[Penta]: My name is Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, Medford, Mass.

[Penta]: Having served on this board some years ago, the city of Medford and Tufts University engaged in the pilot, a million dollar pilot program.

[Penta]: And the pilot program consisted of six students from Medford, six students from Somerville, who'd be able to go to Tufts University for nothing.

[Penta]: The million dollar cash part of the program consisted of three years of getting cash up front with the remaining portions of the money to be used for

[Penta]: I think there could have been fire or police equipment here in the city of Medford.

[Penta]: Now that hasn't been followed through since, for what reason, I don't know.

[Penta]: But the idea of taxing up to 25% relative to the nonprofit, whether it's Tufts University or someone else, I guess you haven't hit the dollar mark yet of where you're gonna go.

[Penta]: But speaking with leaders up at the State House, the one thing that the City of Medford hasn't done, as other cities and towns done, you have not moved to provide an amendment to the CPA tax, which would include affordable housing.

[Penta]: And as a result of that, and knowing that the Commonwealth now does not give back to the City of Medford from their surplus to the CPA, it's all going to be on cities and towns, excuse me, individually.

[Penta]: So I think the city of mid that has an opening over and beyond your 25% also to amend the CPA to now include affordable housing.

[Penta]: You know, you give it to churches, you've given it to schools into swimming pools and open space and land.

[Penta]: This is a great opportunity right now for you as a council, first term especially, to move forward on your reps and on your senators to make this amendment.

[Penta]: You're not getting rid of the CPA, you're amending it.

[Penta]: And by amending it to put this inclusion in there, this will be your first step along with your 25% for the purpose of going forward to get your affordable housing.

[Penta]: The other part of affordable housing is very simple.

[Penta]: What has the city of Medford, can you folks, any one of you here,

[Penta]: give an accounting of how much money has been used for affordable housing, where has the location's been, where is the land, and where has the working relationship taken place between a private contractor coming in with the city of Medford to provide affordable housing along with regular housing.

[Penta]: I don't think you have a big inventory on that.

[Penta]: And I think if you keep talking about affordable housing, you keep talking about the transfer tax, you keep talking about the registry, I think you should start there.

[Penta]: Because if there's nothing on the books right now, I think you need to get your feet wet in that particular area, get your base set up before you go into this next move.

[Penta]: 25% sounds good.

[Penta]: I think you need an inventory of all the property in the city method that's tax exempt.

[Penta]: And I'm quite sure you'll find

[Penta]: There are other pieces only on Tufts University where you can get that 25% from.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: But a few years ago up in Beacon Hill, before the 25% came into play, there was a percentage ratio that went, like I believe Tufts University at the time had a $30 million endowment.

[Penta]: And there was a dollar amount that was set on the endowment that the school had.

[Penta]: as to what percentage it would go.

[Penta]: Now, Tufts doesn't have a large endowment.

[Penta]: It's not like Harvard University that's into the billions of dollars.

[Penta]: But there was a dollar amount, you may want to check this out once again, do your homework, go to Beacon Hill and find out what that legislation was.

[Penta]: Unfortunately, it didn't pass because as you said before,

[Penta]: Academy of colleges and universities.

[Penta]: But still, it's a stepping stone to go forward.

[Penta]: You know, and these are all pilot programs that you can look into, just because somebody is multi rich, like having I mean, Tufts University, you might find other locations where, you know,

[Penta]: Listen, if you treat one one way, you got to treat them all the same way.

[Penta]: And it might be better to have a universal thing rather than go to the 25% and just go for the biggest one.

[Penta]: Because if you can work on all of them, maybe in the long run, you'll be able to get more in the long run than just grappling at the first one.

[Penta]: But what you don't have right now in your inventory, you might have that, which I can vote, but you don't have the physical ground locations with new and additional affordable housing can go in and working toward that with getting this money, whether it's again, the 25% of the affordable housing of the CPA money, whatever it might be.

[Penta]: Understood.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Mr. President, can I speak on that first?

[Penta]: No.

[Penta]: Did you withdraw it?

[Penta]: Mr. Chairman.

[Penta]: Robert Pinto, Zero Summit Road in Medford, Mass.

[Penta]: Regarding the public letter that was written on April 16th regarding House Bill, I believe it's 3128, the Affordable Home Act.

[Penta]: In that particular bill,

[Penta]: There were transfers fees also that could be beneficial to a community that were discussed.

[Penta]: And there was seven inclusions as it related what you could and could not do, which also had an opt-in and an opt-out proviso in that bill.

[Penta]: But I'd like to, to you, Mr. Chairman, I want to get to your letter of April 28, where you sent out a notice saying, correcting the record on Medved's plans to address the housing crisis.

[Penta]: And two particular paragraphs were sort of like, watch me.

[Penta]: The first, the first one states the following.

[Penta]: The City Council and the City Planning staff are working on zoning rebuild reforms to allow more housing to be built, reduce permitting and regulatory burdens for private property owners, encouraging major economic development, and require construction of more

[Penta]: subsidize affordable housing units.

[Penta]: We are also working on policies to benefit good landlords like the Good Landlord Tax Credit.

[Penta]: And the second paragraph reads, the final piece of that comprehensive approach

[Penta]: is anti-disbursement policies targeted at the large corporations who are buying properties, jacking up rents, and earning a huge profit by knocking out long-time residents and making unnaturally affordable units too expensive for the average person.

[Penta]: I understand what you wrote, but I don't understand who these large corporations that are coming in here into the city of Medford and they're dispersing people.

[Penta]: I see houses that are bought by individuals who had an opportunity to buy a single family or two family house as an individual, but not as a corporation.

[Penta]: And you sent this out apparently because you wanted to allegedly, you know, correct something that was sent out.

[Penta]: But if I were to see this as I did see it, I'm confused right now because I don't know of any major large corporations that have come in to the city of Medford and bought single or two family homes.

[Penta]: either tore them down, rebuilt them, and sold them for large profit.

[Penta]: I know individual people have done it.

[Penta]: But when you say large corporations, it makes it look like this city is now being overrun by large corporations.

[Penta]: And if you're going to address that through your zoning and your community development,

[Penta]: The wording is very important.

[Penta]: And this type of wording makes it look like corporate America has just taken over the city of Medford, making it unaffordable for people to live here.

[Penta]: And that's not fair.

[Penta]: You also have the opportunity of a business person or a business lady who may be able to come in here, can afford to buy a single or two or a three family house, do it over, and if they can make a profit, so be it.

[Penta]: If the city really wants to get into affordable housing and low and moderate income housing,

[Penta]: They've had the last eight years to talk about this and do something.

[Penta]: And if they're not going to do it, then maybe it should be on the burden of the city council.

[Penta]: And maybe you just you guys and girls, you just voted tonight on a CPA to give more money out, maybe to a place in the Brooks Estates.

[Penta]: But put that aside.

[Penta]: If you're really concerned and really serious about affordable housing, you should start putting all your pennies together on all your nickels and all your dimes and all your resources where the money can come in.

[Penta]: and really have a second look.

[Penta]: You know, when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I think it's could be almost 12-13 years ago, came out with the CPA tax, we were supposed to, like other cities and towns, get a percentage of what the profit was on the state's annual profit.

[Penta]: We haven't gotten anything.

[Penta]: So you're really putting the burden right back on the Medford taxpayer, or the Medford city government to go forward and look for that type of development, look for that type of money.

[Penta]: Well, here's your chance.

[Penta]: Before you get into the, you know, Worcester just got through passing, I don't know if you folks realize it, they just got through passing on April 29th, March 9th of this year.

[Penta]: The registry as it relates to single and two family and three family homes.

[Penta]: They had that, they voted on that in September of 2022.

[Penta]: And it took them two years before they implemented it.

[Penta]: They are now meeting in their next main meeting to make revisions to it because of the pushback, because there's a lot of stringent material into that registry.

[Penta]: But the best part about the whole thing, as the city manager said, he's willing to make changes and tone it down.

[Penta]: Can you imagine having, if you don't go and register, you're gonna get a $300 fine, and every single day you don't register, it's a $300 fine?

[Penta]: That's kind of excessive, really excessive.

[Penta]: I mean, you don't wanna go to these extremes.

[Penta]: And what you do wanna, if you really believe in what you're talking about, you wanna have a full-blown discussions with the pros and the cons, and how this thing can or cannot work, and how does it fit into the city of Medford's lifestyle.

[Penta]: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, I do not see large corporations coming into our city in Medford, street after street, buying and taking over real estate, turning it over and making a huge profit.

[Penta]: If a single person, be it yourself or any member of the council, has the ability to do it, good luck to you.

[Penta]: That's what America is all about.

[Penta]: If you're trying to reduce the rents, you're trying to reduce the cost of living, trying to reduce everything else, then speak to your state legislature, speak to your federal authorities.

[Penta]: They're the ones that should be looking out for you, just as well as your local authorities.

[Penta]: You're welcome.

[Penta]: My name is Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, former member of this August body, and I'm really getting confused.

[Penta]: It's been almost eight years since I've been back before this council, and I've been here three times since December.

[Penta]: And I feel like there's something wrong with this council.

[Penta]: You're going in a direction that doesn't speak about the Medford City Council taking care of Medford City issues, streets, sidewalks, okay?

[Penta]: Also, my concern with this is, is the City of Medford City Council going to go into a public service agency?

[Penta]: by going into housing and being property reviewers, and you talk about a registry that a homeowner has to go and apply, well, I'm quite sure you're gonna charge them a fee.

[Penta]: And it's another money grab for the city of Medford, unfoundly, and it's wrong.

[Penta]: And in the very last line of your document here, Councilor Lazzaro, I mean, excuse me, Councilor Callahan, I apologize.

[Penta]: you indicate that this is going to be good for our climate and our affordable housing goals.

[Penta]: Well, let me ask you something, as you folks going to manage this, you know, you have a program here that you want to create a review between now and when I don't see any name here as it relates to a real estate group of people that should be involved.

[Penta]: Because if anybody knows the whereabouts of the city, and the renters, it would be the real estate people because they're the ones that are renting out.

[Penta]: not renting in.

[Penta]: So what purpose would the city council have to try to tell a real estate agent or its company that this is who you have to rent to?

[Penta]: These are the type of people and then what are we going to do stop making a registry of who you are renting to and be discriminatory.

[Penta]: In fact, in the future, toward a certain class or an ethnic group of people.

[Penta]: city of Medford last year, and once again, this year put out in their documents, a it's called a notice of tenant rights and resources.

[Penta]: And if you look into the tenants rights and resources, it also makes reference to what the state law allows you.

[Penta]: Now, if there's something wrong with a tenant or renter, they have many places to go, they can go to

[Penta]: MCAD in Boston, they can go to state real estate board, you can go to your right downstairs here.

[Penta]: And you can also go to the public health department.

[Penta]: Right now they have five available ways for renter feels that they're being in frowned upon.

[Penta]: But every good real estate broker knows whether it's in the city of Medford or any other place, that the fact of the matter is they're going to try to get the best person that they can, who can afford to pay the rent, and it's not going to be subject to a background check to their ethnic background.

[Penta]: Because that unfortunately, is where this is going to go.

[Penta]: Because once you get somebody in there, they're going to want to know where did you come from?

[Penta]: Let me see your references.

[Penta]: And where were you renting last?

[Penta]: That's not what this council's job is all about.

[Penta]: What an answer!

[Penta]: Pardon me?

[Penta]: You don't know you haven't gotten there yet.

[Penta]: You just you just have you just I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here and say that we're going to hear you have discrimination as the chair as the chair.

[Penta]: I didn't say you were you said you're going to put a registry.

[Penta]: Mr. President, what's the registry going to include?

[Penta]: Ask the maker of the motion.

[Penta]: You cannot come here with resolutions and not be able to answer the questions for what you're looking for.

[Penta]: Then you don't belong here.

[Penta]: Go someplace else.

[Penta]: Okay.

[Penta]: I'm just frustrated.

[Penta]: And probably taking it out on all of you.

[Penta]: But I am taking it out on you for a particular purpose.

[Penta]: I'm going to repeat myself.

[Penta]: I have a bad habit of repeating myself.

[Penta]: Please just do what you were elected to do.

[Penta]: Well, you guys went out there and campaigned and rang on the doorbells and asked people to vote for you.

[Penta]: Did you tell him you wanted to put a registry for housing in there?

[Penta]: No.

[Penta]: No.

[Penta]: Let me just conclude by saying the following.

[Penta]: Well, you know something, just relax.

[Penta]: You had a little do to do with their Councilor Scarpelli.

[Penta]: You took my time up.

[Penta]: I'm gonna ask Mrs. Callahan, I'm gonna ask Mrs. Callahan to withdraw the motion.

[Penta]: and think this thing through, if you really think it's worth something, come back at another day with definitive answers.

[Penta]: So you don't have an audience that's screaming and yelling that they don't want it.

[Penta]: Maybe there is something that can work its way out.

[Penta]: Maybe if you work with the real estate brokers in this city, it can make some kind of sense.

[Penta]: And the two person homeowner doesn't have to pay a fee to get himself registered or her registered.

[Penta]: And at the same time, there's going to be none of this background check

[Penta]: that revolves itself around where I am, who I am, what my ethnic background is, what my financial status might be- Thank you, Mr. Penta, your time is up.

[Penta]: No, wait a minute, wait a minute.

[Penta]: Wait a minute, I'm not through yet.

[Penta]: You took time away from me to talk to Councilor Scott.

[Penta]: Robert Penta zero summit road former member of the August body.

[Penta]: Number one local government is what it's all about.

[Penta]: So we're not talking about state government here.

[Penta]: We're not talking about federal government and I don't really care what was on that shot about other cities and towns.

[Penta]: We're talking about our city of Medford.

[Penta]: And for 12 consecutive years, his name was Council President Bob Miyako, it was emphasized every single night during those 12 years of city council meetings, that this was the people's forum.

[Penta]: This is the only place that they could go for redress, whether they went to a department, the mayor, what have you, they were dissatisfied.

[Penta]: And there were nights we stayed here till 12 and one o'clock in the morning.

[Penta]: And that didn't bother me because that's what the job was all about.

[Penta]: First and second of all, if you have a meeting as you've had over the past, since December now coming forward, when you have lines of people waiting to speak, let them speak first.

[Penta]: The people at home, they're sitting in their chairs, they're sitting in their comfort zone.

[Penta]: You have people here that need to go to work the next day, have paid for a babysitter, or just came down here because it's finally got to them.

[Penta]: Something is really interested.

[Penta]: Two of your free people that are sponsoring this,

[Penta]: have never done anything here in the city of Medford that should even qualify them to make a result of going to two minutes.

[Penta]: And then you go from two minutes to three, just like that.

[Penta]: I mean, that's the way it was the consideration for that.

[Penta]: Why don't you just keep it at five minutes.

[Penta]: In 2022, you went from 10 to five and everything seemed to work out.

[Penta]: And the only reason why these meetings are getting to be as long as they are, unfortunately, because you're every other week.

[Penta]: So maybe you should go back to being every week.

[Penta]: And that way the the agendas won't be as long and they won't be as contentious.

[Penta]: But to worry about the length of time that you would have to sit here, you get $30,000 a year to supposedly represent the people of this city.

[Penta]: And don't you dare think you're gonna come back here and ask for a pay raise because you have to stay late at night and you do committee meetings.

[Penta]: That's crazy.

[Penta]: If anything, it would be wise for you to make a decrease in your salary because of the conditions that the city of Medford is in right now to show and put your good fest forward.

[Penta]: But that'll never happen.

[Penta]: just like a pay raise will probably come forward.

[Penta]: You know, the sad part about this whole thing is, again, you're spending time on what?

[Penta]: Just tell me what is so bad to sit here and listen to someone for five minutes?

[Penta]: What is so bad that you have to go and look at another community and see what they do?

[Penta]: You're talking about Medford.

[Penta]: And if you spent your time doing your homework, when you're out there campaigning, you would realize you're talking about Medford, not Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville, Malden, or Everett, or Chelsea,

[Penta]: Let me ask any one of you when you're out campaigning, and you rang the doorbells for your votes.

[Penta]: Did you spend more than two minutes and say, I've got to go.

[Penta]: I only give them two minutes to speak to you.

[Penta]: Of course not.

[Penta]: That would be the height of insulting.

[Penta]: But you want to insult people coming up here who pay your salary with our tax dollars.

[Penta]: That's a shame, that is wrong.

[Penta]: And not to single anyone out of you, I'm gonna blame all of you, because if all of you vote for the craziness of this, and I call this a stupid resolution, because it makes no sense in the interest of good government.

[Penta]: You can talk about Harvard all you want, you can have your special days.

[Penta]: And just as an information to Councilor Tseng, you indicated this month is Ramadan.

[Penta]: Well, do you know what today is?

[Penta]: Do you know what today is?

[Penta]: Today is National Autism Day, sponsored by the United Nations.

[Penta]: I don't see that on the calendar.

[Penta]: That to me is as important as your Ramadan.

[Penta]: But you people want to talk about all these national issues and put them on the calendar.

[Penta]: What does that do to help the city of Medford, the people of Medford, to pay the taxes on a daily basis that go to work here?

[Penta]: I strongly suggest the three members who put this forward, cancel it, take it off the ballot, and leave it alone.

[Penta]: And let the good people of our city have their five minutes at the podium, have their say, whatever it might be.

[Penta]: And hopefully, if you go back to maybe every week, the amount of resolutions that you put on there won't be as contentious, and it won't be so controversial, you won't have to stay here.

[Penta]: But even if you do have to stay here, eat it, because that's your job.

[Penta]: That's what you signed up for.

[Penta]: You wanted to be a council to represent the people.

[Penta]: And if I heard you correctly, Mr. President, you said you've spoken to people to disagree with you.

[Penta]: So to some people from an hour, two hours, whatever it might be, and you didn't accomplish anything.

[Penta]: You spent two hours of your time on a conversation.

[Penta]: But you want to cut us down to two minutes of this podium.

[Penta]: That makes absolutely no sense at all.

[Penta]: And it's absolutely contradictory to the whole premise of what this resolution is all about.

[Penta]: Again, I respectfully ask the three members who put this forward to cancel it out.

[Penta]: And also, there's a book, it's called The Naked Socialist.

[Penta]: Anyone have ever heard of it?

[Penta]: It's a very interesting book, okay?

[Penta]: It's a naked socialist.

[Penta]: Pardon me?

[Penta]: No, it's not about you.

[Penta]: I'm gonna just read with you at the very conclusion of what it says.

[Penta]: This goes back to 1968.

[Penta]: A lady by the name of Ezra Taft Benson, she was the former secretary of agriculture under President Dwight Eisenhower, gave a speech outlining the following- Mr. Penta, you're five minutes in.

[Penta]: Regarding public participation.

[Penta]: One line, and it says the following.

