expanding it to encouraging businesses to come to Medford. And I think reasonable zoning changes could achieve that. But I guess in summary, again, not in favor of the proposal currently on the table. And I definitely wanna make sure that when I'm elected, I'm listening to what residents have to say, giving them a voice, and ultimately making sure that they feel heard.
[Nick Giurleo]: Sure. So yeah, like the zoning, it's another big issue. And it will be on the ballot in November. So voters will have to decide whether or not they approve or they reject this thing. So first, I'll just back up a bit. You know, what is a charter for anyone who might not know? Essentially, it's the Constitution for our city. It's the governing document that tells us how our city is organized in terms of a mayor, a school committee, and a city council, as well as all our departments, and boards, and commissions, and administrative agencies. So Medford's currently under what is called a plan A form of government. There's a provision in the Massachusetts General Law, this chapter 43, gives some general rules on charters, and then gives cities an option to choose between various plans. So in 1986, Medford voters moved us from a plan E to a plan A. And now in November, voters will decide whether we transition again away from a plan A to this kind of new charter that our charter committee has worked very hard to get together. And that leads me to the next thing here. So charter review committee was established. We had some notables in our city who were on that, people like Ron Govino, Melvin McDonald, Eunice Bratton. who really worked hard to make sure that residents' input would be taken into consideration to prepare this document. So I applaud them and all their hard work. And I appreciate all their patience too, you know, getting us to this point where we can finally have something to vote on. So it was, like I said, approved for the ballot. So the state legislator said, it's okay for our ballot. So we'll be deciding on it in November. And there's various changes to it, but I think in our short time together, the number one thing to highlight would be it's moving us from a seven member at-large council now to an 11 member council with eight ward Councilors and three at-large Councilors. And we see a similar setup with the school committee So for that, there'd be two at-large members and four from districts, districts being wards combined. So my position on the charter is I tend to vote yes on it. I think by no means it's perfect, but I certainly think it's an improvement from what we have. And I think it's important to remember that year that I said earlier, 1986 was the last time. Medford's charter has been changed. This is a considerable amount of time to not have changed your charter at all. So I do think, you know, one of the reasons I support this is because board representation, I think is gonna be a lot more representative than what we're currently doing under our at-large system. It's going to be giving a voice to those who've been very frustrated by the council's conduct as of late. We have people in our wards who haven't seen in a very long time anyone on the council from their ward. So I think it's important that we make sure everyone in our city is being represented. That's one reason why I support it. Another thing I think it's important to put out there is that some of our current council members, actually almost all of them, were pushing for a district model for the city. So like I said, kind of with the school committee, a district is essentially wards combined. So they held out really until the very end on this. So they were getting pushback from their own base. And to me, you know, this this reason why they were really pushing the district model, I think the only word we can use to describe it as gerrymandering, I think they were trying to gerrymander our city to try to make it more favorable for them and their base to win elections. So I think this word based system be a lot fairer. That's one of the reasons why. I support the charter. Another thing is though, even if you're upset about it and you think it could be better, it does have provisions in there that would have us being periodically reviewing the charter. It's part of the language. And I strongly encourage that. I think under the current language is a review every 10 years. I think we should be doing that even more frequently. I mean, I think we should always have an open mind on making changes. We should try to make our government work as best as possible. So that would be my take on the charter.
[Nick Giurleo]: Exactly. Yeah. So there'll be opportunities to change it if things aren't working. And we also just got to respect that hard work that the Charter Committee did in getting us to this point.
[Nick Giurleo]: Thank you so much, Sean. Always a pleasure.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening Nick Julio 40 Robinson Road. I am in favor of this resolution and I thank Mr. Carney for bringing this issue to my attention. I think it very much being the public interest to get some sort of update on why we're seeing this unequal treatment here doesn't really seem fair to me. And I think regardless of whether or not there's a contract in place I think everyone would benefit, just at least from a little more information to kind of understand the rationale behind this so I think. Councilor Leming for bringing this very local issue to the council's attention. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening. for Robinson Road. I strongly support this referral. I think I like others don't believe the six story height maximum is appropriate all for the note and I think it's important to point out the same height maximum. It's a commercial I know there are many neighbors who express concerns about that MX to designation early on so I applaud not only them for voicing their concerns but also for the Community Development Board for for listening and ultimately recommending that MX one designation so of course the Council does have discretion to accept or reject. recommendation of the CDB but I think it's just a matter of principle. It should be giving significant deference to those recommendations. So, it's unfortunate that we're in this position where we have to essentially backtrack because the recommendation of the board was not taken. So, strongly in favor of referral and I'm looking forward to speaking more substantively on this when that public hearing opens. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Hi, everyone. I'm Nick Giurleo. Thank you all for being here. Just a little bit about my background. I grew up in Medford, lived here my whole life. Went to Medford High School, graduated number one in my class, and decided to stick around for college and ended up going to Tufts University. Great education there. And after that, I decided to work for a little bit. I ended up working here in the square, actually, for a law office. Really got interested in law through that experience, and decided I would go to law school. So I went to law school, ended up at BC Law. Graduated from BC Law, became an attorney, and that's what I do today. I work for a great firm in downtown Boston. Just one little brief thing about here about why am I running, right? Why am I running? I'm running because being civically involved is really important for me. I want to be involved. It's important to not complain when you have problems with what's going on in the city, but to take a step forward and do something about that. So I decided I needed to step forward and do something about the things that concern me. So two issues that I just want to talk to you about in my very brief time here. Number one, that's been central to my campaign, affordability. Medford is, as everyone probably knows, an increasingly unaffordable place to live. Long-time residents feel pressured out of their homes, and residents who want to move here feel like they can't because of barriers. So what can we do about that? In my opinion, the main reason for unaffordability is just the burden that residents have. in meeting our spending needs, primarily through property taxes, which is where we get the majority of our revenue. I think we can be smarter, though, and take that burden off them and shift it into areas like commercial, bringing businesses to Medford and also preserving our commercial tax base. The commercial tax rate is nearly double the residential, so we get significant revenue through that. That's one issue. is transparency. And for me, that primarily means council accessibility. So allowing the city council to be a resource that everybody can use. So there's a lot of problems in terms of accessibility that we have to do something about. Very late running meetings, last minute agenda changes, getting very off topic often with the agenda items, as well as Reductions in the public speaking time at the expense of hearing people's opinions. So I think we can do simple things like change the rules of our city council to make it more accessible. And also I'm interested in information too, public information. Voters should be informed, they have a right to be informed. What can we do to make public records more accessible to our citizens, honoring requests and making sure people don't feel left out, people don't feel that communications are lacking. So these are two issues central to my campaign. Again, I thank you all for being here, and I would very much appreciate your vote. