[Patrick Clerkin]: Patrick Clark in 50 Princeton Street.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I actually like this idea.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I thank the Councilors that put it forward for putting it forward.

[Patrick Clerkin]: But I also think it's half the story.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So I do think that people tend to, not everyone, but a lot of people tend to bloviate and they tend to like a gas fill whatever space is given to them.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And I think that Medford is going through a tough time of transition and transformation right now, and that we're pretty dysfunctional.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And so I do think that it is important to have some measures like this in place to, to sort of

[Patrick Clerkin]: rain people in a bit and I think in a functional city, you have the public and the governing bodies, holding each other accountable, as well as having some degree of self regulation but you can always rely on the self regulation so

[Patrick Clerkin]: I like what was put forward, and I like that Councilor Callahan suggested some alternatives to it as well.

[Patrick Clerkin]: The other half of this, though, is that I think that the council should potentially consider, and the committee's address is part of this, but putting maybe less agenda items per agenda.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And then the second thing, and I've mentioned this before, is staying within the realm of local issues, because bringing in national and global issues as well

[Patrick Clerkin]: a couple weeks back, Gaza and the embargo in Cuba, tonight talking about some of the big oil company issues.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Those might touch on local issues to some extent, but I think that it also massively extends the conversation beyond the local purview.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And we'll, as time goes on,

[Patrick Clerkin]: very much track, like even if everything that was talked about here was put into effect, I think that it would still extend the conversation into the hours of the night.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So something that I've been focusing on on the side is just filling the communications and information void in the city.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And if outside of council, some of the councillors wanted to talk to me on how to better reach the public in certain ways, I'd be open to that conversation.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Thank you.

[Patrick Clerkin]: We're gonna go- And that was two and a half minutes, by the way.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Patrick Lurken, 50 Princeton Street.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Like Councilor Tseng, I'm a man who appreciates nuance.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And on this particular topic, I think that it's an example of a mistake we all often make, which is comparing the best aspects of something that we support with the worst aspects of something that we don't, rather than the best and worst aspects of both.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And so really what I'm addressing here is kind of the philosophy behind this rather than kind of the details of it.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And I think one of the mistakes that's made with with fossil fuels and I have many many criticisms against the fossil fuel industry, and it's negative externalities, but we're comparing a mature industry with against an industry that isn't mature yet which is renewables.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So,

[Patrick Clerkin]: Fossil fuels is a fully scaled enterprise at this point.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And it's sort of like comparing Facebook as a startup to Facebook as a mega corporation, because we are not really aware of the externalities of scaling renewable energy yet.

[Patrick Clerkin]: We don't know the externalities of scaling windmills or solar panels.

[Patrick Clerkin]: We have small arrays of these things so far.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Everything, once you scale it, has

[Patrick Clerkin]: side effects and has unintended consequences.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So windmills, for example, you have to source the materials from all across the globe through supply chains, some of which might be in fraught regions which require forever wars like oil has, some of which might require child labor to produce, some of which might have

[Patrick Clerkin]: byproducts that you have to accumulate in big open pits.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Some of them might have concentrated waste products like nuclear fuel.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Some of them might have dispersed waste products like the CO2 emissions of fossil fuels.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So when you really look at this from a systems level perspective, which we're not really used to doing, there's a lot of

[Patrick Clerkin]: complexity and a lot of nuance.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And I just want to remind people that while the fossil fuel companies are by no means saints, they're also not

[Patrick Clerkin]: purely villains either.

[Patrick Clerkin]: We do live in a world that has been for better or worse defined by the industrial revolution.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And I think that fossil fuel companies just like renewables companies are improving their products all the time.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And so we should just keep this in mind when we put these carrots and sticks in place.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So thank you.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Patrick clerkin 50 Princeton Street.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I'd like to start off by commending Councilors Callahan and Leming for putting this motion forward.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I am pretty passionate about history and I have learned about the history of the Cold War and the war on drugs and how they relate to this particular issue of entheogenic and psychedelic substances.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And I started really getting into this when I started noticing the trends and rises in depression and anxiety, chronic depression and anxiety, deaths of despair, the opioid crisis, as mentioned.

[Patrick Clerkin]: PTSD.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And I heard about these trials that were being done at John Hopkins University, my curiosity, a lot of the people that suffered from these things saying that this was using some of these substances really psychologically healed them in a way that some of these holistically healed them in a way that some of these more kind of reductionists artificially derived substances like, like,

[Patrick Clerkin]: oxycontin would not do.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And so I thought to myself, if I'm going to potentially advocate for these, I want to know more about them directly.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Long story short, I myself ended up trying them.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I tried ayahuasca several times, I tried 5-MeO-DMT psilocybin, and I come up here not to just drop that in front of everyone, but to say that

[Patrick Clerkin]: I can speak personally to their possibilities and their limitations, and I would put myself forward as someone who would help you to advance this.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So, thank you.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Patrick Clark in 50 Princeton Street.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I want to commend Councilor Lazzaro for putting this motion forward.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I share conditional enthusiasm for biannual DEI training and encourage City Council's consideration of the following conditions.

[Patrick Clerkin]: DEI training could be folded into an overall city employee training, also including nepotism and conflict of interest, where all three together will bring forward the most competent and qualified candidates.