[Penta]: Government may not possess more rights than those held by the individual, and government may not simply assume them as well.

[Penta]: When it does, you're operating toward tyranny.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Let me just finish, please, okay?

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: I would can I just finish please.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Can I just finish please sentence.

[Penta]: Okay.

[Penta]: I would just hope that this council does not find itself being involved in the naked terrorists and any kind of socialistic communistic movement by stopping the people from speaking.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Why do I only have two when I should have five?

[Penta]: Well, you're tired, you want to go home, is this all about?

[Penta]: Show me the rule on the council, because rule 16 says five minutes.

[Penta]: That's what it says.

[Penta]: Can I finish what I'm saying?

[Penta]: You have two minutes, we accept two minutes.

[Penta]: Well, you shouldn't be speaking from the chair.

[Penta]: You have no right to make an opinion from the chair.

[Penta]: You have no right from the chair to make an opinion.

[Penta]: Excuse me.

[Penta]: You're against Robert's rules of order.

[Penta]: I'd like to ask the question.

[Penta]: I'd like to ask the vice president question.

[Penta]: We may I know I can't.

[Penta]: On the motion of this meeting, I am not the chair of this meeting.

[Penta]: City Council meeting bears.

[Penta]: My name is Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, Medford, Mass.

[Penta]: I'm a former member of this August body, and back then it was an August body.

[Penta]: So I'd like to make a suggestion before we even start.

[Penta]: There's many people in this room, and there's a long line behind me.

[Penta]: The people at home can wait.

[Penta]: They're in their own house, sitting in their own chairs, under their own roof.

[Penta]: I would appreciate it if you do that.

[Penta]: That's number one.

[Penta]: Number two, let's get into the whole issue.

[Penta]: You own a house, you pay taxes year in and year out.

[Penta]: You get your water and sewer tax bill.

[Penta]: Then you have an addendum that was picked on the water and sewer tax.

[Penta]: Then you have the CPA tax, which is an end run on proposition two and a half.

[Penta]: And now you're coming in here tonight and you're talking about possibly a transfer of tax.

[Penta]: With all due respect, Councilor, you said it's been three weeks since it came up until now.

[Penta]: But what happened in the last three weeks?

[Penta]: You folks voted to have these meetings every other week.

[Penta]: And now it's three weeks.

[Penta]: So what happened?

[Penta]: I don't understand.

[Penta]: Pardon me?

[Penta]: Just because there was an election, there's four other days in the week.

[Penta]: Come on.

[Penta]: You know, let's be honest about this.

[Penta]: Where is the proposal from the administration that wants what you people want to propose here tonight?

[Penta]: If you really want to be heroes about what you think this tax should be, you should vote tonight to end it, receive it and place it on file.

[Penta]: That's number one.

[Penta]: Number two, if you really think it's that important, you should maybe in a couple of months call for a public hearing on a non election on a non Tuesday night.

[Penta]: And that way they you can listen to the people as to what you're proposing, because what you're proposing right now, it's quite obvious, either the message got out wrong, the information isn't being heard correctly, and you people are going to send it to a committee.

[Penta]: And what's it going to do in the committee?

[Penta]: either you're for it or against it, because if you have it on the agenda to discuss, how much more do you need to discuss it?

[Penta]: You're either for it or you're against it.

[Penta]: That's why it's on the agenda, period.

[Penta]: Now therefore, if you don't want to vote on it, and you want to refer it to a committee, well then kill it tonight, and then have a public forum if you want, and have the entire community come whenever they want.

[Penta]: You have real estate folks out here, the real estate folks out here buy and sell homes, they're buying and selling of homes and the taxes that are paid into this community represent almost 82% of the city's budget.

[Penta]: They more than anybody understand what the real estate tax does for the city of Medford.

[Penta]: And for you now want to put a transfer tax on there for no godly reason why I don't know, you could talk about all the affordable housing you want, but you have no plan in front of you, you have no locations, multiply, you have no reason and no dollar amount ready.

[Penta]: But what about the proposal next to the old GE place that was supposed to be affordable housing.

[Penta]: What about where Bertucci's is with the science, public science building was going to go, what about a mystic Avenue 500 mystic Avenue where there's going to be a proposal for 500 units in commercial.

[Penta]: You've got locations here.

[Penta]: You talked about your first time in 30 years, you're doing a rezoning.

[Penta]: Well, where's the rezoning?

[Penta]: Where is the rezoning here tonight that you can present to the people of this community where affordable housing is going to go?

[Penta]: You don't have it.

[Penta]: You haven't brought in the real estate people so they could see so they could work with you as a council so they could understand what your needs might be so they would have an idea of what they can buy and what they can sell for the people that they have to deal with on a daily basis.

[Penta]: have to understand something.

[Penta]: These people are upset out here.

[Penta]: They're upset only because of the way it's come up.

[Penta]: Don't forget, you had the meeting canceled.

[Penta]: And now it's here in their mind, they're thinking it's a 2% tax, it's going to go out.

[Penta]: So why don't we just forget the tax?

[Penta]: Why don't you just forget this resolution?

[Penta]: And if you guys and girls really think

[Penta]: It's worthy of having a conversation to call for public hearing and see what the input is.

[Penta]: Rather than saying it's going to be 2%, 1%, it's going to be at a million dollars.

[Penta]: The lady that was on there, she hit it right on the head.

[Penta]: She bought a house for $44,000, then she paid 68,000.

[Penta]: She was the American dream.

[Penta]: And why should she be penalized in her senior years of her senior American dream that she would have that money that she would have to give back that's not going to her.

[Penta]: You know, we're talking about a democracy each and every day with this political election that's coming up.

[Penta]: Right now, what you folks are talking about, socialism.

[Penta]: You think you should be sharing your people's products.

[Penta]: It's wrong to get in this mode.

[Penta]: And I don't really think this council really wants to travel down this road.

[Penta]: But if you really want to be genuine about this issue, rather than refer to committee.

[Penta]: I would strongly suggest that one of you, if not many of you, make a motion to receive it in place and on file tonight, and then call for a public hearing, two or three weeks, when the entire city of Metro would have an opportunity to come and speak, not like this.

[Penta]: My name is Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, Method Mass, former member of this August body.

[Penta]: First of all, let me start by saying, what does this pay raise have to do with education?

[Penta]: That's number one.

[Penta]: Number two, there's no demanding from the public for any pay raise for the school committee.

[Penta]: And lastly, there's no professional city population job description pay report that even substantiates or supports what the council has alluded to.

[Penta]: The gender issue that was alleged this past December is nothing more than a sexual red herring allegation of discrimination that has no merit to the issue before us.

[Penta]: The job is what the job is.

[Penta]: The responsibility is what it is.

[Penta]: It doesn't say it has to be male or female.

[Penta]: That's the red herring to the whole thing.

[Penta]: But if this proposal were to pass, should we now compare all our municipal positions with the same amount of financial equity and equality as compared to each position, especially with those having different responsibilities?

[Penta]: Fire, police, school teachers, they all have different job duties and responsibilities.

[Penta]: But if we're looking at something that's now saying the school committee should have equity pay to that of a city councilor, well, you're setting a standard here.

[Penta]: And this standard should be compared to, right now, what is presently found in your municipal contracts.

[Penta]: Additionally, if this proposal is to pass a comprehensive review,

[Penta]: should be undertaking to set a years of service pay scale to be compatible with all of the municipal employee negotiations, comparing newly elected newcomers to both the city council and the school committee at the beginning of the pay scale formula.

[Penta]: Therefore, for the new members in the council, as compared to the new members on the school committee, why should either one of you reap the benefit of the maximum pay

[Penta]: when in fact all other municipal employees start at a base pay and they go through a process.

[Penta]: So if you're looking at this equity for both and all sides, then let the council and the school committee also be put in the same type of position.

[Penta]: Okay, as such by granting the city council additional type of raise without having increasing any educational value, without having any community support for it, and without any professional city population job description report only demonstrates the power of behind the scenes internal politics, where the power of the dollar personally overpowers the needs of our public school educational needs.

[Penta]: We have surrounding communities, and I took the six surrounding communities that we have.

[Penta]: Arlington, they get paid $3,000 a year.

[Penta]: Everett, they get paid $11,500.

[Penta]: Malden, they get paid $7,000.

[Penta]: Somerville, they get paid $16,600.

[Penta]: And Methodist, they get paid $12,000.

[Penta]: Methodist is the second highest paid school committee of the surrounding areas.

[Penta]: You serve in these jobs for the quality of giving good education to the community, not for how much money or you should be paid equal to that or in excess of our total to the amount of what a city councilor makes.

[Penta]: Last December, the pay concerns for paraprofessionals, classroom assistants, custodians, substitute teachers, et cetera, were discussed, but they've yet to be addressed.

[Penta]: This hall was full with almost 200 teachers.

[Penta]: At the city council, the school committee pay raise increase without any proposal to differentiate the differences between the city council and school committee responsibilities.

[Penta]: As the gentleman just stated, showing the need such raise or pay equality has yet to be proven.

[Penta]: Therefore, at last meeting on December 12, these were the issues that were of concern.

[Penta]: A, needing additional instructional hours for students, AP classes, class size needs, athletic programming, student activities, school library resources, counseling services, school security, custodial school maintenance, after school programming, and something that's gonna creep up on you fellas, it's unprepared for migrant student educational

[Penta]: studies and support.

[Penta]: Now, these are all dollar amounts that need to be addressed.

[Penta]: And if you are going to take on the proposal that's before us over the next two years, approximately $76,000, you're taking that $76,000 away from your school department educational budget that could be used somehow to get into some of these programs, if not all of them, to some degree and a percentage of whatever it might be.

[Penta]: The pay scale for those caring for these programs was at issue, and yet as of today, nothing has been done to resolve any of the issues as presented.

[Penta]: The City Council School Committee pay raise proposal does not recognize and connect to the short and long term needs of our public schools.

[Penta]: So when and if you folks are sitting here and you're discussing these needs, and you think that the school committee should be making more money, and you have a school committee that's been around for so many years, allegedly for 20, if that's what the issue is, well then let's, what do we need to motivate and show that their need and they're worthy of it other than

[Penta]: You know, they should be making the same as in Worcester.

[Penta]: They have an audience that does say up to 50% of what a city council makes.

[Penta]: But their job responsibilities may be entirely different.

[Penta]: Do you realize right now, a kindergarten assistant, if we were to follow this pay raise as proposed, a kindergarten assistant who works five days a week and is subject to everything in that classroom as every other teacher, will be making $1,000 less

[Penta]: then this pay proposal for a school committee person, okay?

[Penta]: Makes no sense at all because a school committee person doesn't have to sign in, doesn't have to check in, has no responsibility as it relates to, you know, what am I doing on a daily basis that says I'm doing something that's educationally correct for this community.

[Penta]: By granting from the city council, let's put it this way.

[Penta]: There should be some justification before you folks

[Penta]: from, and it can't be from the at present school committee because there'd be a conflict of interest because they have a financial gain from it.

[Penta]: So it's gotta be as according to the state law, the chapter is gonna come from your folks in the state council.

[Penta]: But what has this school committee done, especially with its new members that has said Medford's education is better, Medford's discipline is better, and that's seriously questioned as to what's going on up at the high school.

[Penta]: The sports programs is getting better.

[Penta]: Parents are getting more involved, but also at the same time, where is the educational standard in comparison to other cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?

[Penta]: Has the school committee made such great strides that, hey, they're working together with the teachers and their organizations.

[Penta]: When you had here last week, and I know you have some new folks that are here.

[Penta]: On December 12th, there was almost 150, 175 teachers that were here.

[Penta]: And they explain to you the plight of not only being in the classroom, being attacked, where their pay is.

[Penta]: Some of them have to work five years, five years before they even make $25,000 a year.

[Penta]: That's unconscionable.

[Penta]: Justin, I understand that you want to give them a pay raise, you know, but I didn't hear your logic behind it.

[Penta]: Well, he's the one, it's his resolution.

[Penta]: Okay, through the chair, Justin, I know you wanna give them this Bay Race, okay?

[Penta]: But you haven't said anything, none of you have expressed any comment as it relates to, they deserve it for the value of what they do.

[Penta]: Can anybody explain to me,

[Penta]: If you really want to give somebody a pay raise, isn't the job description and your job duties and your employer supposed to do the review of you?

[Penta]: Now, of course they can say, the Medford taxpayer is your reviewer and you run for office and they elect you.

[Penta]: Okay, that's all well and good.

[Penta]: But the Medford taxpayer doesn't pay your salary, it's the Medford City Council according to state law.

[Penta]: So the Medford City Council, by right, can make a great demand on this school committee.

[Penta]: If you really want to improve it, we'll look at this in two years.

[Penta]: Let's see what this new school committee does over the next two years.

[Penta]: Let's just see through your intervention with the Medford Teachers Association and from the superintendent all the way down, that everything that's taking place in all our schools, from kindergarten all the way up to the high school, has gotten better.

[Penta]: Grades have gotten better.

[Penta]: Discipline has gotten better and under control.

[Penta]: That would make a big difference.

[Penta]: And maybe people might say, hey, okay, you're working toward it.

[Penta]: But when you have a job that you don't have to sign in, check in and give any report as to what you do and why you're doing how you do it, and expect to start off at a higher rate than people who have been here for years.

[Penta]: That's just not fair.

[Penta]: And the last thing, let me just say this as it relates to that, and I told you Arlington gets $3,000, Everett gets $11,500, Malden gets $7,000, Somerville gets $16,500, and Method gets $12,000.

[Penta]: We're the second highest one of the surrounding communities.

[Penta]: A kindergarten

[Penta]: through the chair to Justin, a kindergarten teacher assistant after the second year gets $21,568.

[Penta]: That's $1,000 less than what you wanna propose to a school committee person who doesn't go to this job every day, like the kindergarten teacher goes to school every day, five days a week, and does everything that education says of that person.

[Penta]: Maybe you should have a sit down.

[Penta]: with the school committee.

[Penta]: Because they can't tell you that they want it because it would be a financial benefit to them, that would be a conflict of interest.

[Penta]: But somebody needs to understand, just because they need to get paid more, because they're not getting paid enough now.

[Penta]: Well, they're getting paid $12,000, and if they don't want it.

[Penta]: And through the chair to Mrs. Callahan, not for anything, you made the comment that you think that, you know, to get good candidates, you need to pay more.

[Penta]: I'm gonna respectfully disagree with you.

[Penta]: a good candidate is someone who wants to run for the job because they believe that better things can be done and I can do it.

[Penta]: And if I can't do it, then the people won't reelect me that salary has got nothing to do with it.

[Penta]: And the salary should not be used for your own personal gain.

[Penta]: I'm going to make $30,000 a year now more 24,000, whatever it might be.

[Penta]: And the sad part about the whole thing in conclusion,

[Penta]: If this proposal were to go through, you're taking $74,000 a year out of this Medford School Department education budget.

[Penta]: It's bad enough now for them to work on a daily basis without having enough of the money that should be in there.

[Penta]: Now you're gonna take another $74,000.

[Penta]: And you know, where does that go?

[Penta]: How do you explain that to the Medford taxpayer?

[Penta]: You can't explain it to me because I wouldn't buy it.

[Penta]: Because right now,

[Penta]: The Medford School Committee is working with all they can do just to maintain their budget and to get by and to start taking more money away to give it to an elected official who does absolutely nothing to enhance or embellish or make better school education.

[Penta]: That's, it just doesn't make any sense.

[Penta]: So if I understand you correctly, I believe you said you would like to have this go and have a decision come up by the end of December of this year.

[Penta]: I believe that's what you said.

[Penta]: That would be okay.

[Penta]: But to vote on this tonight, I think it would be wrong.

[Penta]: I think it would serve no purpose.

[Penta]: And I don't think it would be good for Medford public school education.

[Penta]: That's my opinion.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Can I ask a question to the chair?

[Penta]: Sure.

[Penta]: Did I misunderstand Mrs. Cowell?

[Penta]: Did you say in part of your questioning there is, I think you- She listed a variety of different reforms, rank choice- All right, it was one of the things that you said you wanted illegal aliens to vote.

[Penta]: Did you say that?

[Penta]: Oh, okay.

[Penta]: I'm more than happy to answer any questions.

[Penta]: Yeah, just a point of information, just as a notice for this council, I think it was three, maybe five to six years ago, there was a report that came back from the Department of Revenue, Mass Department of Revenue that said, the old school thought was in the council budget, you could only decrease, but that's not true.

[Penta]: You can now make appropriations that go the other way.

[Penta]: So I think it's just something I think you really need to take into consideration as it relates to something that you might see in the budget,

[Penta]: where the old school was that you only could reduce if you wanted to save money, so there would be no way that you could transfer that money to another section, but that's not true because now you can look at certain sections within your budget as it relates to appropriating for or making something less.

[Penta]: And I think that would be very key, so let's stick to your, Councilor Collins' comment as it relates to this could be a beginning step.

[Penta]: If it's going to be a beginning step,

[Penta]: it should be a step that parallels every single municipal employee from step one.

[Penta]: Some school teachers, I believe, have 10 steps before they get to the top, but an elected official has no steps.

[Penta]: It's never been that.

[Penta]: So if you're going to put everybody into the same genre, so to speak, well then maybe

[Penta]: An elected person can maybe have five or six steps, whatever it might be.

[Penta]: Don't forget, one of the real benefits of an elected official is if you serve for 10 years or more, you get a pension.

[Penta]: You get a pension from here, okay?

[Penta]: There are some cities and towns that don't offer pensions.

[Penta]: So besides the salary, you're also getting the benefit of a pension with a minimum of 10 years.

[Penta]: So I think that really needs to be taken into consideration when you're talking about pay scales and pay raises and whether it be for the council or the school committee.

[Penta]: And one of the things that seemed to be a juggernaut in the school and the municipal side is just that particular issue, whether it's in the fire or the police department when they're in their pension areas.

[Penta]: So it's really something that serves you folks with a good benefit, school department issue.

[Penta]: school committee person, same thing as a city councilor, but you really, you just don't want to throw that aside without realizing that you're getting a benefit that a lot of cities and towns do not offer.

[Penta]: So just thought I'd let you know.

[Penta]: I have a two-page statement.

[Penta]: My name is Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, Medford, Mass., a former member of this August party on the City Council.

[Penta]: Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 71, Section 52, does grant to the City Council, by a majority vote and by the city charter, the responsibility of how much members of the school committee get paid.

[Penta]: But historically, the city council has paid more than the city school committee because the council's responsibilities exceed those of the school committee.

[Penta]: The city council responsibilities include, but are not limited to enacting ordinances, zoning, fire and police, public safety requirements, setting the city's tax rate, and has the final authority over the city and school department budget.

[Penta]: As examples of major differences between one challenging equal pay for equal work between the city council and the school committee.