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Hi, everyone. I'm Nick Giurleo. Thank you all for being here. Just a little bit about my background. I grew up in Medford, lived here my whole life, went to Medford High School, graduated number one in my class, and decided to stick around for college, and ended up going to Tufts University. Great education there. And after that, I decided to work for a little bit. I ended up working here in the square, actually, for a law office. Really got interested in law through that experience, and decided I would go to law school. So I went to law school, ended up at BC Law. Graduated from BC Law, became an attorney, and that's what I do today, work for a great firm in downtown Boston. Just one little brief thing about here, about why am I running, right? Why am I running? I'm running because being civically involved is really important for me. I want to be involved. It's important to not complain when you have problems with what's going on in the city, but to take a step forward and do something about that. So I decided I needed to step forward and do something about the things that concern me. So two issues that I just want to talk to you about in my very brief time here. Number one, that's been central to my campaign, affordability. Medford is, as everyone probably knows, an increasingly unaffordable place to live. Long-time residents feel pressured out of their homes, and residents who want to move here feel like they can't because of barriers. So what can we do about that? In my opinion, the main reason for unaffordability is just the burden that residents have. in meeting our spending needs, primarily through property taxes, which is where we get the majority of our revenue. I think we can be smarter, though, and take that burden off them and shift it into areas like commercial, bringing businesses to Medford and also preserving our commercial tax base. The commercial tax rate is nearly double the residential, so we get significant revenue through that. That's one issue. The other issue here is transparency, and for me, that primarily means council accessibility, so allowing the city council to be a resource that everybody can use. So there's a lot of problems in terms of accessibility that we have to do something about. Very late running meetings, last minute agenda changes, getting very off topic often with the agenda items, as well as reductions in the public speaking time at the expense of hearing people's opinions. So I think we can do simple things like change the rules of our city council. to make it more accessible. And also, I'm interested in information, too. Public information. Voters should be informed. They have a right to be informed. What can we do to make public records more accessible to our citizens, honoring requests, and making sure people don't feel left out, people don't feel that communications are lacking? So these are two issues central to my campaign. Again, I thank you all for being here, and I would very much appreciate your vote. Thank you. There we go, yeah.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Nick Giurleo, Forty Robinson Road. I'll begin tonight with the positives. First, I was happy to see that the ordinance was substantively revised, especially subsection D on the divesting from human rights abusers. I think striking that word entity from the subsection, for example, was a very good edit as I think that word was a contributor to it being overbroad. And I was also pleased to see that my concern as to how the treasurer would make the determination of which entities fall into this category of human rights abusers. I was glad to see that that was addressed as well by adding a subsection to section 2-698. That, as I understand, establishes a criteria in which the treasurer is to make determinations on which entities are abusing human rights, although I did hear tonight for the first time concerns about the partiality of that criteria. I think that's something I will personally look into as well as something all of you perhaps should look into as well. So overall, I'll say, I do think between the drafts ordinance was improved, but that doesn't mean I think that it's perfect or I think ready for a vote. I think now we have to really focus our attention on subsections A through C. I know in the past meetings, speakers discussed that at length. We really didn't see any edits there, that I noticed. So my concern, again, with this is, once again, overbreath. I think those sanction categories are far too over-encompassing. And I do think they could potentially lead to unintended consequences. So for example, a company that might derive more than 15% of its revenue from the combustion distribution or extraction of fossil fuels, that might not be as nefarious as you might assume. A reality with fossil fuels is they do power the world, whether you like that or not. We don't want to be unintentionally harming workers who are employed in these industries, when they're working under contexts that aren't unethical. And the same reason I think would apply for the defense industry or companies that might assist with the logistics of running jails and prisons I mean for example with a company that just simply surprise the jail or prison food, I mean with the divestment ordinance apply to that. You know, many of these businesses I think are ethical, even if you might kind of have utopian ideas about the world we want to live in, without maybe prisons or war, or anything else kind of bad. So overall I guess my suggestion here is I think we do need to refine further I don't think this ordinance is ready for a vote tonight. So I would hope that the Councilor who moved to approve for the first reading withdraw that motion. We can continue this and continue to refine, continue to work on this ordinance. I do think it's feasible, and I think it's ideal to have some sort of ordinance like this, but let's try to put emotions aside and do this the right way. Let's do this prudently, rationally, and prevent the city from getting sued because of some problem with the ordinance. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Mr. Alejo, 40 Robinson Road. So the first thing I'll say is just the late hour here. I mean, it's 1 AM, public comment is opening. This paper is extremely substantive. Like this chamber should be packed. And I'm sure a lot of people wanted to speak about this tonight, but couldn't because of how much time we spent on the other paper. I'll try to just be as condensed as possible with my thoughts on this matter. First of all, I'll start with the positive thing. That is, I do think it's a good thing to have these kind of press release statements on positions. So I appreciate that the council president did that in the form of a speech, and that the mayor released what could be called a press release, just basically saying where they're at. I think that's helpful for the public and following. So I would encourage putting things in writing so people can follow what's going on because really developments are happening rather fast. I don't support extending the INIS contract unless conditions are met. I think it's before we even talk about that, you know, first we have to say, obviously, you know, this is coming as a result of a pretty big public backlash against changes when residents actually started to become informed about what was going to happen if these changes were approved. So it goes to show you that we can't assume a louder vocal minority of activist residents are representative of what all residents think, right? And we have to also think about, yes, there were probably election concerns that got us to this point as well. So I think with the conditions that the mayor has put out there, I think generally they're pretty reasonable. But I think the first and most important one has to be restarting this process, given the concerns that have been expressed. And I don't think the Community Development Board, based on the feedback it has received, could in good conscience possibly recommend to you the map in its current form for a final vote, just because of all the feedback criticizing it that has been received. So I would encourage all of you to work with the mayor, try to reach an agreement here, and hopefully it's not just a repackaging of what has been extensively criticized. I think it's important that all of you proceed in good faith here. acknowledge this desire not for dramatic density increases that harms the character of our community. You know, people move to Medford because they don't want to live in a place like Somerville or Cambridge. It's not because they want a replica of it. We can address issues with housing demand without wiping out the reasons that Medford is a good place to live. It does offer this increasingly rare thing in the overpopulated world that we live in called home ownership. I think this kind of do or die alarmism that we've been seeing from people who think we need the density at all costs, I don't think it's helping anyone. And I think it's really ignoring this problem. Affordable housing is not a new one. This burden is really being placed disproportionately.