[Patrick Clerkin]: The nepotism section would emphasize prevention of the old boys club of private deals and back-slapping, where family lineage and patronage determine qualification for government service.

[Patrick Clerkin]: The DEI section could emphasize variety and integration of broadly cross-sectional experiences and skills across government, in practice and in recruiting, as opposed to simply patronizing box-ticking visual diversity, which can also lead to poor qualifications along a path parallel to nepotism.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Three, the conflict of interest section could emphasize public disclosure of membership in or receipt of resources from state, national, or global organizations, whether they be in the form of a hierarchy or network whose stated goals undermine the fulfillment of responsibilities as an employee of the city of Medford.

[Patrick Clerkin]: These trainings would not only be undergone by city employees during their tenure, but also publicly disclosed and advertised in a place of common access during campaigns or before hirings.

[Patrick Clerkin]: This would fulfill both the calls for transparency, competence, and integrity within government and between the public and one fell swoop.

[Patrick Clerkin]: If implemented and followed in the true spirit of this proposal, these measures will prevent the kind of mob formation, trials by ordeal, and loyalty tests recently depicted in the film Oppenheimer from being carried out in Medford.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Times of high confusion, stress, and suspicion coupled with low transparency have often congealed into culture wars attempting to rip some bogeyman or folk devil out by the roots.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Witches, communists, fascists, Jews, racists, anti-Semites.

[Patrick Clerkin]: We could take a wider lens on what DEI, in union with other measures, could do for Medford's future, or we could see it turn into proving one's diversity credentials in an oppressive, harassing, ultimately counterproductive manner equal and opposite to proving one's patriotism credentials.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Let's proceed wisely.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Thank you.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Yeah, if you need to find me.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So my concern with this, not to take away from any of the testimony from the Gaza issue earlier, it was powerful and it was meaningful.

[Patrick Clerkin]: My concern is really the precedent that it sends that

[Patrick Clerkin]: If Gaza or if Cuba are local issues, then what isn't?

[Patrick Clerkin]: You know, I mean, should we be talking about the Rohingya Muslims?

[Patrick Clerkin]: Should we be talking about the Uyghurs in China?

[Patrick Clerkin]: Should we be talking about what's going on in Colombia and Argentina and anywhere in the world?

[Patrick Clerkin]: I mean, in a sense, yes, but should it be here in these chambers?

[Patrick Clerkin]: I think that there's

[Patrick Clerkin]: we have to start to put some structure in place where, you know, there's personal matters, there's local matters, there's state matters, there's national matters, there's global matters, and they're all important, but, and I completely agree that Medford is not this, you know,

[Patrick Clerkin]: completely sealed off entity it were affected by by immigration were affected by by technology changes were affected by inflation.

[Patrick Clerkin]: We're not her medically sealed but.

[Patrick Clerkin]: the amount of energy that will go into fighting global issues in these chambers will pull energy away from all of these other things that truly are locally confined issues.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And it's like the body needs to continue to function.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And if you pump all the blood towards one organ, then all the other organs start to die.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I know that's not maybe the best analogy, but it's the best analogy I can think of.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So I just wanted to put that on the record.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Thank you.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Hi, Patrick Clerken, 50 Princeton Street.

[Patrick Clerkin]: A lot of great comments made here tonight.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I just wanted to add the comment that I felt like I think we've gotten significantly past this, but I think when this was first brought up by Nicole back in December, the initial argument for it.

[Patrick Clerkin]: was a little bit reductionistic in the sense of bringing pay parity between council and the committee, just because I understand historically the difference between men and women and that still exists to some extent, but because the committee and the council are both mixed at this point, it's a little bit comparing apples to oranges.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So I wanted to request if possible, just for public edification,

[Patrick Clerkin]: a simple diagram that compares basically what council does and what school committee does and how they should be potentially brought up to equity or not.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Is it based on the hours worked overall?

[Patrick Clerkin]: Is it based on the content of the work?

[Patrick Clerkin]: Because it's not necessarily the same.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I don't know for sure what, and I think probably a lot of people in Medford don't know for sure what each of these two bodies does, and so it would be difficult to understand

[Patrick Clerkin]: how they could be brought up to parity or if they should be brought up to parity.

[Patrick Clerkin]: And I just want to add that just like when you're talking to people and you meet them for the first time and you hear their name and it goes in one ear and out the other, a lot of the times if we don't have these diagrams or simple ways to understand these things, when you just hear the information in a stream, it just goes right out the other side.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So anything

[Patrick Clerkin]: with this issue and with future issues, that's like a simple diagram or something that could be posted in a public place would really help.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So thank you.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Once again, Patrick Clark in 50 Princeton Street.

[Patrick Clerkin]: I just wanted to be simpler with what I said before, which is it basically comes down in my eyes to, if this is a question of equal pay for equal work, you have to make sure that you're comparing equal things.

[Patrick Clerkin]: If it was comparing a school committee that was all men and a school committee that was all women that were getting different pay, that would be one thing, but you're changing multiple variables.

[Patrick Clerkin]: You're comparing not just

[Patrick Clerkin]: men and women, mixed bodies, but you're also comparing a school committee and city council.

[Patrick Clerkin]: So you either have to demonstrate that it is equal work or if it's not equal work, you have to demonstrate why there should be equal pay for an equal work.

[Patrick Clerkin]: That's basically what I wanted to say.

[Patrick Clerkin]: Thank you.