[Penta]: Further, just as in any business, job responsibilities and pay are what one is applying for.

[Penta]: Under this proposal, it is a gender attack being disguised as pay parity, for equal pay for equal work, for which it is not.

[Penta]: The proposed school department 100% plus pay increase will be paid from the Medford Public Schools.

[Penta]: Let's take a look at what that means.

[Penta]: Annually, we are barely able to meet the resources we have now at our school's disposal.

[Penta]: If we cut further any of our school resources by not funding them, and instead giving them 100% plus salary increase for school committee members, we should be concerned as to where we are heading.

[Penta]: If we are to cut some $90,000, because that's what it'll come to, plus each year from going forward from the school department budget, the results can possibly affect the following.

[Penta]: Fewer instructional hours for students.

[Penta]: Elimination of AP classes.

[Penta]: Increased class sizes.

[Penta]: Elimination of some athletic programming.

[Penta]: Elimination of support for some school activities.

[Penta]: Elimination of school librarians.

[Penta]: I think the rules say five minutes if you check the council rules.

[Penta]: Reductions in council services, school security being at risk, reduced custodial cleaning and maintenance, after school programming, migrant student education support, and unbeing prepared for migrant student educational support.

[Penta]: I meant the public schools short and long range term should not be subject to this.

[Penta]: And if the school committee pay increase does go through, what do you say about the salary for the everyday school paraprofessionals?

[Penta]: As example, every class assistant under five years would finally earn $30,000.

[Penta]: And everyday kindergarten teachers after five years would only earn $25,980.

[Penta]: This after five years, while the school committee would receive $29,000 annually for a part time job with no everyday reporting requirements and responsibilities is at best.

[Penta]: If the city council is to accept this ridiculous proposal, maybe the council should then set a pay scale standard for both the city council and the school committee for years of service as compared to pay scales a standard for just every other municipal employee.

[Penta]: Using the presently proposed gender issue of females being more in number who are elected to serve is not only discriminatory, but a sexist allegation that has no merit.

[Penta]: And what about a person who claims to be other?

[Penta]: And what about when trends tend to go back to when men become more elected than women?

[Penta]: Being elected is a gender neutral opportunity, not to be disguised as pay parity for equal pay for equal work.

[Penta]: As I said in the beginning, job responsibilities and pay are the guidelines for which one is applying for.

[Penta]: As of this meeting, there has been no input from community members on the Medford School Committee regarding this 100 plus salary increase.

[Penta]: As a thought, and this flows right into what you said Councilor Scarpelli, if the council is so inclined to accept this measure of allowing this red herring issue of more females than males being elected officials, then maybe in the spirit of physical conservatism and the council being magnanimous, the council should entertain

[Penta]: being paid the same $12,000, as we said before, annual salary that the school committee is currently paid.

[Penta]: Therefore, on the city side, if the city can save $90,000 annually from their city council salary, which can be used for municipal needs, the school department, one sentence, the school department will not lose the $90,000 annually that can go to public school education.

[Penta]: One sentence.

[Penta]: I wanna close by saying my following sentence.

[Penta]: Mr. Penta, Mr. Penta.

[Penta]: What?

[Penta]: Why, hey, wait a minute.

[Penta]: Let me ask you a serious question.

[Penta]: I served on this board for 36 years, and we stayed here sometimes till 12 and one o'clock in the morning to let everybody speak, not to be shut off.

[Penta]: I want to make my last sentence.

[Penta]: Do you mind?

[Penta]: No, I might.

[Penta]: OK.

[Penta]: I shall close by saying, why did the city council president put this controversial proposal on the agenda now?

[Penta]: Was it because of the busy Christmas season and it being at the end of the year?

[Penta]: With the hopes that nobody would observe it and find out.

[Penta]: But they did.

[Penta]: But they did.

[Penta]: Good question, Robert Pencil, Zero Summit Road.

[Penta]: It's quite obvious from the comments that have been made here today, whether you're a paraprofessional or you're a full-time employee, you just haven't been treated the correct way.

[Penta]: And I think it's incumbent, I believe it's incumbent upon one city councilor who will have the guts and take this resolution and say, receive it and place it on file and kill the issue now.

[Penta]: Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, Medford, Mass., former member of this August party.

[Penta]: I'd like to read a line in the mayor's message today.

[Penta]: She wrote, even if we all agree that these additional expenditures on city services are helpful, we need to understand the sacrifices we're asking taxpayers to make and the other pressures they are under.

[Penta]: Sacrifices.

[Penta]: Madam Chairperson, you're the perfect example for this, what I wanna say.

[Penta]: You recently got married, and when you got married, you- No, I got married six years ago.

[Penta]: Okay, when you came to Medford, you moved to Medford a few years ago.

[Penta]: Almost 10, okay.

[Penta]: Well, I don't have an exact number.

[Penta]: of what you've got going through right now is the fact that you just have a nice brand new baby, okay?

[Penta]: And you're a brand new mother.

[Penta]: And that's very important for what I wanna say, because there's a cost factor that goes along with all of that.

[Penta]: It's a mental factor and it's a financial factor.

[Penta]: And I'm quite sure you realize what it costs now having a young child, what that entails on a daily basis.

[Penta]: When we hear the fact right now that there are additional pressures that are gonna be placed on individuals,

[Penta]: whether it's a single family, because that's the only one we heard, it was a single family.

[Penta]: We didn't hear about the two family, the three family, the condos, or the apartment dwellers.

[Penta]: We didn't hear that, that information hasn't been brought forward.

[Penta]: And it should have been brought forward if you're going to be thorough in this presentation.

[Penta]: And when you wanna talk about spending, or controlled spending, you need to talk about it.

[Penta]: So as Councilor Knight has alluded to,

[Penta]: not thinking this be the right way to go, and I agree with that.

[Penta]: You've never really had, as Councilor Marks alluded to, an outside independent order on every single department that would justify this council going into an administrative decision with the city administration to discuss, we need to now go into a Proposition 2 1⁄2 override.

[Penta]: You folks are sitting here tonight with not one city administration here.

[Penta]: I don't know if they were asked.

[Penta]: I don't know if it was intentional for them not to be asked.

[Penta]: But it would have made a big difference in trying to understand why we are at this stage at 12 and a half.

[Penta]: Two and a half weeks ago, you folks voted at a budget meeting.

[Penta]: At the beginning of the meeting, you voted seven to nothing not to approve the budget, but after the mayor came in and a quarter or two in the morning, you voted seven to nothing for the budget.

[Penta]: So what was asked for and what was gotten all took place between seven o'clock and quarter to in the morning.

[Penta]: Now, is that an exact budget science?

[Penta]: I don't think so.

[Penta]: Is that the right way to go?

[Penta]: You have a proposition here tonight being proposed to $12 million.

[Penta]: Where is the statistical information?

[Penta]: Where are the reports?

[Penta]: Where are the reports from the school department?

[Penta]: Not one school committee person is here.

[Penta]: Not one school administration person is here.

[Penta]: The superintendent should be here if she thought she was gonna be so lucky to get almost $6 million out of a $12 million proposal.

[Penta]: And then we go on the city side,

[Penta]: We're there.

[Penta]: You have seven unions in this community, but there only seems to be two that have been recognized here.

[Penta]: And very conveniently, they don't mention the Veterans Affairs Office, the veterans in this community who paid who paid through their lives for us to be here and give our commentary.

[Penta]: To be exact, you need reports.

[Penta]: And the only way you can have a good report is to make sure that you require it.

[Penta]: Now,

[Penta]: I think I heard Councilor, I don't know where he disappeared to it's his resolution.

[Penta]: You know, Councilor Bears I believe said you know we've been asking for the last seven months and this and that.

[Penta]: And the mayor hasn't come around.

[Penta]: Well you know something, who has the greatest power in this city to control the mayor.

[Penta]: It's the Medford City Council.

[Penta]: And what you also can do at any one given time, whatever that mayor, he or she wants, this council can vote against it until you guys and girls get what you want and what you ask for, because that's the way the game is played.

[Penta]: I'll help you if you help me, but if you're not gonna help me and you just go along and you vote for it, well, you're just as much

[Penta]: Just as much to blame think about it.

[Penta]: You've allowed these budgets to go forward.

[Penta]: And if you know they knew this was going on, and you did nothing about it.

[Penta]: And if you started in January asking for these financial reports and you didn't get them.

[Penta]: Then you should have stopped anything that came from the mayor's office, looking for approval until you got your reports.

[Penta]: Your responsibility and for the city is to run its financial management, and when you have intermittent and you don't have administrators in this building that can come forward to explain what 12 and a half million dollars will do more than $550 on a single family home.

[Penta]: You got the doubles.

[Penta]: What about the commercial piece of people property.

[Penta]: You haven't even discussed them, and in the following years they keep going after two and a half automatically goes up each and every year.

[Penta]: It's something to really think about, because this is not chump change.

[Penta]: This isn't $1, $2, or $3 million that you probably could find if you went through that budget and you cut through it.

[Penta]: This is $12 million.

[Penta]: And who come up with the $12 million?

[Penta]: Two Councilors.

[Penta]: Two Councilors who don't even pay real estate tax.

[Penta]: They don't understand the value.

[Penta]: I'm gonna continue what I'm saying.

[Penta]: If you understood, if you paid real estate tax, you would understand the impact that this would.

[Penta]: Now, you maybe missed my point.

[Penta]: My point was this, not owning the real estate and having to pay those additional taxes, that gets itself disseminated down to you as a renter.

[Penta]: So if you, as a renter, are gonna pay the difference in the increase, but you're putting the burden back onto the who.

[Penta]: And if she has a tax, if she's paying a rental tax,

[Penta]: that she can afford right now, maybe about a two or $300 a month increase, she won't be able to and that's what we're talking about people on fixed incomes, seniors on fixed income.

[Penta]: And when you hear the story, when you're watching on television, every dollar counts.

[Penta]: Is it going to be for my medicine?

[Penta]: Is it going to be for my where I'm living?

[Penta]: Is it going to be to put gas in my car?

[Penta]: Is it going to be for food?

[Penta]: Is it going to be that I can't go out?

[Penta]: I got to stay home?

[Penta]: That's what we're dealing with right now.

[Penta]: You're dealing with an economic impact in this country that's affecting everybody.

[Penta]: And that $12 million will kill this city of Medford because the city of Medford will never recover from something like that.

[Penta]: If you vote for that, you're going to...

[Penta]: If you vote for that $12 million, you're going to take away what Medford is all about.

[Penta]: Councilor Knight was absolutely right.

[Penta]: Sit down, have a discussion, go over the whole thing, and ask for an independent outside audit to address all these departments.

[Penta]: That's what you need to do.

[Penta]: You know, we're too good of a city.

[Penta]: We are way too good of a city to let something like this happen.

[Penta]: We've sat here for years with former Councilors and myself, and we never, never experienced anything that was presented in the middle of the night.

[Penta]: That's what July is, it's the heat of the night, it's hot out, it's almost 90 degrees.

[Penta]: where the people that this hall should be full of people.

[Penta]: And it's not because as Councilman alluded to, there was an issue way back a couple of two or three years ago in Mystic Avenue in the month of August when they had a public hearing and all the people showed up and they got so scared as to what's going on, they canceled the meeting.

[Penta]: And after they canceled the meeting, they took the vote.

[Penta]: No way should this happen.

[Penta]: Let me just leave you with this last thing.

[Penta]: Your own Rule 19 on the Medford City Council states that the Medford City Council shall not approve of any bond or expenditure that does not have a written explanation of such expenditure at least seven days prior to said vote.

[Penta]: You got this three to four days prior to today.

[Penta]: That's not seven days.

[Penta]: You cannot even vote on this tonight because your own rules say it.

[Penta]: And your own rules also state

[Penta]: The following any financial 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 one member, I'm quite sure there was at least one number here willing to put that on the table unless they have another motion to go by, you know,

[Penta]: I didn't mean to get to an argument with you and I wasn't trying to be right.

[Penta]: I was just trying to compliment you.

[Penta]: I got my day years mixed up.

[Penta]: The fact of the matter is I look at individuals today and I say to myself, how do they afford seven $800,000 houses?

[Penta]: How do they afford when they have two cars and they have kids running all over?

[Penta]: Maybe you must be maxed out to the answer degree in debt.

[Penta]: We never did that growing up.

[Penta]: We worked for everything we got and we went along as we went.

[Penta]: This is huge, $12 million.

[Penta]: This isn't $1 million or even two that maybe you can figure out how to massage your budget.

[Penta]: It doesn't work that way.

[Penta]: to be good Councilors, dismiss this action right now, move yourself into a committee to meet with department heads, hire an outside independent auditor to come in.

[Penta]: If you could spend, as Councilor Knight said, $300,000 for an outside law firm that should be doing exactly what this law firm and the city of Medford is paying for, there is something wrong.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: My name is Robert Panto.

[Penta]: I live at Zero Summit Road, a former member of this August body for 36 years.

[Penta]: For the past 82 years in the city of Medford, you folks have had weekly council meetings.

[Penta]: I've served under both a plan A and a plan E form of government, and they held steadfast, not only to their weekly meetings, they held steadfast that this microphone, this podium right here was the people's voice on a weekly basis.

[Penta]: We've gone through the years, situations,

[Penta]: in the Wellington area, whereas if you were on every other week situation, the rat problem that took effect a few years ago, would have never got itself involved.

[Penta]: Then Councilor Caraviello, Councilor Knight can remember people coming from the Morrison Ave Park area regarding in the wintertime storms that took place.

[Penta]: And if the people had to wait every other week to come down here, their problems would have been exacerbated.

[Penta]: You talked about making decisions as you relate of committee meetings.

[Penta]: If committee meetings are a result of what takes place here at a city council meeting and forwarded to a committee, and the committee does whatever it's work has to be.

[Penta]: It still has to come back before the council, but it initiated itself right here in the city council.

[Penta]: Tonight was a perfect example.

[Penta]: When the gentleman from the.

[Penta]: front porch came down here and unfortunately all the papers weren't in order until the clerk went downstairs to get the papers.

[Penta]: Now, if the papers were not there, he would have had to wait two weeks if this process of two weeks took place.

[Penta]: That would have been a financial burdensome on that individual through no fault of his own because his papers were filed.

[Penta]: And when the chairperson got the papers and he saw they weren't filed and they were signed off properly.

[Penta]: When all of you folks ran for office like myself, I knew it was on a Tuesday night and I also knew that no matter what the day and the week was, was immaterial to the job and my responsibility to do the job.

[Penta]: Now, if you folks wanna go to every other week with 18 committees that you have set up, and of those 18 committees, if you decide you wanna have three or four of them or five of them on every other week, and some of you are on the same committees, how is that gonna work during the same time?

[Penta]: It's just impossible.

[Penta]: Right now, you can meet anywhere, as Councilor Scarpelli alluded to, you can go Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and you're meeting every week.

[Penta]: This podium is here for one particular reason.

[Penta]: This is the safeguard that a taxpaying citizen has to come here without having to wait, geez, I gotta wait two weeks because the pressing need is happening right now.

[Penta]: You folks are getting paid $30,000 a year to do this job.

[Penta]: And you know what the time commitment was.

[Penta]: And you also know what the dollar amount was to the salary.

[Penta]: God forbid, if you ever go to every other week, you want to come in here and ask for a pay raise, you really will be adding insult to injury.

[Penta]: Because that's just something that will never pass the muster of why you folks got elected.

[Penta]: You got elected to do one thing, to represent the people the best way you could.

[Penta]: And right now for 82 years it's been every Tuesday night.

[Penta]: Now Councilor Caraviello says change is good, but all change at all times is not good.

[Penta]: The lack of community input to every other meeting, the lack of a community input as it relates to why are we making this change?

[Penta]: You have two brand new city councils that just came on this term.

[Penta]: I'm quite sure when they were running for office, this was not an issue.

[Penta]: And since it wasn't an issue then, why is it an issue now?

[Penta]: Second of all, when you go into the meetings, you talk about the regular meetings of the city council shall be held every two weeks on Tuesday evening at 7pm, beginning the first Tuesday in January.

[Penta]: Then in the last sentence, it turns around and says the following bit further resolve that these updates become effective on September 1 2022.

[Penta]: So what is it, September 1st or is it January 1st of 2023?

[Penta]: There's a mix of words there, something is wrong.

[Penta]: Also you talk about here, an emergency meeting shall take place unless immediately undelayed action is deemed to be imperative.

[Penta]: Well, just think about it.

[Penta]: Does any one of you know right now what an immediate action could be?

[Penta]: What an emergency could be in somebody's life?

[Penta]: or some business.

[Penta]: Pardon me?

[Penta]: Does anybody know what an emergency could be?

[Penta]: I don't, and neither one of us know.

[Penta]: I'm talking about the community interest for this to make this change.

[Penta]: You presented on the agenda for this evening, the word meetings, and this is a result of the change that took place.

[Penta]: So is it January 1st or is it September 1st?

[Penta]: What's it going to be?

[Penta]: So if it's September 1st, then it does not become operative January 1st, but that's not the issue.

[Penta]: No, it doesn't.

[Penta]: It says in the bottom.

[Penta]: Yeah, September 1st.

[Penta]: I don't think this is no devil coming from the sky.

[Penta]: Thank you, Madam President.

[Penta]: The fact of the matter is simply this.

[Penta]: The reason why we're here on a Tuesday night is whether, like last week, you folks only met for maybe 30, 35 minutes, and you've had a pretty easy go from January till now, but once the budget comes in and things start to pick up, okay, so be it.

[Penta]: But imagine if you had it every other week.

[Penta]: And once the budget takes place and you start to get into every other week, and you're here four, five, six hours, and then you're going to put a time limit on because you're incapable of probably making an intelligent decision because it's kind of like late night.

[Penta]: Why do you want to disturb something that has worked?

[Penta]: And more importantly, if you felt such a need for this, and if this council was

[Penta]: so engrossed in the fact that we had to change this, then why don't you just make it effective beginning September of the next election?

[Penta]: Why would you do it?

[Penta]: It wasn't even an election issue.

[Penta]: So how did this become an issue right now, less than six months into the term?

[Penta]: I understand that, but it's been while it's been, it's not like it didn't come out of the, it came out of the blue, but while it's been discussed, it never got passed.

[Penta]: So the question is to the metric citizenry who are watching this, they're going to have to figure out, they only can come here every other week, but at the same time, at the same time, you have 18 committees.

[Penta]: So are we going to say between the first week and the beginning of the second week, these 18 committees are going to work and your committee, the holes are going to work.

[Penta]: I mean, is that going to make any kind of sense.

[Penta]: There's 18 committees and there's only seven of you, and many of you are on the same committees.

[Penta]: I mean, so how do you, how do you go through this, this process.