[Nick Giurleo]: On suburban communities like Medford. So work with the mayor. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Nick Julio 40 Robinson Road. So, while I'm glad that we're not going to be taking a vote tonight on the value aligned ordinance. I do think that decision to table discussion on it was pretty cowardly given there's an obvious presence, people here who are going to speak against it. applaud the Councilor who voted against the motion table as well as moved to take public comment out of order. So people do have that opportunity to voice their thoughts. My comments, which I'm going to be discussing, we're assuming that we would be having that discussion tonight. So forgive me if they're a little off and some to some extent, but I'm very disappointed that, looking at the draft of the ordinance between the last public meeting and this one, that exactly zero changes were made, zero edits, despite extensive public comment at the last meeting from many people, including myself, who were critical of the language. Speaking just for me, I pointed out that subsection D of section 2-697, that's the part on divesting from human rights abusers, is very disturbingly vague, and I've yet to receive an answer to the question I asked for the record at the last meeting on this, you know who makes a determination that a company or entity has severely violated, quoting from the ordinances drafted human rights and international humanitarian law as determined by international legal Humanities bodies, including the United Nations, unquote, maybe it's implied that this would be the treasurer, based on the next section of the draft, but is the treasurer at all qualified to make this determination does she have a degree in international relations does she have a degree. uh, in or is she an international law attorney? I mean, I call on all of you to ask the treasurer the next discussion to come here and actually provide some information as to will they be qualified at all to make these determinations. The ordinance calls for if the ordinance or were to be approved. So since it remains completely unchanged between the last meeting and this one, I have to oppose it in its entirety. I think the vagueness and the overbreath is just going to open the door to political abuses. And I definitely agree, this will include targeting based on religious affiliation. So an absolute minimum, I'd hope the council, when this comes up again, would strike subsection D entirely. If they're not willing to do that, you definitely should not approve this ordinance until that language is made more specific. I would ask, which companies and entities do you wanna sanction? Name them explicitly. If that includes the entire country of Israel, don't hide the ball. Some of you have made it very clear your legislative intent is to target Israel, but at least own up to that and hear what the public has to say in response. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Nick Giurleo, 40 Robinson Road. So obviously very happy that we're revisiting, you know, changing our zoning comprehensively, but I do have to count myself among those who think this process is moving too fast. And it's not because we're, you know, not spending a lot of time. you know, with various meetings, but this is just monumental changes, you know, inherently, they should be a slow process, it should be a slow process. I know you didn't want to hear general comments about speed. So I'll just discuss one thing in my short period of time here. I think my biggest concern, and it's been expressed by so many others, and it was expressed in part, I think, by the DPW, Commissioner Tite, is just the impact on services, right? Schools, DPW, fire, EMS, police. And as we heard from the DPW commissioner, you know, he can only really speak generally on the impact. He doesn't have any information. So that's why I think there'd really be benefit in getting studies done here that really give specifics on if population increases, you know, forecasting what that would have in terms of strain on our essential city services. So really, That, I think, is the most compelling argument for slowing things down. So I strongly support that. And I would just urge, I guess, finally here, all of you to really take your time with this and try to avoid political pressure from the council to rush forward recommendations. Because of just the drastic impact of these changes, it's super important that you take your time and try to do this in as scientific a way as possible. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Mr. Alejo, Forty Robinson Road. So for members of the public who might not be following, this letter from the mayor is requesting an appropriation of $8 million from our free cash balance, so over-budgeted taxpayer dollars, from a balance total of over $20 million for capital improvements. And as the letter indicates, this includes street and sidewalk improvements, Oak Grove Cemetery repairs, equipment and vehicles. If you recall, during the campaign to override Proposition 2 1⁄2 and raise our taxes, money was requested to fund the Department of Public Works. I'll quote from the ballot question that was approved, quote, general operations of the Department of Public Works, in parentheses, 500,000, including but not limited to additional staff for road and sidewalk infrastructure repairs. That was question seven. You also have to recall that supporters of the yes vote, including some members of this council repeatedly dismissed that we could use free cash as a substitute for raising taxes but you have to look and see what's happening here. We're using $8 million in free cash, that's what this comes down to, or at least putting it aside in a separate fund for that purpose. So I just as rhetorically you know why, given the amount of free cash that we had. that the people of our city were told raising taxes for $500,000 DPW money was necessary, and that we did suffer apocalyptic funding shortages if we didn't do it. So this isn't the first time though, that since the election, the free cash has been used to meet city funding needs. At a actually recent meeting I spoke at, the mayor requested 5 million from our free cash for HVAC repairs for the schools, another about 200,000 for security upgrades across the public schools as well. And that was approved by this council. So I view this in addition to what I discussed previously as just yet another vindication of that free cash argument. I think it's unfortunate taxpayers have to suffer as a result. So we can only hope that voters aren't misled again. And what I think is a likely event, we see another override on the ballot. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Thank you, Nick Giurleo, 40 Robinson Road. So it's very tempting for me to comment tonight on the substance of the case, but I won't. And I think there's a reason for that. And the reason is I personally believe that this holding of the United States Supreme Court doesn't have much to do with what this council is tasked with doing. So obviously SCOTUS rulings are binding on Medford, just like any municipality in the country, but this resolution really isn't about the applicability of the law as it might affect Medford and its people. To me, it seems more like a political statement, essentially, we don't like the outcome and that's fine. You don't have to like the outcome. But I'm just wondering, you know how the legal rationale right and it is pretty technical. It's talking about scrutiny, which is a very complicated legal concept, you know how that has anything to do and of course is about a law in the state of Tennessee, you know how that has anything to do with what the city council is supposed to be doing, you know, and to my knowledge, none of you are licensed attorneys and I don't see any indication this our new city solicitor contributed to this resolution in any way. And I just want to point out also that, you know, our city is facing a series of significant very local issues at the moment, like the zoning, as well as affordability, and really a host of other things. We had a talk tonight about a rat problem, right? These are very local Medford issues. And it's okay, right? You might think, you know, access to gender affirming healthcare is a local enough issue. And I probably don't disagree with that. But I think just practically speaking, if you look at just how the Massachusetts legislators composed at the moment, I don't think there's any chance it's going to pass a law banning access to gender affirming health care. So it doesn't seem like what we're talking about today is super consequential. So respectfully, I'm just going to put it out there. I don't think this is worth our time. I think there's other things we should be addressing before we worry about national political issues. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening again, Nick Giurleo, 40 Robinson Road. So I'll just devote my time to just putting some questions on the record that hopefully the council will be able to answer. So the first question is, what is the city invested in currently? And where can a member of the public get that information? I ask that because part of this ordinance is not just about investing, it's also about divesting. So I think it's important to know what we're invested in currently. The other question would be is just regarding subsection D of section 2 dash 697 so that's the part about no investment. of city funds and entities that severely violate human rights. I think it's a great idea, but I'm a little concerned about the vagueness. My question regarding this is who determines what a severe human rights violation is? The ordinance does reference international legal community, but what entity in the city is going to determine what the international community has to say about that? Is it the treasurer? Is it the council, the law department? Do we have anybody competent to do that at the local level? It seems not something that anybody in local government really would have knowledge about. So those are the questions I put out there. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: So, John, I was, I've lived my whole life in Medford. I grew up here from a hardworking family, Italian-American family. I went through the Medford public schools. I attended the Brooks for elementary, then the McGlynn for middle, and then I went to Medford High. At Medford High, I really focused on academics, so I studied hard. And I was fortunate enough to graduate number one in my class. After that, I decided I would go on to college, so I attended Tufts University. When I was at Tufts, I studied history and I studied international relations. I also did a minor in Italian. Graduated from Tufts, magna cum laude. and then went on to attend law school at Boston College Law. And there I had really excellent professors and a really great course of study. A lot of it was focused on municipal law and zoning and land use. I also had some clinical experience, too. I worked for a while as a prosecutor with the Malden District Court. And after that, I graduated from law school, and I took the bar exam. I passed on the first go, and I became a lawyer. And that's essentially what I do today. I've worked in criminal law a little bit. I worked for a law office in Medford Square for a while. And today I'm with a law firm in downtown Boston on State Street. It does primarily medical malpractice in court all the time defending rather prosecuting cases for people who are injured by doctors.
[Nick Giurleo]: It's a good question. I feel like the people who are considering voting for me, they should get an explanation for that because I think it's important to understand why somebody is running for elected office. So it's hard to summarize it in a few words, but to say it in a few words, or at least attempt to, I would say it's because I really do care about Medford. I love Medford. I've lived here my whole life. And I want to do, I think, what's best for Medford. I'm really just passionate about this community, and I feel like it has so much potential. I feel like a lot of it is untapped potential, so potential we could actualize. So that's a big part of it. And also, I've just been unhappy, I would say, with the way things have been going with city leadership. And I feel like we could be doing better. And I feel like I might have the qualifications to improve what's been going on in our city. qualifications primarily I'd say for my education just the fact that I've done a lot of school and I'm a lawyer and I think being a member of any sort of elected body you need to have kind of skills like that that a lawyer might have so I'd say all of that overall has kind of motivated me to run and for me it's very important you know it's easy to complain and say I don't like the way things are going but then we complain we don't take action. There you go. So for me, I said to myself, it's time to stop complaining and time to do something about that. So that's why I'm throwing my hat in.