[Penta]: You know what I mean, it's the only place for a public forum, you've got your opinion, I have a forum on what it's a public forum for someone to come and speak on whatever the issue might be, it might be a neighborhood issue that doesn't find itself on the agenda, it might be an emergency that doesn't find itself on the agenda.

[Penta]: You have your opinion, I have mine.

[Penta]: As far as that goes, Madam President, I said what I had to say.

[Penta]: I just feel, like I said, it's been 82 years, it's operated under plan E, plan A. It's been every Tuesday night.

[Penta]: You never really know what the situation might be.

[Penta]: And when you got elected, you knew.

[Penta]: You knew when you got elected, the meetings were going to be every Tuesday night and subcommittees were whenever they're going to take you.

[Penta]: And why should time?

[Penta]: Why should time even be an issue?

[Penta]: Whether you meet one night a week or whether you meet four times a week, that's what you got elected for.

[Penta]: And whatever the issues are, they are.

[Penta]: Well, being elected never bothered me to go to a meeting.

[Penta]: And if it was every week, I went every week.

[Penta]: If it was two or three times a week, we would meet two or three times a week.

[Penta]: And let me just conclude by saying the following.

[Penta]: If in fact, this council feels that they now want to change to every other week, please do not put anything on the agenda that asks for pay raise, because you would really be insulting the people of this community.

[Penta]: No, that's not what I said.

[Penta]: What I said is if you're going to make this vote to go to every other week, please don't come back and vote in support of a pay raise for yourself, because then $30,000 for every other week becomes overpaid.

[Penta]: And as Councilor Caraviello alluded to, when he made his comments two weeks ago, if you go to every other week, maybe you should reduce your salary from 30 to 15,000.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: I'm Robert Pentezero, Summit Road, Medford, Mass.

[Penta]: I believe a couple of weeks ago, this council passed two resolutions.

[Penta]: One was a million dollars for new sidewalks, and I believe the second one was for $250,000 to remove tree stumps.

[Penta]: But there was no identification of where the sidewalks were going to go over and beyond money for new panels, and there was no identification as to what tree stumps were going to go.

[Penta]: Now, over the past few years, here in Medford, former public works director had one,

[Penta]: two types of lists, one for tree stumps, and one for sidewalks, but unfortunately when the council passed at this time nobody asked that question.

[Penta]: So as a citizen, the council did ask, they asked a question of where they're going to be located, the tree stumps, and the sidewalk.

[Penta]: So is there any way that that could be made a public disclosure, either on this, we don't have any city newspaper anymore.

[Penta]: So method patch, or in the city web page could that go on there as soon as we get it, we can put it in, we have a dry folder.

[Penta]: Madam President, you say as soon as you get I understand that but you should have had it the night that you took the vote.

[Penta]: But, but is there a list right now that it is available.

[Penta]: So then just a very simple question, not to beg the issue, but maybe it is.

[Penta]: I mean, you get something to vote on, especially tree stumps, much more than sidewalks.

[Penta]: Those locations should have identified.

[Penta]: This is the third time something like this has been presented to the council.

[Penta]: So did you get the first two lists?

[Penta]: I mean, have any of these lists

[Penta]: tree stumps from the first of the second list even been taken care of some of them with duplicates especially on sidewalks.

[Penta]: It's just a thought because some residents are saying a million dollars.

[Penta]: There's a lot of money for sidewalks.

[Penta]: Is it possible, Madam President, you can just secure a list for both?

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Of course.

[Penta]: Okay.

[Penta]: The mic isn't.

[Penta]: Bob Penta, Zero Summit Road, Medford, Mass.

[Penta]: Mr. President, I appreciate the fact that this is an ongoing thing, and I want to compliment Councilor Marks

[Penta]: because speaking throughout the community, he has taken the charge on this particular issue, not to be for or against, but just to bring the awareness and to have some understanding of a communication.

[Penta]: As I said before, this is a $5 billion G5 undertaking by Verizon.

[Penta]: And some two years ago, when they first came into the city and had a discussion on this, they allegedly stated there was 143 locations or 143 polls

[Penta]: that they had identified here in the city of Medford as to where they were gonna go.

[Penta]: Now, these poles are all owned by National Grid and on National Grid's poles, you have fire, you have police, you have alarm systems.

[Penta]: They're all pole renters and they pay National Grid to be on those poles.

[Penta]: And by paying National Grid to be on those poles, National Grid is now receiving a financial inducement, so to speak.

[Penta]: In return, that inducement doesn't find itself anywhere back to the rate payers of National Grid, but all Verizon is doing is getting more and more profit.

[Penta]: And they're not spending $5 billion just for the sake of having $5 billion to spend, because the subscribers to Verizon plans are gonna pay for that in the long run.

[Penta]: There's been no explanation as between 4G to 5G, whether there's anything medically or substantially different,

[Penta]: that could possibly hurt somebody because of the medical portions of that.

[Penta]: So the question then becomes, and alluding back to council Marx's comment, if you have the lady who is a board of health director, who sits on this board of four, which makes no sense at all, but who sits on this board of four, you've had 11 votes so far.

[Penta]: And of those 11 votes, six of them have been against and five of them had been for.

[Penta]: Now, I would strongly suggest that you would ask, some one of you folks, ask a question of why the people voted the way they did.

[Penta]: Because if you understood last week, there was two young ladies here from a certain part of Medford who was concerned about a poll being in front of their house and the poll being in front of their house, not wanting it there, not knowing what the 5G could admit.

[Penta]: So of the five that got approved as compared to the six that didn't get approved,

[Penta]: Do the six have an argument against the five or does the five have an argument against the six?

[Penta]: Are we going to play what kind of game is this going to turn out to be?

[Penta]: Who gets it and who doesn't get it?

[Penta]: It's not right.

[Penta]: But the most important thing that I think is missing here that the mayor of this community, having this committee being sent up should have made some kind of an agreement with Verizon as to what the city of Medford is going to get in return

[Penta]: for having Verizon come into this city and go from 4G to 5G, because the only one right now that's going to be making all the money up front is going to be National Grid on the poles.

[Penta]: And Verizon in the long run will get this, whether it goes to 5G, 6G, 7G, who knows, that's not the point.

[Penta]: The fact of the matter is they're here, they were planning for it as of two years ago, whether it's 143 poles or 143 locations, that seems to be the issue.

[Penta]: So if you're going to have this meeting,

[Penta]: this meeting, however this meeting is going to be sent up, what's the logic?

[Penta]: What's the reasoning behind approval and disapproval?

[Penta]: And if the director of public health voted against it, and even if it was because she felt that it wasn't right for the city, then it's not right for the city all the time, not just part of the time.

[Penta]: And those people that voted for it, as compared to the six times they didn't vote for it, well, what was their logic to it?

[Penta]: And I think it's very important that if they're going to make a decision, and you said there's 11 requirements on there, then those 11 requirements have to be met by all applicants that come, all 42 applicants.

[Penta]: So if that's being said, there's no logic, there's no rhyme or reason right now to the 11 decisions that have been made thus far, six for, six against, and five for.

[Penta]: How do you justify that?

[Penta]: How do you explain to the city that you have this committee of ongoing people with no experts on there

[Penta]: That doesn't make any sense at all.

[Penta]: And when the taxpayers can ask that question, you have this subcommittee that's not even odd number, it's even.

[Penta]: and you're being restricted according to FCC that you can't vote because of any medical concerns, but you have your own director of public health on the committee and she votes against it.

[Penta]: Well, what's her logic for voting against it?

[Penta]: What are all the other members who voted against it?

[Penta]: What was their logic?

[Penta]: And what was the logic of the five that got approved?

[Penta]: That's important to know.

[Penta]: because you're going to play playing this game with 40 somewhat applications.

[Penta]: Some get it, some don't.

[Penta]: Some streets get it, some don't.

[Penta]: One house has it, another one doesn't.

[Penta]: And what are you going to do?

[Penta]: Wind up having a lawsuit between people in the city saying, hey, how can you give it to one and not another?

[Penta]: I didn't want it there, but you let it be there.

[Penta]: That's a good suggestion you came up with, Councilor Marks, because if somebody wants to come and put a poll in a particular area, then maybe they should

[Penta]: come in advance, say this is where we'd like to do it, and get a find out, let's find out if people are for it or against it.

[Penta]: But the one thing you forgot to mention on whether it's Burlington or Cambridge, they've got a committee, they've got a committee that's uniform, either it's for or against, it's not split.

[Penta]: So you're dealing with a subcommittee or whatever you want to call this committee, that's split, you have no professionals,

[Penta]: No medical experts, you definitely don't have any technical experts.

[Penta]: And with that being said, how can anybody trust that whether 5G is better than 4G, medically or otherwise, it doesn't exist.

[Penta]: But this city is allowing a multi-billion dollar corporation to come in and right now, nobody knows if the city of Medford is getting anything.

[Penta]: Nobody knows if this mayor has made any kind of an agreement with Verizon to come in here and do it.

[Penta]: And the only ones that are gonna get rich in the long run

[Penta]: is going to be rising in the long run and national grid up front, and your rates aren't going to go down.

[Penta]: So what have you accomplished?

[Penta]: Or better yet, you've allowed somebody to come in.

[Penta]: This is great.

[Penta]: You should have this meeting with that subcommittee, with the mayor.

[Penta]: with the legal counsel that you have, and you should bring in a medical and you should bring in a legal expert.

[Penta]: Doesn't make any difference if FCC rules and regulations say you can't vote on that.

[Penta]: You have a determination because if the person that's on the committee is medically entitled with the knowledge to know that the 5Gs

[Penta]: will not work in behalf of the city.

[Penta]: You can't pick and choose what part of the city you want it to go in.

[Penta]: It either is or it isn't.

[Penta]: Your technical person will say either it is or it isn't.

[Penta]: You can't go from 4G to 5G.

[Penta]: Where's your expert to tell you what's the difference between the two?

[Penta]: That hasn't even come out.

[Penta]: Oh, I'm sorry.

[Penta]: That hasn't even come out.

[Penta]: These are important questions.

[Penta]: So they've already voted on 11 applications.

[Penta]: It doesn't make any sense.

[Penta]: You can't run a professional business on something such as this and then be left out in the cold.

[Penta]: And here are seven of you trying to ask questions.

[Penta]: You have one city council who took the bull by the horns and the people appreciate that.

[Penta]: And I appreciate that.

[Penta]: And I think all seven of you appreciate it.

[Penta]: But the fact of the matter is one simple question.

[Penta]: Who's running the show here, Verizon?

[Penta]: You don't know, they seem to be running the show.

[Penta]: Is it National Grid?

[Penta]: Because it's their poll.

[Penta]: They're allowing to go up there.

[Penta]: They're allowing renters to go up there.

[Penta]: You don't have any verification from anybody in the city, from the mayor down, where that transparency is, I don't know.

[Penta]: It needs to come out, it needs to be found.

[Penta]: And if this continues to go on like this, and you folks know me, and that four member committee just keeps going on, and they make those approvals,

[Penta]: Well, then shame on the people of Medford for electing the administration that has allowed this to happen.

[Penta]: You city council have at least taken your position.

[Penta]: But there's a transparency issue here that needs to come forward.

[Penta]: And it has yet to come forward.

[Penta]: And because of that, somebody is going to have to pay the price for that.

[Penta]: And hopefully, the 5G doesn't go into neighborhoods where people subsequently medically find out that there was something wrong.

[Penta]: You don't want to find yourself into like a Johnson and Johnson situation that just came up now with the federal government because people now have a concern.

[Penta]: There's been some bad reactions to it.

[Penta]: Does that mean that they're all bad?

[Penta]: No, it doesn't mean that they're all that they're bad, but you've got plenty of time to test this thing out.

[Penta]: If they've been here two years ago, since 2019 and saying that we're going to have 143 locations, and this is now 2021, something is wrong.

[Penta]: If there's been no situation, no communication, I would respectfully ask that one of you

[Penta]: ask the city administration, the mayor's office, what, if anything, is the city of Medford going to get, or is the city of Medford getting, by allowing Verizon to come in and put 5G on these poles?

[Penta]: It's a money matter, follow the money.

[Penta]: It's all about money, as we all know.

[Penta]: $5 billion is not chump change.

[Penta]: It's a huge investment nationwide.

[Penta]: And when T-Mobile can rent off the same pole

[Penta]: that Verizon is putting up, you know, they're all making money.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Mr. President, I would like to, if the young lady felt insulted, I apologize.

[Penta]: But that's the marketing that Verizon does when they go out there.

[Penta]: They go to the lowest socioeconomic areas because that's the ones that they feel that they can move into first.

[Penta]: That's what I said.

[Penta]: Okay.

[Penta]: As a matter of fact, Mr. President, I'm picking up on your resolution.

[Penta]: that took place in 2016, because at that time it was the second year.

[Penta]: And I believe along with you and Councilor Knight and then Councilor Brianna Longo, there was some concerns with Park Method and their distribution of how the revenue was going to be coming in.

[Penta]: Therefore, as a result of that, what we needed to go to, as I indicated back then, was to go to the contract.

[Penta]: And in the contract on page five, there is two specific sections.

[Penta]: It basically includes

[Penta]: that states 20 days after the end of each month, a monthly report would be submitted to the city of Medford as it relates to a whole host of issues relative to the inventory of monies taken in and what's going out and what the fees and everything were.

[Penta]: Also, there's an inclusion in there that the operator, meaning Park Method, would agree to submit on an annual basis the gross revenue and the operating expenses

[Penta]: So on an annual basis, so rather than having you go and get all the monthly things, I'm requesting that the council puts a resolution forward, making that request as it relates to their annual revenue, relative to the fact that this is what took place.

[Penta]: For example, you would have net city parking revenue, that's annual appeals, the annual appeal, dismissal, forgiveness, annual resident visitor parking permits, business permits,

[Penta]: commuter permits, annual parking citations.

[Penta]: And then we get to the issue on an annual basis of the $50,000 annually that would go to the commercial districts here in the city of Medford.

[Penta]: Now that was something that came up by Mayor McGlynn in, I believe, October of 2014.

[Penta]: And as a result of that, that became a bone of consternation between

[Penta]: the Medford Chamber of Commerce and the business people, and as well as the issue on the city council relative toward the business districts not getting X amount of dollars.

[Penta]: Therefore, as a result of that, what took place was that in October of that year, the city at that time through Mayor McGlynn, and then Park Medford came to a final resolution before January of 2015,

[Penta]: and 15.

[Penta]: And in 2015, that $50,000 for each square was then included as part of the agreement between Park Method and the City of Method.

[Penta]: And in their brochure, they note specifically that $250,000 annually will be subject to the appropriation for district improvements.

[Penta]: Now,

[Penta]: I don't know where that money is, if it's ever gone there.

[Penta]: Some people say it's gone out once.

[Penta]: Some people say maybe it has, maybe it hasn't.

[Penta]: I don't know, I can't answer that.

[Penta]: That's the reason why I'm asking for this breakdown and how the money was being expended.

[Penta]: Next, we have the issue relative toward $2 million a year is what Park Method said that they would bring in annually to the city of Medford.

[Penta]: So if we look at that $2 million per year,

[Penta]: And in the contract, there was an inclusion that anything over $1,250,000 annually, the city would increase from its annual 35% net revenues to 83%.

[Penta]: The question then becomes where, and if in fact, has Park Method submitted that type of information to the city of Metro?

[Penta]: I don't know.

[Penta]: None of us know.

[Penta]: And again, once again, that's the reason why I'm here asking you folks to do this.

[Penta]: So then let's go to the issue that basically talks about, I think it was in October during a city council strike that award six committee candidates on October of 2019.

[Penta]: Then council Longo addressed the community at that point in time as it related to the method parking program.

[Penta]: Quote, this is what she said, as to parking enforcement, it is broken.

[Penta]: If elected, I will end the contract that expires during the next mayoral term.

[Penta]: I will go back to the committee recommendations of 2009 to implement in-house enforcement and replace the kiosks with meters.

[Penta]: I will provide free parking for our seniors.

[Penta]: The city will benefit by keeping 100% of the gross revenue for our city services and schools.

[Penta]: We currently see only 35% of the revenues.

[Penta]: Now, that's a tough point right there.

[Penta]: 35% of the revenues, because we really don't know because you've never received the public documentation back.

[Penta]: You, Mr. President, have asked three times.

[Penta]: Resolutions go back and suggest that and prove that.

[Penta]: So where do we go from there?

[Penta]: That's the question of why I think you really need to know how much money has come in.

[Penta]: How has park method delivered as they're supposed to occur, so into the contract and the city of Medford, how they made an accounting for it.

[Penta]: It's public information, it needs to be made public.

[Penta]: So the question then becomes, if in fact the contract has been adhered to, and if in fact revenues have exceeded that for which the 35% formula has taken place.

[Penta]: But the question then becomes, if it hasn't taken place,

[Penta]: then where are those revenues?

[Penta]: There's also a report that's out that you can go on Google and it's by the Method Parking Commission.

[Penta]: And they have a report that goes out there that basically says, through their Google webpage, that on an annual basis, the city of Medford is, if you add up their numbers, that the city of Medford has only collected approximately $436,000 per year.

[Penta]: That's number one.

[Penta]: Number two, the statistics that the city has in the city of Medford allegedly will substantiate that we're only getting 35% rather than the 83%, which would indicate we haven't exceeded that for which you would get the $1.3 million annual money that they collected.

[Penta]: But according to Park Medford, when they first came in, they said that their annual revenue would be in excess of $2 million.

[Penta]: So $2 million over a period of 20 years, or even over a period of eight years, would give you $16 million.

[Penta]: We're nowhere, we're nowhere near that type of money.

[Penta]: So I would strongly suggest that if this be the case, what really needs to be addressed is as follows.

[Penta]: We have the 2009 report to which Council Marks served on there with the then former Chief of Police Sacco and a whole list of other folks who made up an extensive and an exhaustive report.

[Penta]: as to how much they went to other communities, they checked it out, they saw how the revenues could come in and where it should go in here for the city of Medford.

[Penta]: The question then becomes Mr. President, if elected means she has been elected.

[Penta]: So since the mayor has now been elected, the question then becomes the 35%.

[Penta]: We really need to get these numbers to find out, are we in the 35% or are we above the 35%?

[Penta]: And lastly, just let me say this, and this is really the perplexing question.

[Penta]: If in fact we follow what the mayor

[Penta]: Then city council said in October of 2019, to follow that formula of this report, why then do we have another new committee report of people?

[Penta]: Is the mayor going to change plans, change direction, not follow the 2009 report?

[Penta]: I think you people really need to know that.

[Penta]: And if people are sitting on that committee and it's gonna be a waste of time because you're just gonna follow the exhausted committee report of 2009, that needs to be relegated out there.

[Penta]: You know, this is a lot of money.

[Penta]: And if we're only looking at $436,000 a year as compared to a lot more than that, because we haven't gotten to the $2 million mark per year, you need to know that.

[Penta]: And you really need to have a discussion.

[Penta]: And it was you then Councilor, Mr. President and Councilor Knight and Councilor Marks and Councilor Brianna Longo-Cunningham had serious questions with Park Method over this.

[Penta]: You indicated, Mr. President, that this is year eight.

[Penta]: This is years eight, nine, and 10 are the years for negotiation.

[Penta]: And they're taking them one year at a time.

[Penta]: Well, if they're taking them one year at a time, and the mayor said, and when she ran for mayor, that she was going back and she was going to get rid of Park Method, then the plan ought to be that Park Method's going to go.

[Penta]: There should be no negotiation to extend anything here.

[Penta]: I believe this is the committee.

[Penta]: I may have the wrong terminology.

[Penta]: This is the committee to discuss parking in the city of Medford.

[Penta]: So then the question that I asked the council and to you, Mr. President, if the mayor indicated she was going to look at the 2009, she was going to adhere to that report, then the traffic, this new committee that's been put together, are they discussing this report to add or subtract?

[Penta]: Is the mayor not going to support this?

[Penta]: Are she going to entertain another type of situation?

[Penta]: Because this is very conflicting.

[Penta]: Well, if you're going to be on one year renewals in years eight, nine, and 10, give you the option to bow out.

[Penta]: And you've had plenty of time to realize coming into your option year that something should be taking place.

[Penta]: So are we going to, as a community, take three years in a row as option years and work at it one at a time?

[Penta]: I mean, you know.

[Penta]: Mr. President, I'd like to answer that question.

[Penta]: A constant night brings up a good point that three years when it first came up.

[Penta]: was nixed by then city solicitor Mark Romney.

[Penta]: He said it would not serve in the best financial interest of the city of Medford.

[Penta]: That bumped up the contract to 10 years, but given years eight, nine, and 10, the flexibility, whether you'd want to renegotiate, get out or whatever it might be.

[Penta]: I'm only concerned over the fact that you, Mr. President, dating back at least three times going back to 2016, coming forward with council resolution have asked for these numbers.

[Penta]: Senior citizens have been waiting to park for nothing for free, because that's what was alleged.

[Penta]: Same comment was made in Inauguration Day, same comment was made in 2009.

[Penta]: So if we're not going to follow this report of 2009, which is very extensive, and it wasn't just for the city of Medford, you can correct me Councilor Marks, you went to other cities and towns, you saw how they derived their revenue through meters and their timing, and whether they had resident parking, commuter parking, this and that.

[Penta]: If that is not going to really be entertained, I just think that this parking commission, Councilor Scott Bell, it's just a waste of time.

[Penta]: We either follow something or not.

[Penta]: Are you going to change it?

[Penta]: And I think the mayor has an obligation to tell you and the taxpayers of this community, whether in fact we're going forward.

[Penta]: Why would you want to go into two more years of one year contracts trying to figure out what you're going to do?

[Penta]: You should know by now.

[Penta]: Resolutions dating back to 2016 and 17 with her name and many councilors names on there.

[Penta]: Question, just as councilor Knight has indicated, the veracity of this contract.

[Penta]: I mean, how is it going to work with the city of Medford?

[Penta]: Approximately $2 million in uncollected money is still outstanding again.

[Penta]: This is on the Google page of the Medford Parking Commission.

[Penta]: Councilor President, I'm going to disagree with you, because when this council issue came up before the council, it started in May of 2014.

[Penta]: And it ran on for a few months.

[Penta]: While the mayor and some of the councilors had a difference of opinion,

[Penta]: It did go on, there was some public interaction.

[Penta]: And if this mayor is going to entertain a new contract without having the council interaction and public awareness and public input, that's bad.

[Penta]: This is really bad because that's not what you call transparency.

[Penta]: Mr. President, one quick thing.

[Penta]: Councilor Marks, you talked about Everett, talked about Revere, talked about Somerville, you talked about Boston, Brookline, Malden, and Everett.

[Penta]: A thorough report from the hiring of a clerk to the amount of people that walked the streets and the monies that were collected.

[Penta]: You're not gonna get more of a thorough report than that.

[Penta]: And this new commission, for whatever the reason is, it's out there and why the mayor is doing it,

[Penta]: And nobody knows, but that question ought to be asked.

[Penta]: If you made the commitment in 2019 to do with this one, why are you going in a different direction?

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Mr. President, if I could.

[Penta]: Council member.

[Penta]: Good evening, my name is Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, and a former member of the August body.

[Penta]: I come here tonight

[Penta]: To make some comments on issues that I feel are important as it relates to this upcoming budget, from what I understand this administration, and I know the Chief of Staff is here, he can reflect upon the fact that you guys and Lady are going to get an early budget this year, earlier than normal.

[Penta]: If that's true, I don't know.

[Penta]: Is it true?

[Penta]: So he says we hope so.

[Penta]: With that being said, and with two new Councilors on the board, I would just like to reflect upon a couple of things as it relates to what really has not been addressed for the past few months.

[Penta]: First of all, going back to last year at some point in time regarding the Lawrence Memorial Hospital, we never got a report back from the auditor's office as it relates to the outpatient surgical offices that are going to be housed

[Penta]: in the old Lawrence Memorial Hospital as part of an addendum to the 16,000 square foot building that the Lawrence Memorial Hospital is going to have their surgical center at.

[Penta]: And with that being said, again, it's just out there floating around not knowing what's going to happen because they haven't made a decision.

[Penta]: Second of all, it's the taxing of the nonprofit funeral portion

[Penta]: of the operation at the Gaffey Funeral Home, which houses the Islamic Cultural Center here in Medford.

[Penta]: And where they're going to be running a funeral business out of that center, once again, it presents itself as a for-profit business within the non-profit structure itself.

[Penta]: Again, no answers come back on that as of yet.

[Penta]: And these are issues that I think need to be discussed and resolved before or at least during your budget.

[Penta]: Also, let's go back to something that Councilor Caraviello, when he first came on to the Council, talked about, the disrepair of the schools.

[Penta]: At that point in time, Councilor Caraviello indicated during his first term, it was $1.2 million of school repairs.

[Penta]: We're now in excess of $1.5 million of school repairs, and we're getting ourselves right into the same position, I shouldn't say ourselves, the city is getting itself into this position

[Penta]: of why we had to build new schools in the first place.

[Penta]: If the upkeep is not going to be taking place, there is something wrong with that.

[Penta]: The building of a new police station, contained within the building of the new police station, it's 5,000 square feet less than what was asked for.

[Penta]: There is no police firing range that is for qualification.

[Penta]: But more importantly, the sad part about the whole thing, no police vehicle is going to be able to be housed internally.

[Penta]: They're all going to be outside.

[Penta]: And by doing that, all you're doing is leaving all your public service vehicles open to the elements.

[Penta]: So if there's a snowstorm or whatever it might be, every police officer's gonna have to go out there and take the snow off it.

[Penta]: And you try to explain that to the people of this community and you tell them that you're spending close to $20 million for a new police station, but you have no place to house or at least care for your police cruisers.

[Penta]: A very important issue that seems to be lost in the weeds is the, at present, if not more, a $29 million unfunded pension liability that needs to be paid by 2029.

[Penta]: That is yet to be discussed.

[Penta]: Also, what needs to be addressed right now also is a citywide

[Penta]: It's called the Citywide Home Water Meter Battery Replacement Program.

[Penta]: Now for those of you that have a house and you know when you get your water and sewer bill, the system was put in well over 10 years ago with meters that were only good for 10 years.

[Penta]: The 10 years have come and gone, that's a cost factor and that's a replacement that needs to take place.

[Penta]: We still have yet to receive a cost projection for a new fire station as to where it will be, when it will be, and what it will cost.

[Penta]: There is no projections out there.

[Penta]: And still outstanding is the new training tower that was promised it would be built before the old one was taken down.

[Penta]: Well, the old one has been taken down, and now nothing has been put up.

[Penta]: And in fact, it does affect, in the city of Medford, your home insurance rates.

[Penta]: There's no financial outline as to how the city's annual free cash should be prioritized.

[Penta]: For the new councils coming on board, for the last few many years, it's almost a million dollars each and every year the city of Medford has left over, it just goes into free cash.

[Penta]: So that presents itself with one or two arguments.

[Penta]: Number one, the budget is either not accurate, or number two, that million dollars is maybe not correct when the budget is being voted upon at the time.

[Penta]: So therefore,

[Penta]: To me, it makes very good sense because a lot of cities and towns do this.

[Penta]: You folks pass a budget in May or June, let's call it June, that should be the time you set your tax rate, not six months later.

[Penta]: So if you do that, you're working on an actual annual budget that reflects upon that vote that took place in June that represents itself to each and every dollar itemized.

[Penta]: Also, a public works five-year projection program that covers our streets, our sidewalks, our tree stumps, our equipment, our water repairs issues, and cemetery, as well as all personnel that's gonna be needed to address that.

[Penta]: That would be a great program to have because number one, we're already understaffed and we're hiring immediately just two more people to work in the highway department that just basically on a daily basis is so understaffed and on demand.

[Penta]: Lastly, for the purposes of at least this portion of the discussion, two points.

[Penta]: And I know Councilor Caraviello once again has asked for this and Councilor Marks, you've asked for this.

[Penta]: You should get a five-year financial recap from Park Medford on all the receipts taken in and what has been given to the City of Medford.

[Penta]: I guarantee none of you have received anything from Park Medford as it relates to that financial responsibility.

[Penta]: And lastly, Councilor Marks, you brought this up, yet to be determined

[Penta]: Where and for what reasons has the $500,000 from Tufts University been accounted for?

[Penta]: You still don't know.

[Penta]: We still don't know.

[Penta]: Now moving over to the housing issue.

[Penta]: And here's an issue right now that's in the forefront of everything as to what's going on.

[Penta]: So let's just mention a few little things that are going on.

[Penta]: Right now what we have on the books are 185 units that are coming online after Wendy's on Middlesex Ave.

[Penta]: You have 300 plus units opposite the Wellington Station.

[Penta]: You have a proposed 400 Chapter 40B units next to the Middlesex Courthouse on Mystic Valley Parkway.

[Penta]: And looking at the smaller neighborhood issue that took place on Forest Street, where a private developer wanted to maximize a single-family residence to a multi-family use zone, that caused a tremendous amount of consultation not only to the neighborhood, but the Medford Historical Commission.

[Penta]: Going back, you go to 61 Toro Street, where you had an old magnificent home over there for which Tufts University was involved.

[Penta]: And they sort of like wanted to take advantage of the property.

[Penta]: But through the neighborhood pushing back, that didn't take place.

[Penta]: Right now, as of tomorrow night, you're going to have before the Board of Appeals, where the old Titan gas station is on Boston Avenue and Harvard Street, a condominium proposed development.

[Penta]: And then you have rumored development of a new condos behind the Middlesex Avenue Mall.

[Penta]: Once again, a rumored development of 30 plus condos on South Street.

[Penta]: And a rumored Boston Avenue multi-housing development.

[Penta]: Then, at the end of last summer, 500 multi-use development was proposed by Combined Properties of Malden.

[Penta]: And after a large community opposition, led by then City Councilor and now Mayor, Lungo-Koehn, as well as Gene Nuzzo and Cheryl Rodriguez, the project was forced to be scrapped by the developer.

[Penta]: Now, some six months later,

[Penta]: This same company, Combined Properties, is now proposing a 37, 378 residential unit, and the application for approval is coming along under a Chapter 40B proposal, entirely different than what they originally had.

[Penta]: The real wake-up call to this whole issue right now on housing here in the City of Medford should have taken place at 61 Locust Street.

[Penta]: The massive development that is opposite Wegmans right now, which was originally scheduled for over 500 units, and they've culled it down to 345.

[Penta]: Neighborhood protests pushed it back.

[Penta]: But as in any big business development, what did they do?

[Penta]: They went into the neighbors that were pushing back and they bought every single home over there for them to at least come back with $345,000 and still make the money that they're going to be made.

[Penta]: As I said some years ago, and as I said during this past campaign, the City of Medford needs to embark on a moratorium.

[Penta]: A moratorium on its zoning, and more importantly, a complete review of its zoning here in the City of Medford.

[Penta]: And the reason why the moratorium would work

[Penta]: is because our zoning has not been reviewed for a multitude of years.

[Penta]: So you're saying to any proposed developer that comes in, I will propose this affordable housing, which is not the same as a Chapter 40B, because remember, affordable housing is something that's compensated in part or given great latitude by state laws, whereas a Chapter 40B is a private independent entity coming in there.

[Penta]: So sure, they'll give you their affordable housing.

[Penta]: but they'll back in the cost on the remaining units that are in the building.

[Penta]: So how does that qualify and justify for an affordable housing process?

[Penta]: I don't know.

[Penta]: But also, you should be looking into what they call a growth management proposal.

[Penta]: And the reason why I say that is because we have right here in our own city, a sister city, it's called Malden, Massachusetts.

[Penta]: And in 2015, they put a question on the ballot, and their ballot question revolved around what you have been talking about, Councilor Falco, the Malden Hospital, what we're going to do with it.

[Penta]: The second thing is the Community Preservation Act, what are we gonna do with that as far as open space?

[Penta]: And their third question was the moratorium on high-density, multi-level development.

[Penta]: It won by 71% of the vote, and they had a moratorium,

[Penta]: proposal that passed and it went from January of 2016 to December of 2017.

[Penta]: Now incorporated into that

[Penta]: was the density of the immediate neighborhood taken into consideration, the height, the number of units, as well as the zoning exemptions that were being challenged.

[Penta]: And as a result of that, they have now, I think if you go to them all, then you can be able to see, if you look at their development office, I don't know if they call it Office of Community Development, they do have a serious situation where they had developers just coming in all over the place.

[Penta]: Medford has a serious problem in having a workable business community, a business development community.

[Penta]: Approximately 10.2% of the business in this community is commercial.

[Penta]: Who bears the rest of that brunt?

[Penta]: It's the residential.

[Penta]: And I know every time when you folks turn around and do your budget, you talk about a residential factor making it the highest or the lowest or whatever it might be, you're still putting the burden

[Penta]: on the taxpayer who owns his residential home, and you're not taking the exemption for the out-of-state person.

[Penta]: So, with that being said, and if we continue to go on this road, or this, how can you say, this road, so to speak, of not increasing our commercial base, all you're going to do is just going to be commercial, I mean, raising in the future your residential rate.

[Penta]: Now, after what took place in Malden, and after what took place after that, we can switch ourselves over to the city of,

[Penta]: You want somebody else to talk?

[Penta]: OK, well, I'm on my last page.

[Penta]: I'm on my last page.

[Penta]: So after Malden, beside Malden, in 2015, the city of Revere, and again in 2018, put that question of a moratorium, high density, multi-use positions over there.

[Penta]: And their situation over there revolved itself around large scale buildings, traffic, public safety, schools, and roads were going to be at issue.

[Penta]: And the claims that Revere was not growing geographically, but rather becoming more dense without any economic development is just like what's going on right here in our city of Medford.

[Penta]: And with that being said, that the challenge for affordable housing in Chapter 40B as we speak today,

[Penta]: would be the luxury of using our at-present zoning laws and skirt around the real issue of reasonably priced housing and rental.

[Penta]: There are two or three companies in the United States that take into effect low-moderate housing.

[Penta]: Veterans

[Penta]: middle-income people, but not high-end middle-income people, middle-income people, and that's a determination by a professional.

[Penta]: We don't have that expertise over here, and I know on the ballot here tonight, on our agenda, there's a question regarding Chapter 40B, but if you really look at just Chapter 40B, and you realize that developer is not there to lose money, and he's putting housing in a densely populated area, you're violating all the reasoning of why a neighborhood should be a neighborhood.

[Penta]: And as a result of that, moratoriums does not have to go on the ballot.

[Penta]: A moratorium can be placed by this council, by this mayor, or jointly together.

[Penta]: And recognizing the fact, and recognizing the fact, we are a city just as running, allowing housing to be any place and everywhere at any time.

[Penta]: And because of that, that's not good.

[Penta]: That's not healthy for the neighborhood.

[Penta]: As I said before a long time ago, development for the sake of development isn't the best thing that can happen in this city.

[Penta]: We have schools, we have public safety, we have public works.

[Penta]: We have a whole host of issues that taxpayers have to increasingly pay for.

[Penta]: And our best example of that is when they talked about stations landing, that they said at that point in time, that was going to lower our tax rate.

[Penta]: Well, the tax rate has never gone down once since station landing.

[Penta]: As a matter of fact, it just continuously goes up.

[Penta]: I'd be more than happy to answer any questions, but I just think it's important to have brought this up, especially for our two new councils, but more importantly for all seven of you, because this administration and you as a new council needs to address issues that basically address these matters.

[Penta]: They haven't been addressed, and they need to be addressed, and you just can't sit here and say, okay, we'll get to it someday, because someday has already come.

[Penta]: So with that being said, Mr. President,

[Penta]: Larry, could you, I made copies of my comments for all of your Councilors, so in case you missed anything.

[Penta]: The part that I appreciated the most when I served on this board for 36 years was the fact that I was willing to hear opposite viewpoints.

[Penta]: But when it comes to finances, two and two equals four.

[Penta]: And when it comes to neighborhoods, the people who live in the neighborhood should come first.

[Penta]: Not out-of-towners, not developers who want to come in there and make a whole bunch of money and then leave us.

[Penta]: Perfect example is Lumineer on Locust Street.

[Penta]: They built the building.

[Penta]: They said they were going to stay there.

[Penta]: They went to the Board of Appeals to get what they had to.

[Penta]: And one year later, they sold off the building and made $62 million at the expense of the Medford taxpayer.

[Penta]: So with that being said, Mr. President, I thank you for listening.

[Penta]: And if there's any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them.

[Penta]: Can I ask a question?

[Penta]: Name and address for the record.

[Penta]: Robert Penta, 0 Summit Road, Medford, Mass.

[Penta]: I'm really getting confused on this whole issue right now, because I thought.

[Penta]: Let me just ask this.

[Penta]: Let me ask just one question.

[Penta]: And to me, this is where I would be going with it.

[Penta]: I'm trying to understand, you're telling me that don't raise the value of land.

[Penta]: And if you don't raise the value of land, you'll have a better neighborhood or a better atmosphere, so to speak.

[Penta]: So with that being taken, taking place, what you're saying is that

[Penta]: ignore zoning because zoning is a big reason why land values go up and if you are going to take out the free competitive spirit of Somebody buying a piece of property and doing what he wants by ignoring the zoning laws that absolutely exist at the present time whether it be for a chapter 40 B or affordable zoning that flies in the face of

[Penta]: of what the petition is all about.