[Nick Giurleo]: I like what you said at the beginning, that there are a lot of issues. We could sit here all day and talk, but obviously we can't do that, so let's just talk about, I think, what are the major issues, just like you asked. For me, I would say that the number one issue is probably affordability at the moment. We're seeing on the national level just an issue of cost of living. It's just becoming very expensive to live anywhere. But especially in suburban communities near big successful cities like Medford, it's just becoming really expensive to live in Medford. And I think there are various reasons why that's the case. So for me, I want to do something about the situation with affordability in our city. I feel like people are very worried and concerned, you know, how am I going to afford to stay in the home that I've lived in, you know, or my family's lived in, you know, for all our lives. So what can we do about that? How can we make this city an affordable place to live? I would say the next issue in terms of importance would probably be, and I think it's related to affordability, but economic growth. We're seeing a Medford, I think, that's stagnating a bit when it comes to economic development. So for me, this is something I want to address. What can we do to make our city more prosperous? What can we do to make our city wealthier and a wealth that everybody can have a part in? So what can we do to bring businesses to Medford, for example? What can we do to promote growth? So hopefully that's something I would be able to address if I were elected. And I would say, just maybe as a third one, just to kind of wrap up, what are the major issues here? I'd probably say it's transparency. I think we're seeing a significant problem with that currently. I think people feel left out. People feel like they don't understand what's happening at City Hall. People feel worried about this, concerned, maybe angry, upset. And I feel like information has been hard to get in a lot of circumstances. So I think transparency needs to be addressed. I think we need a Councilor who is going to address that.
[Nick Giurleo]: Sure. So for anyone who's following my speeches at city council or maybe read my op-ed in the Tufts Daily, it's no secret that I was very opposed to all three ballot questions that we were presented with in November. So I really kind of made it a point to be outspoken about that because I was deeply concerned about what I was seeing. So for anyone maybe not familiar, I'll just briefly recap them. There were three. The first one was $3.5 million for schools and DPW. This would be an override proposition, two and a half override. This is a state law that allows taxes to be raised over a certain cap. in a given fiscal year. Question 7 was a $4 million one for schools, and then question 8 was slightly different. It was called a debt exclusion, essentially a bond, $30 million for a new fire station. So these were the three questions Medford voters had to decide upon for the next election. So the reason why I was opposed, I had various reasons. The most important, I think, was just the burden this would have on residents. This would essentially be a massive tax hike that would really hurt people who are already struggling. I talked about affordability at the beginning. This was, I think, a major contributor to the affordability problems we're seeing today. This idea of any time we have a problem in the city, let's just raise taxes. That more money thrown at a problem fixes it. which I think there's misperceptions about that. So the tax impact was a big part of my opposition. And I also think there was a lot of kind of fear mongering that came behind putting these questions forward, what I call maybe scare tactics, that I don't think was supported by data at all. I can give you a specific example of that. I mean, there was talk of, you know, teacher salaries, for example. You know, oh, you know, our teacher salaries won't be competitive, but according to the Department of Education data, Medford salaries for teachers are competitive compared to elsewhere in the state. And this is data anyone can look up. There was also just a vagueness, too, you know, in terms of what is this money going to be used for specifically. We got general categories, like schools, DPW. Right. Fire station, but specifically, you know, where was this money going to go? You know, for me, I think for voters, you know, they should be entitled to know line item, in a line item manner, where money is going to go, specifically. So the fact that it was vague, you know, was another reason I felt like I couldn't support. And then another thing that just cannot be passed aside is just the free cash. that we have. Yes. Quite a bit. Quite a bit. It's gone up since the election. Yes. Funny how that happened. At the time, we had about $25 million, according to the Department of Revenue. But like I said, that's since gone up. And anyone who doesn't know what free cash is, obviously, it's not free. It does come from taxpayers. But it's essentially over-budgeted money in a given fiscal year that goes into a reserve fund that we're able to use for a broader range of purposes once it's certified. So we heard a lot of talk during the override campaign, oh, we can't use free cash to meet, for example, school expenses. But what did I see at a recent city council meeting? The mayor requested $5 million to repair deficient HVAC and the roofs at the middle schools. So $5 million that could have been used and is going to be used to net fund that. Right. Right. And then there was that same day there was another request for $200,000 for security upgrades across the school. So it really was misleading for people to say that free cash was just off the table completely. Right. I hear you. Yep. And then just kind of to wrap this up, I would say growth, right, was another alternative to raising taxes, right? If we're increasing the commercial tax base, for example, we're getting more revenue, right? And we can use that to meet funding shortages. So we ignored new growth as well as an alternative. to the overrides. You have to think also just of the diversity of our city, economic diversity of our city. What happens when taxes go up? Well, it drives out lower income people. It essentially gentrifies the city. So if you're concerned about gentrification, supporting tax hikes doesn't solve that problem. So we have to think of that. We have to think of how lower-income, middle-income people are going to be affected by tax hikes. Especially people on fixed incomes, too. You've got to think of seniors who are really struggling and barely getting by in a lot of circumstances. People with disabilities, as well.
[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, so another great question. I'll go back to what I said again earlier, this idea of untapped potential. Medford is a city that could be much better in a lot of ways. It's great now in a lot of respects, but there's so much more we could be doing. So for anyone not familiar, recently it was announced that there will be a very big development project coming to Medford Square, essentially three city-owned lots that are going to be transformed, a combination of mixed-use retail and residential, and nobody's denying this is going to fundamentally transform the square in terms of the way it looks, in terms of the way it's structured, who's living there, who's doing business there. So, I'd say it's quite early, this proposal was only announced very recently, so I think I would need more information to form a definite opinion yet on where I stand on the proposal itself. Right. But before I talk about maybe the questions I have regarding that proposal, I'll first say I think it's super important that we all dial in on the need to revitalize Medford Square. As a guy who's studied a lot of history, Medford Square in the past used to be a very different place. And I'm not talking like 100 years ago, and it was. No, you're not. But in decades past, it was a very different place. It was much more livelier and more of a kind of gathering spot for the people of our city. But now it's in very rough shape in a lot of respects. And there have been improvements, but not enough. And you have to look also, I always say this to people, you have to look at our neighboring squares and compare them to Medford Square. Think of Davis Square, for example. Central Square in Cambridge. Harvard Square in Cambridge. Kendall. I could go on and on. Yes, you can. Do all of these. resemble Medford Square? No. These squares, you have a lot of traffic, a lot of activity. They're booming in a lot of respects. But then you look at Medford Square, where I know people who live the next town over, you know, who move here from other places, and don't even know there's such a thing as Medford Square, you know, because there's so few reasons in a lot of respects to go, because it's difficult to park. The traffic is horrendous sometimes. So what can we do to support our local businesses there? They're awesome, they're great, I love spending my money there. I'd much rather spend my money there than at the big brand name shops. I agree. What can we do to improve them, right? Bring traffic to them, business to them. For me, like I said, it's the parking and the traffic. I think a lack of access by public transit's also an issue too. Yes, yep. Right, I think there's just bus routes at the moment, right? Yep. What are the other ways we can get people to the square? But then I guess just turning to the proposal itself, Like I said, I think it's still early to form a conclusive opinion on it, but there are questions that I have, and I'm just going to go through a few of them that I have. For example, referring to the business here, how will this proposal affect the businesses that are already there? That's something to think about. Parking, of course. We always have to be thinking about parking with any project. We can't ignore parking, period. And then another important thing is, you know, if you look at the map, where is this going to be? This is going to be right next to the senior center in Medford Square, right? So how is this going to impact the senior center? Is it going to pose any safety concerns, for example? Accessibility concerns to the senior center? So seniors who regularly frequent the senior center, they're major stakeholders in this. We have to talk to them. We have to make sure their opinions are heard on this project. And then also, we just have to think, you know, how will it look? I mean, the aesthetic impact, right? You got to think about how old these buildings are in Medford Square, you know, with this big, new, modern, towering structure, you know, fit with the buildings that are already there. Obviously, when it comes to looks, we tend to put that lower in our list of priorities, but it's still something to think about. We want our community to be beautiful, too. So those are the questions I have. Overall, my suggestion to the people who are involved with this would be not to rush this process. I think we need to slow down and we need to get adequate community input. One of the things we need to do is not just take community input, but actually actively change our plans based on what people have to say.
[Nick Giurleo]: any solutions any anything you can offer for that absolutely and like i said at the beginning this is a major aspect of my campaign here is i want to prove transparency in our city okay and i'd say i've included among these people who do feel left out in a lot of ways i think it's something many of us share So for me, I think we're seeing a lot of ways to try to reduce the ability of the public to participate, right, for the purposes of, I guess you could call it expediency, trying to rush things through and promote an agenda. But we have to look at the ways, number one, in which public participation was being reduced. So I can give you some very specific examples of that. We saw a resolution uh... last year to reduce the amount of time by several minutes in which people can participate in public comment at city council meetings uh... this is terrible right because it we're now in a position where people go up and they have to rush and say everything they have to say i think it's currently three minutes very very fast they often forget things and Sometimes there's pressure from the president of the council to immediately wrap up once that three minutes is reached. It's not like he says, oh, you can have a little more time. Most of the time, that's what's happening. We're seeing also just the meetings, how late that they're going. Many of them are going far past midnight. And you think of people who have to work the next day. Maybe they have to go to school or take care of children. There's all these different reasons. why, you know, a meeting running really late is not a good thing. So I think we have to look at ways we can try to make it so we don't have that problem. But we're also seeing some kind of procedural sneakiness, too, with, for example, sticking controversial things at the very end of the agenda so that we don't get to them until midnight. I mean, there was a resolution against anti-Semitism before the council recently. We didn't get to that until very, very late in the evening. But that's such a huge community issue, you know, it's something, why are we not considering that? In any event, it was tabled, so no one had a chance to say anything about it. I remember that, yeah. I can remember also a recent meeting in which we were talking about the charter and the charter was on the agenda along with other things that merited time but weren't as pressing as getting the charter to Beacon Hill. So what ended up happening was one of the Councilors moved to take it out of order and didn't even receive a second to do that. That's just horrendous. I mean, if anyone doesn't know what that means, like a second, you're not saying you approve. You're just saying, you know, I'm willing to have the discussion on this now. And they wouldn't even do that. This is just horrendous, in my opinion. And then immediately after that, someone else proposed a motion to take something else out of order. Sorry, a motion. And that was approved without question. So it's really just insane, a lot of the things that have been happening. So for me, I want to do things. like change the rules to allow the public more opportunities to participate and do something about these like midnight, 1 a.m. meetings. Everyone should have a chance to come to these meetings and say what they think. They shouldn't have to wait hours and hours and hours to talk for three minutes. It's just not right.
[Nick Giurleo]: That is the question, I would say. It's so easy to make promises, the hardest part is delivering on them. This is something I'm thinking about now. You know, if I'm fortunate enough to get elected, it's something I should be thinking about from day one. How am I going to make these things I want to change happen? So for me, I think the most important facet of it is listening. Listening to residents. What are residents thinking and feeling? And not just pushing them to the side. You know, we have our opinions and beliefs, and we should definitely stick to our principles. But at the same time, As an elected leader, we're not, there's some who say, you know, you're elected to make decisions, and that's not false. But as an elected representative, you are an agent of the people who vote you in. You know, I think of as being a lawyer, I mean, what's my job is to represent a client. My judgment's entrusted to make decisions for the client, especially legal decisions where there's a knowledge gap. But at the same time, I'm working for the client. The client isn't working for me. And the same thing is true with, I think, being elected representative is you have to do what the people want. So listening is a big part of making things happen. And then, of course, just common things like hard work, for example. It requires hard work and not laziness. Prudence, you know, being smart and listening and learning, teaching, and it's always good to admit when you don't know something. Right. And do the homework and research, right? We have a lot of, I think, elected leaders, not just in Medford, but everywhere, who say, you know, I know what to do, right? You know, they kind of jump to conclusions about things, and they don't take a step back and say, well, maybe I should reevaluate my own perspective. Maybe it's wrong in certain respects. What can I do to make it better?
[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, so I think there's kind of two ways to talk about it. Number one is like, literally, how do you get in touch with me, right? I live here in Medford, obviously, I like to go to events. I do have some social media pages for the campaigns. I have a Facebook, Nick Trelaya from Medford City Council. I also have an Instagram. So I've been posting regularly about what I've been doing and who I've been talking to on social media. So if you have social media, feel free to take a look. Of course, anyone who wants to just talk with me, feel free to just find me, reach out to me, give me a call, send me a text, ask to meet for coffee. I'm happy, honestly. you know, busy guy between what I do for a living and campaign activities, but I'm going to make time for everybody. Even people who don't agree with me, I encourage us to have conversations, right? Let's talk. Let's try to iron out, you know, what we don't agree upon. Because that's how it works. That's how you get things done is you cooperate. But in terms of just the other kind of aspect of your question, I'd say is, you know, where can you find me? Like, what do I like to do in Medford? I love Medford, I honestly do, and that's why I'm running. Number one place you'd probably find me is probably the library, right? I love the Medford Public Library, all the services it provides, just the space it offers for people who are interested in learning, and I'm a guy who just loves to learn, I love to read. So I like to go there a lot, hang out in the local history room, look at the yearbooks, look at the old historical documents, and just learn about Medford and how great a city it is. Also love being outdoors, enjoying the many beautiful things that Medford has to offer, like the Fells, Brooks Estate, Mystic Lakes, Mystic River. Always like being outdoors. You want to go on a hike with me? Feel free. Let's go on a hike. Talk politics and hike. Or just enjoy the beauty of nature.
[Nick Giurleo]: And then I can't not say also, I just love going to Medford businesses as well. I love going to the Square, having lunch there, brunch, wherever it is in Medford. Just love spending my money in my hometown.
[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, we do. We know how to eat in this city.
[Nick Giurleo]: Everybody in this city, regardless of ethnic background, we know how to eat in Medford.