[Penta]: And I think what Dr. Starello is basically trying to say, all you're doing is moving the debt from today till tomorrow, and when tomorrow comes, whether it's two today or 10 or 12 or 14, what are you dealing with?

[Penta]: Somebody's gonna wind up paying for it, but in the meantime, it's a cost factor that's being reflected upon everyday taxpayer.

[Penta]: So when somebody says that the value of land, don't put it on the value of land,

[Penta]: That seems to be the intrinsic value of how developers seem to come into a community, see the value.

[Penta]: They don't care about the location.

[Penta]: They don't care about what the density is going to do with it.

[Penta]: And it's your zoning that's gonna predicate the value of land and its use of land and neighborhoods.

[Penta]: That's how I read what Councilor Morell just offered.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Barpenta, Zero Summit Road, Medford, Mass.

[Penta]: So this is going to reflect back on some of the comments that I made a little bit earlier.

[Penta]: First of all, the City of Medford is a member of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, and they have individuals who are very professional in the housing portion of what we're talking about here right now.

[Penta]: To go out and hire a private consultant that pushes and advocates for Chapter 40B, I don't think would be a very wise idea.

[Penta]: Oh, against the 40B.

[Penta]: I thought you said... I'm sorry.

[Penta]: Well, you may not have to do that because if the Office of Community Development gets itself redesigned, hopefully you would have somebody up there who would understand what the process is.

[Penta]: You have to understand something.

[Penta]: There's a difference between Chapter 40B, which does come under a few Massachusetts housing management departments, as compared to affordable housing.

[Penta]: Affordable housing is usually a private,

[Penta]: But working with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who to some degree sets some standards up there as it relates to not only affordability, which has to be, but the permanent and perpetuity of having the

[Penta]: the reduced cost unit, whether it be the rental or whether it be the housing.

[Penta]: Chapter 40B is made for a private developer.

[Penta]: He'll come in there and say in the city of Medford, well, you've got to get between, your income level has to be 80% of the medium income in the area that you're applying to put the housing in.

[Penta]: And if that be the case, you know, we can do that or we'll put 100 units up.

[Penta]: 25, 2025, whatever the number's gonna turn out to be, will be affordable, and we'll just raise the cost on the other end of the units.

[Penta]: So what did you wind up getting?

[Penta]: You really didn't complete anything.

[Penta]: Me personally, my suggestion would be that the city goes into a complete moratorium on any and all development to take place, because you don't have anything right now.

[Penta]: You have a Chapter 40B person who can come in, who just came in right now on Mystic Avenue,

[Penta]: and will bypass your height restrictions and other zoning requirements because that's what 40B is allowed to do.

[Penta]: If you read chapter 69 of chapter 49, excuse me, of chapter 40B, that's what they'll tell you.

[Penta]: They can come in and they detour and they go around.

[Penta]: And I know you guys, Councilor Knight and Councilor Scarpelli, have talked about over the last two or three years, zoning.

[Penta]: So maybe you should hire a zoning consultant right now to figure out how you bring up an update of a 40-year-old zoning that you have here in the city of Medford because every Chapter 40B that comes in here will bypass upstairs and they'll get around it.

[Penta]: And that's the privilege that you have for being a Chapter 40B participant, okay?

[Penta]: So if you want to have a Chapter 40B

[Penta]: be participant that works with the city, then that's what you need.

[Penta]: You need to have someone who goes into the neighborhood and sees where the project is going and how is it going to enhance.

[Penta]: It's not gonna produce a density buster.

[Penta]: That's what you don't want, and that's what's happening right now.

[Penta]: Density busting all over the city, because private developers know how to do it.

[Penta]: They're efficient at doing it, they make it sound good, and what do you have left?

[Penta]: You have all these developments all over the place.

[Penta]: schools, police, fire, public works, infrastructure, water and sewer.

[Penta]: It's all affected by this, all affected by this.

[Penta]: And while it might sound good that it looks good, that's what you're paying for in your taxes for which our commercial tax rate can't even handle because it's only a 10%.

[Penta]: So the burden once again is right back onto the residential taxpayer.

[Penta]: I think it's a great idea to get into the discussion.

[Penta]: But if you read this case after case after case where cities and towns are so sorry that they went into Chapter 40B because it did not turn out to be what it was supposed to be.

[Penta]: And the fastest way to correct a Chapter 40B problem is to make sure that your zoning speaks for what you want today and for tomorrow.

[Penta]: It's the financial viability of what a community has to deal with as it relates to a Chapter 40B.

[Penta]: Not affordable housing, it's a Chapter 40B.

[Penta]: They're in two entirely different requirements.

[Penta]: Point of information, Mr. President.

[Penta]: Well, if you go to the city of Somerville, they just went through it for a year and a half.

[Penta]: They stopped, they had a moratorium as it relates to that type of development that took place over there because of what was taking place so fast.

[Penta]: They did nothing for that period of time.

[Penta]: as it relates to multi-use development.

[Penta]: To the best of my, to moratorium, so that means you can't.

[Penta]: Another point of information.

[Penta]: One of the things that a Chapter 40B does tell you, if they go before a Board of Appeals, if the Board of Appeals feels, this is the term that they use, and it's not a friendly Chapter 40B, that's the term, friendly, they can shoot that down.

[Penta]: Now, what determines to be friendly?

[Penta]: It could be public health, it could be public safety.

[Penta]: Those are the two biggest issues that you'd have going.

[Penta]: Other than being in a residential neighborhood and making it high density,

[Penta]: That's a subjective thought.

[Penta]: That's all I can tell you.

[Penta]: But if you are going to hire somebody, or Office of Community Development is going to employ somebody, consultant or otherwise, that's the first thing I would address, because you have such archaic laws, you can go to the Board of Appeals right now and come in and make a proposal, and you can't shoot it down, because YDB will allow you to do it.

[Penta]: It's an interesting concept and the city of Medford really needs to address it because you've gone at a fever pitch over the past many years with all kinds of development and there's no checks and balances to it.

[Penta]: 61 Locust Street is really the issue that should bring this all to a head.

[Penta]: It should have brought it to a head then when they wanted to put 500 units there.

[Penta]: Okay, and what did they do?

[Penta]: The big developer went in there and bought out the neighborhood, bought out every single house in the neighborhood, and they reduced it to 345, which the Board of Appeals allowed, and it managed to put itself through.

[Penta]: I believe that the reason, I believe Councilor, the reason why the city lost is because the neighborhood agreed to the reduction of $345,000 after they all got bought out.

[Penta]: So our suit was completely moved at that point in time.

[Penta]: But they felt it had zero standing, but also the then mayor at the time refused to give additional money to go forward with the case.

[Penta]: You could have appealed.

[Penta]: But I also believe, Mr. President, when you lost the issue on standing, it was a moot issue, because all the people, the residents, pushed back on the lawsuit, because they all got bought out.

[Penta]: So the standing for which the council had was not being supported by the neighborhood, which initiated the lawsuit in the first place.

[Penta]: And the council got originally $20,000 in the beginning to get the case going.

[Penta]: Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, Medford Mass, former member of this August body.

[Penta]: I come here to address the City Council on this important issue that has important but different consequences depending on what side of the issue that you might be on.

[Penta]: At the outset, I want to address and thank Curtis Tooden for propelling this issue.

[Penta]: before our citizens of the city of Medford.

[Penta]: Since this is an election year and we're all running for office, those of you that are and those that might be candidates running for office, boasting about all the wonderful accomplishments and the hard votes that you had to take.

[Penta]: To me, this is a very important issue and I think it's an issue that needs to be presented and discussed and to have everybody, including the mayor, the city council and the school committee take a position on this issue.

[Penta]: Because isn't it weird, when we think about our America today and you see all the things that are taking place, whether it's before the National Football League or Little Pop Wanna Kids, the use of our American flag, the national anthem, seems to be at issue.

[Penta]: And our culture seems to be at issue.

[Penta]: But where are we going with all of that?

[Penta]: I don't know.

[Penta]: You know, Sanctuary City's had its beginning here in the United States back in the 1980s.

[Penta]: Central folks, central people from Central America left their country looking for political refuge because of the oppressive nature that was taking place.

[Penta]: And what took place here in this country, and the churches, many of the churches throughout this country, they took these folks in, believing them to be in need of help, and for which we did, we helped them out.

[Penta]: But that sort of like has morphed itself since 1981 to what it is today, addressing itself to sanctuary cities.

[Penta]: And as a result of sanctuary cities becoming what they are and having a different interpretation, you, Mr. President, just read something that was dated November 21, 2016.

[Penta]: If you go to that third whereas, it says the city of Medford stands in support of all immigrant groups.

[Penta]: I think the word before all

[Penta]: an immigrant should be legal.

[Penta]: All legal immigrant groups.

[Penta]: Because we, the people of the United States, are a nation built on laws.

[Penta]: Its foundation is built on laws.

[Penta]: And it's on the legality of what we do each and every day.

[Penta]: And it seems, and it seems that because of all this illegal immigration that is taking place in this country, you know, have we as a country now forgotten the fact or gotten to the point where everybody has a right

[Penta]: We're giving everybody rights, but nobody wants responsibility.

[Penta]: But the responsibility that's being borne each and every day is the Mr. and Mrs. America, Mr. and Mrs. Medford Taxpayer.

[Penta]: You know, I cannot think of any prouder comment than something that's written on the banner of the VFW of Mystic Avenue.

[Penta]: It says, all lives matter.

[Penta]: Everybody's lives matter.

[Penta]: White, black, blue, green.

[Penta]: I don't care what nationality you are.

[Penta]: If you're here in this country and you're here legally or you have the proper legal documents earning your way to become an American citizen, your life matters.

[Penta]: And for those folks that come here illegally, that's in and of itself the question that's before us right now.

[Penta]: You know,

[Penta]: We as a community are very generous to so many people.

[Penta]: You members on the council, especially your two new members, Councilor Scarpel and Councilor Falco, you've just gone through two years of community block grant funding.

[Penta]: And if you go through each and every one of those community block grant fundings, you will see the amount of money that's been dedicated and prioritized to charities within not only the city of Medford, but in the Tri-City and outside the city of Medford.

[Penta]: You've also seen monies go to legal, council,

[Penta]: for people who have an illegal immigration condition needing to get itself resolved and coming forward.

[Penta]: We also have in this community all our churches and all the food pantries and the shelters taking care of as many people as they can.

[Penta]: And while they're doing that, the question then becomes, who comes first, the illegal or the legal?

[Penta]: And I think a sanctuary city, in and of itself,

[Penta]: presents that particular situation.

[Penta]: Like I said, again, depending on what side of the issue you're on.

[Penta]: Sanctuary cities throughout this country, and there's 200 of them right now, that bar the use of government resources to enforce federal immigration laws.

[Penta]: And they also allow illegals charged with crimes to be released without notifying federal authorities.

[Penta]: Now, in a report that was submitted in December of 2014 to Congress,

[Penta]: It stated that more than 30,000 convicted criminals have been released by ICE at the end of 2014, and they have gone back to the states, to the cities and towns that they came from.

[Penta]: But inclusive of those crimes, there was 173 homicides, there were 373 sexual assaults, there were 186 kidnappings, and there was 1,000, excuse me, there was 14,014

[Penta]: drunk driving charges to individuals that did not have a license.

[Penta]: There were more than 30,000 convicted criminal citations issued during that time.

[Penta]: What does that say to the law abiding citizen?

[Penta]: But more importantly, what does that say to law enforcement personnel?

[Penta]: who especially now, if you're in a sanctuary city, you can't ask for identification as to are you an immigrant or not, you can't hold them, you can't call ISIS, excuse me.

[Penta]: It has a ramification that just really says to the police officer of today, beside doing my job for the city that I'm in, I am now having to become aware of somebody who might be here illegally.

[Penta]: And that person might get preferential treatment over someone who might be illegally, but that I can arrest and imprison.

[Penta]: And that's really not right.

[Penta]: There's a particular case that takes place from a gentleman and his two children that died.

[Penta]: He came from Lavon, Texas.

[Penta]: And he was hit by an illegal immigrant who hit him head on in a collision.

[Penta]: And he killed him, his four-year-old son, and his 22-month-old

[Penta]: striped out his four-year-old daughter and his 22-year-old son.

[Penta]: The illegal person was arrested and plea bargained to a two-year sentence, a two-year sentence for wiping out a husband, a father, and a daughter.

[Penta]: The woman subsequent to that has had some kind of public, how could you say, retaliation

[Penta]: because she felt that the justice system didn't do her right, because she complained because of that.

[Penta]: And the person that killed her husband, her daughter, and her son was Hispanic.

[Penta]: She now becomes the culprit and not the victim.

[Penta]: These are just little nuances.

[Penta]: We can go to the entire country.

[Penta]: There are cases where police officers have been killed, shot, brutally murdered by illegal immigrants here in this country.

[Penta]: And that's not right.

[Penta]: Absolutely not right.

[Penta]: When we think about what's going on, illegals, they have the benefits of our free medical system.

[Penta]: They go to our quality schools.

[Penta]: They get free housing and free food.

[Penta]: But they don't choose to blend in by learning English and assimilating to our American culture.

[Penta]: And further, by committing crimes outside or inside the community or the state that they're in,

[Penta]: It adds a definite cost to our police, to our public safety, to our public education, and to Mr. and Mrs. Medford and Mr. and Mrs. America.

[Penta]: So the question then becomes, on a sanctuary city, you folks are running for office.

[Penta]: I haven't seen one of you yet say or put anywhere in your literature, just one gentleman so far, he's in the back of the room, made the point that he is for sanctuary cities.

[Penta]: I commend him for it.

[Penta]: He took his position.

[Penta]: It's a very important issue to be discussed.

[Penta]: Because if you're telling me that you're abiding by this November 16th, strike that, November 23rd resolution, well this smacks of all the ingredients of a sanctuary city.

[Penta]: Either we are or we're not.

[Penta]: And I think you Councilors and every candidate running for office needs to take that position.

[Penta]: And the reason why they need to take that position, whether you're for or against,

[Penta]: in a common, level-headed society, while we don't have to agree, we can respectfully disagree.

[Penta]: And that's where I think we need to be going here in this community.

[Penta]: You know, when you say we're a welcoming community, as a matter of fact, there's a billboard coming in on Route 93.

[Penta]: It says we are a welcoming.

[Penta]: We've always been a welcoming committee.

[Penta]: We've got the third largest black population in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and we've had it for years.

[Penta]: And slowly but surely, they're leaving because nobody can afford to stay there anymore.

[Penta]: The cost of housing in this community has gone completely out of control.

[Penta]: Makes no sense at all.

[Penta]: And if this present administration keeps wanting to put housing all over the place, and if this council doesn't want to review zoning, that's what's going to happen.

[Penta]: You can have a city so out of control, you're not going to be able to understand what's going on.

[Penta]: And Dr. Stirella was right.

[Penta]: Your finances will be so out of control.

[Penta]: And if you add a sanctuary city to the mix, then please explain why you're doing it.

[Penta]: And please let the people know as a candidate for office, that a sanctuary city, you're either for it or against it.

[Penta]: I think the bottom line, my comment would basically, I don't think any city council, any mayor, any school committee person or anyone,

[Penta]: should tell a police department how to do their job, especially whether they're legal or illegal.

[Penta]: That's their job to protect and to serve, and not to be controlled by a political hierarchy in a community that turns around and says, we want to be a sanctuary city.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Robert Penteciro, Summit Road, Medford, Mass.

[Penta]: First of all, for the young lady behind me, I'm not a white privileged individual.

[Penta]: Had to work for everything in my life, starting at five o'clock in the morning for eight consecutive years, driving a canteen truck, being held up three times, shot at twice.

[Penta]: But I didn't give up because I knew what I wanted to do.

[Penta]: I wanted to get a college education and go forward with my life.

[Penta]: And that's what I did.

[Penta]: I did not come here tonight to be decisive or have people become decisive.

[Penta]: I came here tonight to present an issue.

[Penta]: thanking Mr. Tudin, who made the acknowledgement that he is for a sanctuary city.

[Penta]: It's a subject matter that needs to be discussed.

[Penta]: The statistics that were given are actual statistics.

[Penta]: You can't get away, because they're not lying.

[Penta]: And for the other lady who indicated that the crime rate for the individuals who are undocumented are less than regular American citizens that are documented and are legal, that in and of itself spells to the question of the police department.

[Penta]: They're doing more work because they have to deal with undocumented illegals over and beyond their regular course.

[Penta]: Now, are all of them bad people?

[Penta]: Absolutely not.

[Penta]: Do they deserve a fair shot?

[Penta]: Absolutely.

[Penta]: And if they have to have some political intervention, which is taking place right now in Washington, so be it.

[Penta]: But the fact of the matter is this.

[Penta]: I stand here and I resent the fact that anyone, any seven of you or anyone in this audience, who wants to turn around and say, because I was born white, that I am privileged, that is false, that is wrong, and that is a lie.

[Penta]: And you should be ashamed of yourself for saying that.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, Medford, Mass., former member of this August body.

[Penta]: I come here to address the City Council on this important issue that has important but different consequences depending on what side of the issue that you might be on.

[Penta]: At the outset, I want to address and thank Curtis Tudin for propelling this issue

[Penta]: before our citizens of the city of Medford.

[Penta]: Since this is an election year and we're all running for office, those of you that are and those that might be candidates running for office, boasting about all the wonderful accomplishments and the hard votes that you had to take.

[Penta]: To me, this is a very important issue and I think it's an issue that needs to be presented and discussed and to have everybody, including the mayor, the city council, the school committee, take a position on this issue.

[Penta]: Because isn't it weird, when we think about our America today, and you see all the things that are taking place, whether it's before the National Football League, or little Pop Warner kids, the use of our American flag, the national anthem, seems to be at issue.

[Penta]: And our culture seems to be at issue.

[Penta]: But where are we going with all of that?

[Penta]: I don't know.

[Penta]: Sanctuary City's had its beginning here in the United States back in the 1980s.

[Penta]: Central folks, central people from Central America left their country looking for political refuge because of the oppressive nature that was taking place.

[Penta]: And what took place here in this country, and the churches, many of the churches throughout this country, they took these folks in, believing them to be in need of help, and for which we did, we helped them out.

[Penta]: But that sort of like has morphed itself since 1981 to what it is today, addressing itself to sanctuary cities.

[Penta]: And as a result of sanctuary cities becoming what they are and having a different interpretation, you, Mr. President, just read something that was dated November 21, 2016.

[Penta]: If you go to that third whereas, it says the city of Medford stands in support of all immigrant groups.

[Penta]: I think the word before all,

[Penta]: an immigrant should be legal.

[Penta]: All legal immigrant groups.

[Penta]: Because we, the people of the United States, are a nation built on laws.

[Penta]: Its foundation is built on laws.