[Nick Giurleo]: Thank you very much for having me here.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Nick Giurleo, 40 Robinson Road. So I just want to point out something that I noticed in looking at this resolution in comparison to the Sanctuary City Ordinance that we recently passed. So I don't think the resolution is actually consistent with the ordinance. So going to in the ordinance section 5105, there is a reporting requirement in there already. I'm going to just read a little bit from it. It says beginning on the date of passage of this ordinance and every six months thereafter, Medford chief of police shall submit a report with the information detailed below in a de identified manner relating to the preceding six months to, and then it goes on to say, the Public Health and Community Safety Committee of the Medford City Council. In accordance with the provisions of the open meeting law and then it goes on the list specifically what is to be included in this report total number of ice detainers administrative warrants. Account of each instance in which information was given to a federal immigration agency with the names of individuals redacted and so forth, so to me, it seems like. In order to make the reporting requirement more frequent, what would need to be done is amend the ordinance. So I don't think this resolution would be enforceable because, again, I think it's inconsistent with the ordinance. So I think at a minimum, what you should do is at least talk to legal counsel about this to see if there's a conflict and if the ordinance does need to be amended. But otherwise, I think more practically, I don't think this resolution is entirely necessary because there's already a reporting requirement. So I don't think it's necessary to pass. So those are my thoughts. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening Nick Giurleo, 40 Robinson Road. So for the members of the public who might not be following, Mayor's asking that money be appropriated from our free cash fund, essentially over budgeted money to pay for HVAC and roof work at the McGlynn and Andrews. Mayor's asking for $5 million to do that. Another item on the agenda tonight, there's another letter from her asking for almost $200,000 for security upgrades across the public schools also coming from the free cash fund. The second letter says that the balance of free cash at our disposal is over $27.5 million. And it says in that first letter that if we don't make this appropriation using our free cash, an additional almost $2 million per year would be added to the city budget for the next 30 years. That quote on our current free cash balance is even more than what the latest data available on the Department of Revenue's website indicates Medford has in certified free cash. We heard repeatedly during the override campaign arguments against the use of free cash to help meet our school's financial needs. We were told it wasn't a feasible substitute for raising taxes. I find it ironic that now we're almost half a year out from that election that we're proposing to do exactly what was said we cannot do, and that is using free cash to meet school funding needs. So I acknowledge there's a little bit of nuance to the arguments. Some said it was possible to use free cash, but not for long-term needs, and that's fair enough. But when we look at things like what is being proposed here, so infrastructure improvements that are intended to last in the long-term, it's hard for me to grasp how this wouldn't be an appropriation of free cash for long term school needs, which again we were told we could not do. That is all I have to say thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening. Nick Troleo, 40 Robinson Road. I was originally going to comment on the substance of this motion and just express some opinions about why I think it's overbroad and doesn't really do anything. I'm very frustrated with what procedurally happened leading up to this taking of this motion or this resolution, sorry, discussion of the ordinance out of order. I think it's really, really shameful that this Council would not second Councilor Scarpelli's motion to take the city charter resolution out of order and discuss that first. We're prioritizing here an ordinance on gender identity over our city charter, our constitutional foundational government, the changes in the city charter are going to significantly impact how elected officials are elected in Medford. So the fact that we would just not even second the motion and not even be courageous enough to vote no on it really is shameful. So I think everyone in this council who did that should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Hello again, Nick Traleo, Forty Robinson Road. Um I'd like to first just reiterate what I said in the earlier discussion about, you know, taking this resolution over resolution of the city charter. Again, concerning to me. But in terms of what happened to miss us Turk, I just like to offer a legal perspective given the lawyer and this is what I do for a living is think about legal problems. I think the issue is very narrow, to be honest with you, you know, because I think the legal questions really does a visa recipient. have that same right to freedom of speech as a citizen of the United States. And I'm not here to answer that question I mean it would require a great deal of research to try to understand what the law says on that subject. Ultimately, I think it's a question that judges have to decide and that's what's happening right it's being litigated in the federal court. So I think when we use inflammatory language, really on either side, right? Screaming about deportation or screaming about political imprisonment, it really doesn't help address this problem, which is to try to resolve a legal question. Another thing I'd like to just point out is I think this is a little bit beyond the scope of what the city council is tasked with doing, right? We're talking about federal immigration law here. I think every one of you would admit you don't have any jurisdiction. to handle that. Um so, you know, ultimately, if you're not happy with what happened with miss Oster, you do have a right to be upset about that. You do have a right to petition your elected representatives in Congress. Um but you know, let's try to respect what authority this city council has to actually do things. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Nick Trillio again, Forty Robinson Road. So, you know, the premise of this is actually great, right? Informing people of their rights. I mean, when I do my job of defending people accused of crimes, I mean, that's something I encourage, right? Know your rights. It's important. Everybody wants that. You know, it's just the issue with supporting a lot of these resolutions is hard just because of a lot of like the inflammatory language that gets put into them. that kind of politicizes the issue right like the issue at core here is like we should inform people of their rights, which is great, but then you have things like making blanket statements that, you know, federal law enforcement are like. disproportionately targeting non-white people, you know, when that's not really supported by any evidence that I've seen, you know, to me, that just unnecessarily politicizes these decent ideas behind the resolutions and makes it hard to support them. So I think if we can just get proposals out there that just get to the issues and avoid all the political fluff, we're going to actually accomplish more. And we're going to realize we actually agree on more than we think we do. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Nick Julio 40 Robinson road. I'll try to be brief but basically my point is I think it's very important that the council remember the last step in this process right the last step of getting this done and that is it goes to the people, the people are voting on the charter, right, so we wouldn't want to go through a process in which we finally get to the last stage of it, and then we get some sort of tragic outcome of the people reject the charter, because they feel like it doesn't reflect what they had believed over time it should contain. So that's why it's very important. I think the overarching consideration here should be, what do the people want? So it's important to put individual opinions and egos aside and look to that. So when it comes to ward versus district, when it comes to mayor on a school committee, we have to overall defer to what the people want. And when we have, Procedural issues like what we're going through now with the amendments, but also the fact that we didn't get the public comment until 1030 because we took other items up on the agenda first, despite the importance of this item, it really does diminish the ability of the council to understand what the people actually want, which will get us to that goal of getting a charter through. So I would just encourage all of you to really take that into mind. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Victor Leo, 40 Robinson Road. So with my comment I would just like to take a step back here and just remind the Council of kind of what is the overall goal of this process of getting charter out to the people to decide on. To me, it seems like one of the major objectives here is we need a charter that makes our local government accessible to the people of our city. Right. So I think it's just a matter of common sense. I'm not really going to advocate strongly for one of these systems or the other in this comment, but I think just as a matter of common sense, I lean kind of more towards the word based system as representing this way of getting people directly to their elected representatives so they can feel themselves heard. But kind of focusing on this process, you know, I would say that it really does seem like we're really speeding through it here. Like, I understand the charter review process has been going on for a while, but it really does seem like we're trying to make an extremely consequential decision that will dramatically impact our city at a very fast speed. So I think there would be value in potentially slowing things down and talking more to the people to try to get a better sense of what they actually want. So there are benefits of doing that. There's also other aspects of the charter we could take a look at that I think would deserve some of our time, right? You look at some of the provisions, changes that were being made to kind of make it easier to reduce public participation in our city government. You know, we can go back, we can look at those and try to eliminate those. So I think that's all I have to say. Thank you for listening.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening. Nick Giurleo, 40 Robinson Road. I'm going to just speak briefly tonight in favor of the A paper. And I think the simple reason is that, really, this is something that we should be discussing, right? Medford, in its entire history, never approved a Prop 2.5 override before. So really, regardless where you fall on the issue, it is an unprecedented time. for all of us. And as Councilor Scarpelli represented, you know, there seems to be some legitimate concerns across the city among residents as to, you know, what will the impact of this be. And the reality is taxes have gone up for everyone. And there is a huge cost of living crisis in the country. So it's really going to be harder now for members of our community to make ends meet. This council talks often about affordability and how they're concerned about affordability, so let's do it. Let's talk about affordability. And we really do have to continue to think of the impact, especially on the most vulnerable of the community, like the elderly, veterans, people who are suffering from disabilities. They face unique challenges. They deserve to be heard. So I really wouldn't see any kind of legitimate reason to have to go with the B paper here. I think the A paper is innocuous enough. I don't think it's political. I think it can be approved on its own. And just generally, you know, as for unhappiness over, I would say, the outcome of the election, while I personally think it's justified, I mean, I agree that really this was a decision of the voters. So, you know, if you're not happy with the outcome, express that unhappiness at the ballot box in November. It seems like we have a pretty significant difference of opinion here as to how are we going to meet city funding needs. So if you don't like the fact that these overrides passed, show up in November and vote out of office to people who supported them. Express that unhappiness. That's kind of how democracy works. So that's what I'll be doing, and I would encourage everyone else to do. That's all I have to say. Thank you for listening.