[Penta]: And it's on the legality of what we do each and every day.

[Penta]: And it seems, and it seems that because of all this illegal immigration that is taking place in this country, you know, have we as a country now forgotten the fact or gotten to the point where everybody has a right

[Penta]: We're giving everybody rights, but nobody wants responsibility.

[Penta]: But the responsibility that's being borne each and every day is the Mr. and Mrs. America, Mr. and Mrs. Medford taxpayer.

[Penta]: You know, I cannot think of any prouder comment than something that's written on the banner of the VFW of Mystic Avenue.

[Penta]: It says, all lives matter.

[Penta]: Everybody's lives matter.

[Penta]: White, black, blue, green, I don't care what nationality you are.

[Penta]: If you're here in this country, and you're here legally, or you have the proper legal documents, earning your way to become an American citizen, your life matters.

[Penta]: And for those folks that come here illegally, that's in and of itself the question that's before us right now.

[Penta]: We as a community are very generous to so many people.

[Penta]: You members on the council, especially your two new members, Councilor Scarpel and Councilor Falco, you've just gone through two years of community block grant funding, and if you go through each and every one of those community block grant fundings, you will see the amount of money that's been dedicated and prioritized to charities within not only the city of Medford, but in the Tri-City and outside the city of Medford.

[Penta]: You've also seen monies go to legal, council,

[Penta]: for people who have an illegal immigration condition needing to get itself resolved and coming forward.

[Penta]: We also have in this community all our churches and all the food pantries and the shelters taking care of as many people as they can.

[Penta]: And while they're doing that, the question then becomes, who comes first, the illegal or the legal?

[Penta]: And I think a sanctuary city, in and of itself,

[Penta]: presents that particular situation.

[Penta]: Like I said, again, depending on what side of the issue you're on.

[Penta]: Sanctuary cities throughout this country, and there's 200 of them right now, that bar the use of government resources to enforce federal immigration laws.

[Penta]: And they also allow illegals charged with crimes to be released without notifying federal authorities.

[Penta]: Now, in a report that was submitted in December of 2014 to Congress,

[Penta]: It stated that more than 30,000 convicted criminals have been released by ICE at the end of 2014, and they have gone back to the states, to the cities and towns that they came from.

[Penta]: But inclusive of those crimes,

[Penta]: There was 173 homicides, there were 373 sexual assaults, there were 186 kidnappings, and there was 1,000, excuse me, there was 14,014 drunk driving charges to individuals that did not have a license.

[Penta]: There were more than 30,000 convicted criminal citations issued during that time.

[Penta]: What does that say to the law abiding citizen?

[Penta]: But more importantly, what does that say to law enforcement personnel?

[Penta]: Who especially now, if you're in a sanctuary city, you can't ask for identification as to are you an immigrant or not.

[Penta]: You can't hold them, you can't call ISIS, excuse me.

[Penta]: It has a ramification that just really says to the police officer of today, beside doing my job for the city that I'm in, I am now having to become aware of somebody who might be here illegally.

[Penta]: And that person might get preferential treatment over someone who might be here legally, but that I can arrest and imprison.

[Penta]: And that's really not right.

[Penta]: There's a particular case that takes place from a gentleman and his two children that died.

[Penta]: He came from Levone, Texas.

[Penta]: And he was hit by an illegal immigrant who hit him head on in a collision.

[Penta]: And he killed him, his four-year-old son, and his 22-month-old, strike that, his four-year-old daughter and his 22-month-old son.

[Penta]: The illegal person was arrested and plea bargained to a two-year sentence.

[Penta]: a two-year sentence for wiping out a husband, a father, and a daughter.

[Penta]: The woman, subsequent to that, has had some kind of public, how could you say, retaliation, because she felt that the justice system didn't do her right, because she complained because of that, and the person that killed her husband, her daughter, and her son was Hispanic, she now becomes the culprit and not the victim.

[Penta]: These are just little nuances.

[Penta]: We can go to the entire country.

[Penta]: There are cases where police officers have been killed, shot, brutally murdered by illegal immigrants here in this country.

[Penta]: And that's not right.

[Penta]: Absolutely not right.

[Penta]: When we think about what's going on, illegals, they have the benefits of our free medical system.

[Penta]: They go to our quality schools.

[Penta]: They get free housing and free food.

[Penta]: But they don't choose to blend in

[Penta]: by learning English and assimilating to our American culture.

[Penta]: And further, by committing crimes outside or inside the community or the state that they're in, it adds a definite cost to our police, to our public safety, to our public education, and to Mr. and Mrs. Medford and Mr. and Mrs. America.

[Penta]: So the question then becomes, on a sanctuary city, you folks are running for office.

[Penta]: I haven't seen one of you yet say or put anywhere in your literature.

[Penta]: Just one gentleman so far, he's in the back of the room, made the point that he is for sanctuary cities.

[Penta]: I commend him for it.

[Penta]: He took his position.

[Penta]: It's a very important issue to be discussed.

[Penta]: Because if you're telling me that you're abiding by this November 16th, strike that, November 23rd,

[Penta]: resolution, well, this smacks of all the ingredients of a sanctuary city.

[Penta]: Either we are or we're not.

[Penta]: And I think you councilors and every candidate running for office needs to take that position.

[Penta]: And the reason why they need to take that position, whether you're for or against, in a common level headed society, while we don't have to agree, we can respectfully disagree.

[Penta]: And that's where I think we need to be going here in this community.

[Penta]: You know, when you say we're a welcoming community, as a matter of fact, there's a billboard coming in on Route 93.

[Penta]: It says we are a welcoming.

[Penta]: We've always been a welcoming committee.

[Penta]: We've got the third largest black population in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and we've had it for years.

[Penta]: And slowly but surely, they're leaving because nobody can afford to stay there anymore.

[Penta]: The cost of housing in this community has gone completely out of control.

[Penta]: Makes no sense at all.

[Penta]: And if this present administration keeps wanting to put housing all over the place, and if this council doesn't want to review zoning, that's what's going to happen.

[Penta]: You can have a city so out of control, you're not going to be able to understand what's going on.

[Penta]: And Dr. Stirella was right.

[Penta]: Your finances will be so out of control.

[Penta]: And if you add a sanctuary city to the mix, then please explain why you're doing it.

[Penta]: And please let the people know as a candidate for office that a sanctuary city, you're either for it or against it.

[Penta]: Mr. Panto, we're running, you're running over your time.

[Penta]: I think the bottom line, my comment would basically, I don't think any city council, any mayor, any school committee person or anyone

[Penta]: should tell a police department how to do their job, especially whether they're legal or illegal.

[Penta]: That's their job to protect and to serve, and not to be controlled by a political hierarchy in a community that turns around and says, we want to be a sanctuary city.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Robert Penteciro, Summit Road, Medford, Mass.

[Penta]: First of all, for the young lady to my behind me,

[Penta]: I'm not a white privileged individual.

[Penta]: I've had to work for everything in my life, starting at five o'clock in the morning for eight consecutive years, driving a canteen truck, being held up three times, shot at twice.

[Penta]: But I didn't give up because I knew what I wanted to do.

[Penta]: I wanted to get a college education and go forward with my life.

[Penta]: And that's what I did.

[Penta]: I did not come here tonight to be decisive or

[Penta]: Have people become decisive.

[Penta]: I came here tonight to present an issue, thanking Mr. Tudin, who made the acknowledgement that he is for a sanctuary city.

[Penta]: It's a subject matter that needs to be discussed.

[Penta]: The statistics that were given are actual statistics.

[Penta]: You can't get away because they're not lying.

[Penta]: And for the other lady who indicated that the crime rate for the individuals who are undocumented are less than regular American citizens that are documented and are legal, that in and of itself spells to the question of the police department.

[Penta]: They're doing more work because they have to deal with undocumented illegals over and beyond their regular course.

[Penta]: Now, are all of them bad people?

[Penta]: Absolutely not.

[Penta]: Do they deserve a fair shot?

[Penta]: Absolutely.

[Penta]: And if they have to have some political intervention, which is taking place right now in Washington, so be it.

[Penta]: But the fact of the matter is this.

[Penta]: I stand here and I resent the fact that anyone, any seven of you or anyone in this audience, who wants to turn around and say, because I was born white, that I am privileged, that is false, that is wrong, and that is a lie.

[Penta]: And you should be ashamed of yourself for saying that.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: My name is Robert M. Penta, Zero Summit Road, Medford, Mass., former member of this August body.

[Penta]: The reason why I'm up here is twofold, as the resolution indicates.

[Penta]: I was a little befuddled when I got a copy of my water bill, and then I got a copy of the letter signed by the Board of Water and Soil Commissioners as it relates to what they call a baseline fee, which is, in essence, is a new tax on the rate payers here within this community.

[Penta]: In their letter where they make an assessment of $24,000 is $24,483 is necessary.

[Penta]: I don't know if this is a misprint on the spelling here.

[Penta]: Pardon me?

[Penta]: It's 24 million.

[Penta]: No, that's the amount, I believe, of the total amount.

[Penta]: I believe, if I understood it correctly from the chairman of the board, he alleged that it was approximately a $300,000 deficit on the sewer account.

[Penta]: Now, this August, Marty, some weeks ago, voted to incorporate your enterprise fund, which includes the water and sewer account, as one.

[Penta]: And by having the water and sewer count as one, that allows you, by right and by law, to make adjustments as it relates to profits and losses on either side.

[Penta]: And at the present time, the new water bills that are going to be going out are going to be having an alleged 3% reduction in your water rate.

[Penta]: But you're going to be charged what they call now a new connectivity fee.

[Penta]: And this connectivity fee is addressing the fact that if you have whatever your line is that you have in your house, as it relates to your water and sewer hookup, from your house to the street, for which every taxpayer who owns the line.

[Penta]: The fact of the matter is that the Water and Sewer Commission signed it, and the mayor of this community has allowed it, and likewise, this Medford City Council has done nothing to rebut it, for which you have a unique opportunity right now.

[Penta]: The fact also presents itself with the issue that with this new combined water and sewer allowance,

[Penta]: Why would you be reducing your water rate by 3% and now coming in and want to put a brand new tax on each and every other month, bimonthly, six times a year, ad infinitum, on Medford taxpayers, knowing that you have a surplus in excess of $8 million and you have a deficit in the sewer account

[Penta]: for this 2018 year of $300,000.

[Penta]: That does not make any sense.

[Penta]: And the reason why it makes no sense is you will continuously keep going with a profit that you have, and your water and sewer count, and you have nothing presented before you as of the meeting that we had a month ago and as of tonight.

[Penta]: Any major road construction, any major sidewalk construction, any street construction.

[Penta]: The fact of the matter is, Mr. President, the connectivity tax that's going to be charged to the ratepayers.

[Penta]: The Water and Sewer Commission comes under the auspices of the Mayor.

[Penta]: They are appointed by the Mayor, and their recommendations go to the Mayor, and their recommendations, I'm quite sure, could not be holding to the taxpayers of this community at an outrageous rate.

[Penta]: So a new tax and fee is being implemented on the taxpayers of this community.

[Penta]: I'm glad you apologized on behalf of the council, because most recently, everybody got in their water and sewer bills

[Penta]: a letter that indicated that they were going to be getting a new processing baseline rate, which I will call a tax.

[Penta]: It's a new tax implemented on the citizens of this community on their water and sewer bill.

[Penta]: It's called a connectivity fee.

[Penta]: And you're going to be paying for that each and every other month, six times a year.

[Penta]: Every taxpayer that owns their home owns from their house to the middle of the street.

[Penta]: That's their pipe.

[Penta]: That's what they're responsible for, and that's what they pay for.

[Penta]: They make that connection already into the city's water and sewer line.

[Penta]: The city is already charging you for water and sewer coming into your house through your pipe, through the connection.

[Penta]: Now, the argument that's being used by the Water and Sewer Commission is

[Penta]: We need to put this money aside, which is approximately $1 million a year, according to the type and size of your pipe coming into your house, connected to the street, to offset any future costs that might put the city in a negative position.

[Penta]: My argument before this honorable body, I hope most of you can accept that word,

[Penta]: Honorable, is the fact that the water and sewer account that we have right now is an $8.5 million surplus.

[Penta]: You've merged, within the past two months, the water and sewer accounts of the Enterprise as to be one.

[Penta]: If you are alleging, as the Water and Sewer Commission is alleging, there was a $300,000 deficit in the sewer account, but at the same time you're proposing a 3% reduction in the water rate for next year, the irony to that does not make any sense.

[Penta]: Why?

[Penta]: Because you have an $8 million surplus.

[Penta]: You have them both now merged together.

[Penta]: And the law allows you to take a surplus from one to offset the negative of another or vice versa.

[Penta]: The other thing that this Water and Soil Commission has failed to do, it's under a 360 CMR 1100.

[Penta]: It's a continuation of contract water supplies.

[Penta]: And this came out in 1994.

[Penta]: And it states the following.

[Penta]: You incorporate a uniform rate or an alternative structure which provides incentives for water conservation and or is designed to ensure the affordability of water service to low and or fixed income people.

[Penta]: You don't have that at the present time.

[Penta]: That's never been brought up before the Water and Soil Commission to give that particular rate out.

[Penta]: You don't have it.

[Penta]: But if you're even going to get into the idea of the thought process of wanting to get into this, how do you justify the rates that are being proposed by the city?

[Penta]: The rates being proposed by the city range anywhere from

[Penta]: A residential house up to 3 quarters of an inch would be $51.66 a year.

[Penta]: Now, you may say it's only $51.

[Penta]: But you know something?

[Penta]: $51 to some people is a lot of money, especially if you want a fixed income.

[Penta]: And if you have a one-inch line coming into your house, it's $141 a year.

[Penta]: Take that and add it on to the CPA tax, for which you're not even going to get reimbursed by the state on.

[Penta]: That is another $50, $60 a year.

[Penta]: And now you're almost up to over $150, $200 a year.

[Penta]: Your taxes each and every year continuously keep going up.

[Penta]: It's absolutely unfair for the city to even entertain or engage itself in a connectivity fee tax every other month when you're sitting on that kind of a profit.

[Penta]: Now, if you want to be realistic and look at this thing and say, OK, maybe we should do like some other cities and towns, the community of Melrose, your sister next door, they have a one-time fee.

[Penta]: And it's at the discretion of the director of public works.

[Penta]: It's a one-time fee of $50.

[Penta]: And if you're building a new house and it's a first-time connection, so be it.

[Penta]: If you're rebuilding your house and you have to make a reconnection, that reconnection is either $50 and or at the discretion

[Penta]: of the Director of Public Works, because if you're the same owner, it could be abated.

[Penta]: It just doesn't make any sense.

[Penta]: It doesn't make any sense because you, as the Medford City Council, are supposed to be looking out for the best financial interests of this community.

[Penta]: And the only way you can seem to do it right now, at least through the majority of you, if you so choose, is you just hold this budget in abeyance until the mayor comes forward and indicates how can you keep going out and making these charges against Medford taxpayers and ratepayers.

[Penta]: Let's flip over to the second part, to the hotel.

[Penta]: You have a hotel proposal that you haven't even sat down, hasn't even been discussed, and there the mayor of this community in the State of the City address in February says this is going to be up and running by the fall of 2019.

[Penta]: You haven't had a discussion either with the contractor who's only been around since 2013.

[Penta]: You don't even know what the taxes is going to be.

[Penta]: And the best part about this hotel, you need city and state land to be taken to accommodate the parking that's necessary for this proposed hotel.

[Penta]: Here's your time to discuss it during the budget.

[Penta]: And if you don't discuss it, why give the vote out?

[Penta]: It doesn't make any sense.

[Penta]: It's unfortunate under this form of government that this mayor who said she was going to be transparent and would have someone here each and every week to listen and to discuss these issues, there's nobody here.

[Penta]: You're lucky if that person's been here twice in the two years that it's been here.

[Penta]: And what doesn't make sense is how can you go back and keep telling Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer that this is only a small little dollar amount, especially when you're dealing with a surplus.

[Penta]: You've got $9 million in your free cash or thereabouts.

[Penta]: But nobody around here has discussed your $29 million in an unfunded liability.

[Penta]: How are you going to address that?

[Penta]: And is this new connectivity charge going to be able to be used to offset salaries and wages of employees in that department, pension system funds?

[Penta]: These are the questions you need to ask.

[Penta]: And the low and moderate income, fixed income people don't even have a break on this.

[Penta]: So while you think you're making the taxpayer feel good because you're lowering his water rate by 3%, you're charging him in excess of the 3% by having a bimonthly, six times a year, new tax being placed upon him.

[Penta]: And the line that should really get you in every single ratepayer is this.

[Penta]: It says the base rate is not a tax, nor is it an additional charge in which residents pay for water and sewer services.

[Penta]: Well, you tell me what it is.

[Penta]: You tell me, Mr. President, what it is.

[Penta]: If it's not a tax, okay, if it's not a fee, and if it's not for water and sewer services, well, why am I paying a connectivity fee to let that water go through that pipe that comes into the pipe that I own, that comes into my house, that you charge me water and sewer taxes on?

[Penta]: I respectfully ask this Medford City Council to ask this mayor, you hold up this question and remove this connectivity fee.

[Penta]: It's an unfair tax, it's unnecessary, and it does not do good for the city of Medford.

[Penta]: I'm more than happy to answer any questions.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: How you would rebut it is you would tell the mayor that we're not voting for your budget until you tell the Water and Sewer commissioners to roll back that fee.

[Penta]: You justify $8.5 million sitting there and justify telling the taxpayers you're going to generate another million dollars plus a year with this connectivity fee, and you don't even have a program set aside.

[Penta]: Look at every street.

[Penta]: Look at all the streets that are waiting to be done.

[Penta]: Look at the potholes that can't get done.

[Penta]: Look at Evans Street that's been promised for almost two years they were going to get done when the water main broke.

[Penta]: We could just go on and on and on with this.

[Penta]: You can't keep charging the taxpayers of this community for something, especially when you're sitting on millions of dollars in a surplus in this particular account.

[Penta]: We're reducing the water rate, Madam Chairperson, we're reducing the water rate by 3%.

[Penta]: So if you have a $24 million cost, whatever it is, I think that's what you said, Mr. President, for the cost of coming in this year, and inclusive of that cost is water and sewer charges, because it's coming in, and we all know that your sewer charge is at 121% of your water.

[Penta]: So if the city already knows that they're going to be operating at a $300,000 loss, why wouldn't you just take the money from your $8.5 million profit rather than go out and tell the people we're going to charge you for a connectivity fee and have the audacity to put in a letter that's got nothing to do with water and sewer services?

[Penta]: What do you think, people are stupid?

[Penta]: I'm not stupid.

[Penta]: You know, I love this city, and I'll do anything to make it right.

[Penta]: But when I see stuff like this, this really gets to me, all right?