[Nick Giurleo]: Victor Alejo, 40 Robinson Road. So I'm here tonight to speak, again, against this ordinance. Although I do see some changes were made, like getting rid of effectively all of the section on enforcement. I still don't believe this ordinance is legal. And I think sooner or later, a court, probably the United States Supreme Court, to be honest with you, is going to strike it down, and it's like, as unconstitutional. The reason I believe this is, like I said the last time I was up here, is that it really does try to put local and state laws above federal law, which the Constitution prevents, as much as the city council might not like. That federal law says being in the United States unlawfully is against the law and could subject a person to removal, deportation proceedings. This is the law. If you don't like it, petition your representatives in Congress to do something about it. That's the remedy. The remedy is not to do what the city council is doing or attempting to do, which is act far beyond its legal authority. I spoke the last time about some practical reasons why I think this ordinance is bad policy. And I'll just reiterate them. I think even with the tempered language, the ordinance still does handicap to a significant degree, the police department's ability to do its job, which is to keep the community safe. And I just point as two examples here, look at 103D, talks about the police department not being able to initiate investigations. look at 103E, which limits the department's ability to make arrests. These are two fundamental functions of what police departments do. They investigate, and they make arrests of people who are not obeying the law. So us telling us, essentially, police departments don't do what you're designed to do, what you're supposed to be doing. And again, I understand there's tremendous intent tonight to approve this ordinance, but I would seriously just ask you to at least wait until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on this, because I'm telling you, there's going to be a case about this, and it's going to strike this down, and the city's going to be embarrassed, and it's going to show that Medford's leaders don't really understand the concept of limited government. That's what I have to say tonight. Thank you for listening.
[Nick Giurleo]: Nick Giurleo, 40 Robinson Road. Good evening. I just want to comment tonight for the public, primarily coming before you as a licensed attorney just what exactly is in this welcoming city ordinance as I read it. I think it's common for legislators and not just the city council, but really all legislators in general to use kind of soft kind of flowery language to describe what laws are really saying. So I think this welcoming ordinance is a pretty good example of that. What you might not realize, unless you actually read the fine print like I did, is that really the crux of it is not really to welcome anybody, but actually to just significantly hamper the police department's ability to do its job of working with fellow law enforcement to keep the community safe. So what do I mean by that? I think the ordinance essentially prevents the Medford Police Department from cooperating with all federal law enforcement and enforcing immigration laws. I think, in my opinion, this is not only illegal, but also a seriously concerning violation of the concept of limited government, or as we've been hearing a lot tonight, separation of powers. The ordinance, for example, says that Medford PD can't comply with immigration detainers, detainers being requests from the federal government to hold a person who's in the country unlawfully. So this means even if the Medford PD became aware a person was violating a federal immigration law, Medford PD wouldn't be allowed to do anything about it, which is confusing to me because it's the job of law enforcement agencies to enforce the laws and our city council and mayor making it essentially unlawful for them to do their jobs. The previous draft of the ordinance that I read mentioned a cause of action, basically giving an opportunity to sue the city at the taxpayer's expense if this ordinance were to be violated. I'm grateful to see that that's out of the ordinance now. But it was in there before, which I do think speaks to the motive behind this ordinance. Another thing that concerns me is the very end where it talks about the Medford Police Department, having to report data on its detainers, and you think that data would go to write to this legislator the city council but. That's not what it says. It goes right to the mayor, which is a little suspicious to me. So my legal opinion is I think this is a legal ordinance. And even if it isn't, it shouldn't be. And I think it just is a matter of policy, too. It's terrible. Shouldn't be on the books. That's my take. Thank you. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Nick Jorleo 40 Robinson Road. Before I criticize this resolution I'll just say, I'm sorry, President Bears you had to go through that that was very inappropriate. We probably disagree on a lot of things but nobody deserves to be treated like that so I guess
[Nick Giurleo]: we have to have civil discussions
[Nick Giurleo]: Thank you. I appreciate that. So now for the criticism. There's mentioned in this resolution here of cost of living, a cost of living increase.
[Nick Giurleo]: Okay, well I wasn't aware.
[Nick Giurleo]: Okay. Totally, totally gone. Great, so that makes it.
[Nick Giurleo]: not attacking you, the version of the resolution that I had in front of me said that, so I didn't know that that was taken out.
[Nick Giurleo]: Thank you. In any case... I should be nicer to you more often. We can have civil discussions in the city council, we really can, even though we disagree. But I'll speak about just in general then the cost of living issue. You know, our city, these overrides, this is what it was all about. I mean, this is what was raised as a problem, cost of living crisis across the country. I mean, we saw in the national election here that cost of living crisis really impacted voters. It really made a difference. It led to a very unexpected outcome. So it's something that can't be, in any context, when we're talking about raises, something that can be disregarded here. And we have to take, you know, what people are experiencing, what people are feeling, what people are suffering through into consideration. I mean, we can't be forgetting, as Bernie Sanders himself said, the working class people. I mean, we have to think about that. We have to think about the impact of our fiscal decisions. So that's just my general comments tonight. Thank you. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Nick Giurleo, G-I-U-R-L-E-O, 40 Robinson Road. So on the subject of the math, my question relates to essentially, you know, these overrides and so-called consequences of not passing them, of not approving them. So we're hearing kind of these expressions of certainty described what will happen if the overrides don't pass. We've heard from Councilor Bears, there will be cuts. We've heard from Councilor Leming, the roads won't be repaired. So my question is, you know, where is this math? I mean, where is, for the average citizen who's not a mathematician, you know, where are we going to see this data that shows that these consequences will actually result if these overrides don't pass? I've looked and I haven't really been able to find anything. So where do I go?
[Nick Giurleo]: Yeah, but data on- We're not doing follow-ups.
[Nick Giurleo]: To her response.
[Nick Giurleo]: Okay, just clarifying her answer, because I'm not quite understanding.
[Nick Giurleo]: I'm just, the clarification I'm requesting here is, are we saying that various reports and data showing that there are certain needs are the same thing as saying that if we don't pass this overrides, that this X or Y will happen? Are those two exactly equivalent? They don't seem exactly equivalent to me.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Nick Giurleo, G-I-U-R-L-E-O 40 Robinson Road. I'm speaking in favor of this resolution. I'm very happy to see it. Seniors really are important in Medford, so it's good to reach out to them in any way we can on issues that really will impact them. The way I see this resolution, it's just calling for a fairly innocuous community meeting to give our seniors some information on what these ballot questions are really all about. Given my personal opinion that approval of them will have a disastrous impact on seniors. I think it's very important to educate them on the issues so they can come to those conclusions themselves. My opinion is based on this just terrible cost of living crisis the country is facing. That crisis is due to fiscal irresponsibility. And it seems like these ballot measures, if approved, are really gonna be promoting that, which has led to this cost-of-living crisis. There really is, I think, some misinformation out there about what these ballot questions really are all about. We hear words being used, like investment, when we're not really saying what this really is, which is just taxation. People really are struggling. It's important to educate them on the issues so they can understand why they're struggling. And I would just highlight what the previous speaker said about the severe economic challenges that seniors throughout the country really are facing that I think we can all agree on. They're on fixed incomes. And data shows that when seniors on fixed incomes face unexpected increased costs, they're forced to forego necessities, necessities like food, necessities like prescription medications. really do have to be aware that recklessly raising taxes will have real consequences. You know, it's more than just harming the economic diversity of the city. In some cases, this could be life or death for people who are vulnerable. So I would encourage everyone to approve of this resolution. Thank you for listening.
[Nick Giurleo]: Nick Giorleo, G-I-U-R-L-E-O, 40 Robinson Road. I would just like to use my time tonight to speak in favor of Councilor Scarpelli's resolution and to provide a legal opinion on some of the legal issues that we've been talking about tonight. I'm a licensed attorney, so I feel that might be appropriate. I'm not speaking on behalf of any organization, just speaking here as a concerned citizen. So I've reviewed the materials here, I've reviewed Councilor Scarpelli's letter, the resolution, the law at issue, the rules at issue. Councilor Scarpelli claims that his rights under the statute 43-22 were violated. I have the statute here, I'll read from it. Any ordinance, order, or resolution may be passed through all its stages of legislation at one session, provided that no members of the council objects thereto. But if any member of the council objects, the measure shall be postponed for that meeting. Councilor Scarpelli says the statute's applicable, and that he invoked it at that June 25th meeting, and I agree with him. I was actually there at that meeting, and I heard him say that. I heard him invoke his right under that statute. Now, five financial papers were presented at that evening and passed through all stages of their legislation, as the statute says, at one session over Councilor Scarpelli's clear objection, an invocation of 4322. Therefore, a vote on those papers per the plain language of the statute here should have been postponed for the next meeting. My interpretation of that statute does differ from Councilor Tseng's interpretation. I think suspension of the rules through 32 was improper. State statutes do supersede all local rules of this council and any council in Massachusetts. And the council's own rules recognize this. If we actually look at the text of rule 32, the suspension rule, it states that suspension is only allowed, I'm quoting, insofar as these rules are not of statutory sources or origin. Rule 21 states that any finance paper appearing on the council agenda for the first time shall be automatically laid on the table for one week when such action is requested by any member. That's clearly of statutory origin, in my legal opinion here. By its plain language, you're basically codifying through that rule that we have in the council here, 4322. So in summary here, not only do I think the council violated 4322, I think it violated its own internal rules here. And more politically speaking, I would say our city really should be promoting financial transparency. So I really do believe a vote in favor here. about 30 seconds. I really do believe a vote in favor of here would do just that. So I'll support it. And also just stay for the record, my legal opinion here that, uh, I do believe Councilor Scarpelli has legally meritorious claims. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Nick Gioia, 40 Robinson Road. So there are a number of reasons why I'm opposed to all of these overrides, but there's one that I'd really like to bring to attention of the council tonight, just for the purposes of time. To me, it's just incredible how exceedingly vague they are. If you just read, for example, the one called To Invest in the Future of Medford Public Schools, we're talking about a humongous sum of money for general operations. What does that even mean, general operations? We have increased access to the arts. Well, what does that mean either? So you're asking the voters here to vote on something where they don't even entirely know what they're voting on. That's very concerning to me. Now, generally speaking, I think we have to acknowledge also that people really are suffering with taxation. The cost of living crisis in our country is incredible at the moment. There's a lot of economic data supporting that it's bad. So we're saying to ourselves, you know, increase taxes, but we're not really addressing the real impact on people who have to pay these taxes. right? Everyone wants services. Everyone wants to improve our schools, our roads. We have to acknowledge reality. We can't pay for things we can't afford. Another reason why people are leaving Medford, going other places, or not moving here in the first place is because it's too expensive to live here. And part of the reason, I'd say main reason it is, is because buying a home here requires you to pay enormous sums of money in property taxes. It's really an insufferable situation, and I really don't think these overrides are going to do anything to improve the economic diversity of our city, much less any of the other problems we've been talking about tonight. So for those reasons, I'm very opposed to these overrides. As much as I love the Medford public schools and I want to increase services, we have to be realistic here. We have to do what we're able to do. This is coming from a guy who went to Medford High, who was number one in his class. I really do care about this city, but I have to acknowledge reality first. Thank you.
[Nick Giurleo]: Nicholas Jorleo, Forty Robinson wrote, I'm speaking tonight in opposition to this resolution. There's talk of efficiency, there's talk of, this is about making the process more open to other people, so they don't have to wait, because maybe people have to go to work tomorrow, or there's other reasons why they don't want to stay the whole night and wait for their turn to speak. To me, though, I just don't buy that. I really do think this is pretextual. I really do think this is an attempt to limit democracy in Medford. And it's very sad, it's very troubling. This is a public forum here. This body of elected officials is supposed to be accountable to the people of Medford. We should have an opportunity to stand up here and tell you what we think. Now reflected in the previous debate here on the registry resolution, it's very clear here that this council doesn't really want to listen to the popular will. Every single person who spoke here tonight was opposed to the registry resolution and it passed. Aside from one councilor who had a change of conscience and another who was opposed from the beginning, the resolution passed without any sort of consideration of the public input. And it really reflects how detached from reality the city council is. It's sad. They're not reflecting the popular will here. I'm a person, I have to wake up at 6 a.m. to go to work every day. I don't wanna stay here all night to speak here for a few minutes about an issue. I wanna go to bed, I wanna go home, spend time with my family, relax, read a book, do something normal after work. But I wait, I wait my turn, I wait patiently, I stand up here, I speak, I say what I have to say. It's part of the process. We can't be limiting public availability here. We can't be limiting public participation in debate. This resolution is really, it's despicable. Mr. Scarpelli was exactly correct. Thank you, I'm opposed.
[Nick Giurleo]: We must always recognize that- 30 seconds, Travis.
[Nick Giurleo]: You have 30 seconds, Pri.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Councilors. My name is Nicholas Shirleo. I live at 40 Robinson Road. I'm a lifetime Medford resident, an attorney, and director of an international relations publication. I'm not speaking on behalf of that publication tonight. I am, though, speaking in opposition personally to the resolution. Putting aside why the council is spending time crafting legislation on international politics when our city faces plenty of problems on its own, the proposed resolution in effect supports the totalitarian government of Cuba, a socialist dictatorship with a horrendous human rights record. As Human Rights Watch, one of many organizations, has highlighted, Cuban government human rights abuses have included arbitrary arrests of activists and independent journalists, torture of prisoners, significant repression of free speech, and extrajudicial killings. Nearly a million people have fled Cuba's communist regime. Imagine some or many have called Medford their home. We should embrace these people, not tout Cuban government propaganda at our city council meetings. Put simply, a vote for this resolution is a vote in favor of the current regime. The United States of America should not be doing business with dictatorships. Why would Medford support the contrary? Thank you.