[Penta]: And it should get to every one of you members of the City Council.

[Penta]: Because it's not right, it's not fair, and you can't even take care of people on fixed incomes, you know, allowing you to do this.

[Penta]: You haven't even discussed that.

[Penta]: Where's the Water and Soil Commissioner on that?

[Penta]: Didn't mean TL, Mr. President, but you know something?

[Penta]: When you sit here all night and you watch what's going on here and you're being played to wait till the end of the night, I get upset.

[Penta]: Okay.

[Penta]: But every dog has its day.

[Penta]: Remember that.

[Penta]: There's an election coming up and I hope people remember that.

[Penta]: Thank you.

[Penta]: Mr. President, I think in part we all know that around 5 o'clock or 5.30 this evening, I think we received the mayor's press release.

[Penta]: that he'd signed the contract with Republic from Tennessee.

[Penta]: But I'll get to that later on.

[Penta]: It's still part of the comparison.

[Penta]: You know, when we came on board at the beginning of the year, we were asked to give what our priorities were.

[Penta]: And I believe the police department and police station was our number one priority.

[Penta]: And unfortunately, it hasn't found itself anywhere in any of the mayor's agendas.

[Penta]: Now, the police station would derive an extreme benefit for our community.

[Penta]: It would make us go forward.

[Penta]: not only socially, but as a community going forward with tomorrow's technology, and it would also give a presence of community policing.

[Penta]: And that's something I think a lot of the people asking for, more police officers, more patrolmen, more visibility.

[Penta]: And if you give them a better place to work out of, then I think that would go a long way.

[Penta]: You know, we paid in excess, I think, of $78,000

[Penta]: when we received the feasibility study from the police department and the fire department on May 5th of this year.

[Penta]: And unfortunately for the police department, they didn't get anything out of it.

[Penta]: Fire department did, but the police department didn't.

[Penta]: And once again, I don't know, maybe it's just the mayor, he doesn't have it on his radar screen, but public safety, I believe is the first of priorities here of any of all the councilors.

[Penta]: Some of the things that Mr. Mayor, that would be beneficial, not only for our community,

[Penta]: is the council has supported, in each and every calendar budget, the recycling of two new cruises each and every year.

[Penta]: And that would go a long way, once again, to add to the police officers on duty, driving their cruises, letting them know that the city is thinking about them, and they don't have to drive in a car that has about 140,000 miles on it, and they don't know if it's gonna make it or not.

[Penta]: I think it was Councilor Marks, three years ago,

[Penta]: came up with the idea of why can't we have a special truck enforcement unit?

[Penta]: It's a great idea.

[Penta]: What's wrong with training one or two people to be involved with truck enforcement for that particular purpose?

[Penta]: Because I think we can go down any one of these streets in any one of these days, and we see the amount of trucks that travel down High Street, Main Street, or the major streets here in the city of Medford.

[Penta]: That would go a long way.

[Penta]: In our public safety issue regarding lighting, all the squares are just dimly lit.

[Penta]: And that in and of itself is an invitation

[Penta]: for some type of crime, whatever the crime might be.

[Penta]: You get Route 16, the parking lot behind St.

[Penta]: Joe's.

[Penta]: This will probably be the 14th time that we've discussed this, and still no lighting.

[Penta]: We've had situations there where a lady called up and she was afraid to get into a car because of people there, and also in a separate situation where a drug transaction was reported.

[Penta]: Also right here in Medford Square, the Route 16 overpass, underpass on Route 93,

[Penta]: has no lights.

[Penta]: Riverside Avenue, go underneath the overpass there, still no lights.

[Penta]: We have asked for the issue of public safety, timely street swiping.

[Penta]: We've also asked for our crosswalk painting.

[Penta]: You're lucky if you see that once a year.

[Penta]: These aren't huge cost items.

[Penta]: These are items that are readily available within our budget.

[Penta]: Now we've talked about police cameras and high visibility locations.

[Penta]: Were it not for the business merchant that owned a store on the corner of George and Winthrop Street a few years, a couple of years back, how they caught the guy that assaulted the young lady from Tufts University.

[Penta]: And as a result of that, Mr. President, we all know that the cameras are beneficial.

[Penta]: We have $8,893 in our linkage account for where they could buy a few cameras.

[Penta]: But if you really want to get into it, we have $6,400,000 in our free cash account.

[Penta]: So I don't think there should be any reason why we can't go out there and buy any cameras.

[Penta]: A bonus to our people that work.

[Penta]: We can review the one day a week and swap day reward.

[Penta]: And that would be for those officers with a perfect attendance for six months.

[Penta]: Something different, something creative for the police officers.

[Penta]: rather than the annual, it's on a six month basis, and that might work out, it's a tryout, it's something to think about.

[Penta]: I think we should also think about revisiting the idea of having retired police personnel be part of the parking enforcement proposal here in the city of Medford.

[Penta]: Because that in and of itself, that in and of itself would bring a big luxury, not only to the people here in this community, but I think to the business people who would have a better idea of knowing

[Penta]: when and how to tag certain folks.

[Penta]: Because we really don't know what this out-of-state company from Tennessee is going to be like.

[Penta]: They could just be, I don't know, they're going to start at 7 o'clock in the morning to 7 at night.

[Penta]: It doesn't make any sense.

[Penta]: Boston doesn't even start till 8 o'clock in the morning.

[Penta]: We have a civil defense system that needs to be addressed.

[Penta]: Since Mr. Mangone has passed on as its civil defense director, I don't know where it is.

[Penta]: Is it in limbo?

[Penta]: Is it going to be used?

[Penta]: If not,

[Penta]: We've talked about a snow emergency system, and we haven't heard anything back on that.

[Penta]: And I think we're all aware of the fact that a snow emergency system of some type needs to be in place.

[Penta]: And taking some of these issues and putting them on the left, then I go to the right, and I look at this idea of this new proposal that, if you agree or disagree, the mayor signed into effect apparently today regarding this Tennessee firm Republic.

[Penta]: regarding a traffic enforcement program that's going to be six days a week from 7 in the morning to 7 p.m.

[Penta]: at night.

[Penta]: There'll be no free parking on the streets.

[Penta]: According to the mayor's commentary, there's going to be two 30-minute parking spots in each one of the squares, and there'll be four paid single-space meter spots in each of the four square districts.

[Penta]: Other than that, there'll be kiosks allotted.

[Penta]: It's kind of like interesting because if you look at the commentary made by the director from the Medford Chamber of Commerce, Mr. White, he indicated that he was hoping that he would have an opportunity with its members to sit down and discuss this.

[Penta]: And he also made reference to the fact that each and every one of the squares have unique positions, unique concerns as it relates to businesses and how they might be affected.

[Penta]: How the mayor came up to this resolution and signing, I don't know.

[Penta]: But it's kind of like unfair because we were in that meeting on September 10th, and we were told that he would get back to us.

[Penta]: We were told that there'd be a public meeting for which this council voted seven to nothing.

[Penta]: He never honored that.

[Penta]: We were told also that the concerns that would be brought up would be addressed and to have an idea.

[Penta]: I don't know, and we don't really know what part of the business community, what businesses are going to be exempt from not having a meter or a kiosk anywhere in that particular area.

[Penta]: You take these two things and you ask yourself, the Medford Police Department and public safety is such a huge issue here in this community.

[Penta]: And some of the samples that I just talked about still have yet to be addressed.

[Penta]: But the mayor thinks it's more important to go forward with a parking enforcement program, strike that, a paid to park program with enforcement that's only going to bring in $300,000 the first year and $700,000 from the second to the ninth year, it's the 10th year.

[Penta]: May sound like a lot of money, but my feeling personally would have been, had the city decided to go forward after that meeting on the 10th, having an opportunity to listen to the folks within our community, listen to the business in the community, all four areas of this community, rather than have one size fits all, which includes Medford Square, in the press release as outlined tonight at 510,

[Penta]: I just don't think it serves in the best interest of our community.

[Penta]: I don't think it helps our police department, and I don't think it gives the community in and of itself a fair shot as it relates to priorities that need to be addressed rather than another money enhancement for the city of Medford.

[Penta]: Mr. President, today, as you know, I'm assuming all of you know that the mayor signed this contract tonight around 517 or thereabouts.

[Penta]: He signed the contract.

[Penta]: And he makes a notation that the council was in support of this.

[Penta]: What the council was in support of was that on May 20th, when we had that meeting, we had agreed to the three vendors that came in, one would be selected, which was Republic from Tennessee.

[Penta]: But we agreed to that somebody would come back after he had negotiations and we would discuss it.

[Penta]: And we did on September 10th.

[Penta]: But when the pushback came back, the mayor decided not to go forward at that time.

[Penta]: And speaking to Mr. Skelton,

[Penta]: are referring to Mr. Skelton's comments from Republic.

[Penta]: From the 10th to the 25th of September, there was absolutely no communication between the mayor and Republic.

[Penta]: So something had to take place from the 24th to today, the 7th.

[Penta]: And taking that into consideration, it's quite obvious that the chamber's concerns, oh, I don't know who wrote the letter because we don't have a copy of the letter.

[Penta]: He says he got a letter from the chamber.

[Penta]: But when you have four separate squares, including Medford Square, which makes five, and their issues are all unique,

[Penta]: and they needed to be heard, and they weren't heard, and the mayor decides to have one size fits all, I don't think that's what you call a happy resolution, especially to the business people and to the taxpayers of this community.

[Penta]: You know, the fact of the matter is this.

[Penta]: We're getting rid of people who don't live in the community, who were parking at spots all day long, and they haven't been tagged.

[Penta]: And this has been going on for the entire years of the administration of this city, this mayor.

[Penta]: And now what we're going to be doing is tagging, if not towing, and telling our own taxpayers in this community, you people are going to have to start paying.

[Penta]: Now, right up front, no free parking unless you are lucky enough to get one of those two spots in any one of the four or five sections of this community.

[Penta]: Where it's going, I don't know, Mr. President, but all I can tell you is this.

[Penta]: If I had to put my money on something, I would put it on public safety, the police department, the personnel that's needed to keep this community safe,

[Penta]: And more importantly, the subject matters that I brought up under the police department.

[Penta]: Those to me are pressing needs.

[Penta]: They have no comparison, no comparison at all to a parking paid to park program or enforcement.

[Penta]: If the mayor was so concerned about that paid to park program and enforcement, he should have done it years ago, but he didn't.

[Penta]: And when they knew that people from Winchester and other communities were coming here and parking all day and not getting tagged and ticketed, he should have done something, but he didn't.

[Penta]: So,

[Penta]: put $300,000 this first year out of the box, compare everything to what the police department needs to keep our community safe and protected.

[Penta]: It's pale in comparison.

[Penta]: And with that being said, Mr. President, I just wanted to say that, um, I just think, you know, this council is either going to be committed to public safety and a new PlayStation and the police department, or this is nothing more than hot air every Tuesday night when we come here to talk about public safety.

[Penta]: We have more than enough examples.

[Penta]: And I think we have more than enough good police officers.

[Penta]: The shooting is just a drop in the bucket compared to all the drug problems that are existing throughout this community.

[Penta]: And that's a concern.

[Penta]: And if they had more personnel, and if they could go to court, and if they had more of the mechanisms and the technology that is needed, it would be great.

[Penta]: You know, when you talk to someone, you say, hey, you're building a brand new public works department, $14 million.

[Penta]: $14 million.

[Penta]: Still don't even have enough men to man it.

[Penta]: But you have a police department that's ready to fall apart.

[Penta]: You have an evidence room that's completely out of control and a whole host of other issues.

[Penta]: So, I would say, Mr. President and my fellow colleagues, that I think it's time that we take the stand and we tell the mayor we want a new police station.

[Penta]: I don't care how you fund it.

[Penta]: You found the money for a public works department, then find the money for a police station.

[Penta]: Because you're not going to make one seem to be more important than another.

[Penta]: And at the same time, you're not going to put the lives of this community and the folks in this community at risk.

[Penta]: Mr. President, um, I guess I missed this when I was reading it.

[Penta]: If you read the bottom of the mass comment, it says the chamber also acknowledged that there were several beneficial respects to the plan, such as user friendly kiosks, whatever that means.

[Penta]: After deliberating and discussing concerns raised by the business community, the mayor is recommending the following changes to the plan.

[Penta]: He's recommending,

[Penta]: This isn't a finality.

[Penta]: If you go to point number three, it says recommend $250,000 of the revenue generated on an annual basis to be dedicated to the business district improvements.

[Penta]: It's a recommendation.

[Penta]: This isn't a done deal.

[Penta]: And if you have $250,000, what district gets it first?

[Penta]: North Medford, South Medford, Boston Ave, Medford Square?

[Penta]: Where's the determination there?

[Penta]: And then the last one, retain business and commuter permits.

[Penta]: What does that mean?

[Penta]: All subjective commentary.

[Penta]: I don't even know if this is really the done deal.

[Penta]: All he's doing, he's saying he signed it.

[Penta]: And I'm wondering if these are still things to be negotiated.

[Penta]: He's recommending.

[Penta]: These are recommendations.

[Penta]: They may be just sticking to the original part of the plan and getting back to what Councilor Marks alluded to.

[Penta]: Not only is it going to be aggressive enforcement,

[Penta]: But why would you start at 7 o'clock in the morning?

[Penta]: Boston, which is much bigger than Medford, starts at 8.

[Penta]: Brookline, when they had their kiosks, they had to take them away because they were hurting the businesses.

[Penta]: And then if they're even recognizing by putting meters, single meters, in certain parts, well, maybe they should think about just putting meters, period, and see how that goes, and have local people do the enforcement part.

[Penta]: But the more I keep reading this thing, words stand off a lot.

[Penta]: It's the terminology that's used.

[Penta]: He's recommending.

[Penta]: So I don't even know if this is a done deal.

[Penta]: None of us know.

[Penta]: It's two 30-minute free parking spaces in West Medford.

[Penta]: Well, who's in West Medford?

[Penta]: Who's it going to be?

[Penta]: Has that been determined yet?

[Penta]: They're going to flip a coin?

[Penta]: Go to Boston Avenue, you're going to flip a coin?

[Penta]: The whole length of that street, two free parking spaces?

[Penta]: And then four paid single-space meter spots.

[Penta]: in each of the above listed districts.

[Penta]: Who's going to get those four?

[Penta]: And as I said before, what businesses are going to be excluded rather than included?

[Penta]: You know, the law is very specific on this, and I said it to you last week, and I'll say it to you again, and I said it to our chief procurement officer.

[Penta]: The responsibility of bringing the contract forward was from the chief procurement officer, not from the mayor, and not from the budget director.

[Penta]: That's what the law says.

[Penta]: And there needed to be a recommendation in writing with a comparison of doing it in-house as compared to doing it out-house.

[Penta]: And in this situation, we never got it.

[Penta]: We never got the recommendation and how that recommendation was determined so as for the council to make a legitimate vote to go forward to accept it or not.

[Penta]: So there's a whole host of issues that surround not only the mayor signing this or even getting to the point to having him sign it, but the fact that he lied

[Penta]: He lied to we, the people, by not coming and having the public forum for which seven members of this council voted on, to at least have a public forum, to at least have the business community, and at least have the taxpayers, the residents of the community, to come and speak up about it.

[Penta]: I think we're all getting our emails, and people are just, once again, hearing about it.

[Penta]: Some of them, not that they're for it, not some of them against it.

[Penta]: They want to know more about it and how it's going to work.

[Penta]: But apparently, the mayor doesn't want us to know.

[Penta]: It's quite obvious.

[Penta]: He certainly doesn't want the taxpayers and the residents to know.

[Penta]: And however he chose what businesses that he met with, who knows what businesses they were that convinced him to go forward with this.

[Penta]: It's a damn shame, because I don't think this serves in the best interest of our community.

[Penta]: I have four questions.

[Penta]: First of all, you said that they took your quote out of order.

[Penta]: So I'm going to read this quote.

[Penta]: You tell me if it's accurate or not.

[Penta]: We're going to let McGlynn quote, no, it's obvious to us that the different business districts have different needs.

[Penta]: White said, we're not going to advocate for any specific district.

[Penta]: We're going to provide opportunities through us to get those voices heard.

[Penta]: True or false?

[Penta]: So if that's true, and you're recognizing the different needs of the different areas, how can you go along and have one size fits all for all four districts?

[Penta]: Go ahead.

[Penta]: That's that part there.

[Penta]: You said the chamber supports this.

[Penta]: How many members in the chamber?

[Penta]: So you have votes from the 200 plus members?

[Penta]: No.

[Penta]: So how does the chamber make a decision?

[Penta]: If you have membership.

[Penta]: So your board of directors made this vote, not the membership.

[Penta]: Okay.

[Penta]: Let's get this straight.

[Penta]: You just made a comment at a minute ago that some of the people that are at that meeting on the 10th aren't members of the chamber.

[Penta]: Yes.

[Penta]: So because someone is not a member of the chamber,

[Penta]: They're not going to be looked upon with the same favor that somebody might be.

[Penta]: They're a business person in this community.

[Penta]: OK.

[Penta]: You represent your members.

[Penta]: And you also said that the business community was aware of that meeting on the 20th.

[Penta]: I mean on the 10th.

[Penta]: Excuse me.

[Penta]: Yes.

[Penta]: At 117 in the afternoon.

[Penta]: That's when the emails went out.

[Penta]: 117 of the day of the meeting.

[Penta]: And a lot of people didn't even get it because they were still at work and not knowing it.

[Penta]: So that's not a well-advanced notice of people — of a public meeting regarding their living.

[Penta]: The President.

[Penta]: Mr. Kudlow.

[Penta]: Mr. Kudlow.

[Penta]: Also, Mr. President, I do want to get back to this thing that if Mr. White feels, on behalf of his membership, that this one-size-fits-all is going to address the concerns

[Penta]: of the five separate, the four squares and the downtown method.

[Penta]: I'd like to have you explain that.

[Penta]: How can this one size fits all?

[Penta]: So then your quote in the paper was wrong.

[Penta]: You did not indicate that each part of the city is unique.

[Penta]: Mr. President, I think we need to get a report back that are these four points recommendations, or are they actually part of the contract?

[Penta]: Because it's the mayor who uses the term, he's recommending changes.

[Penta]: It doesn't say it's not definitive, it's recommending.

[Penta]: And with that being said, with recommendations, I don't know if it's a contract or not.

[Penta]: I don't know.

[Penta]: Clerk, do you have enough poll workers?

[Penta]: During the last election, there was some concern over some of the ballot boxes not working.

[Penta]: Is there any of these?

[Penta]: But aren't these all checked out before?

[Penta]: Oh yeah.

[Penta]: Yeah.

[Penta]: Those all rechecked each and every election?

[Penta]: How does this work?

[Penta]: And for the sake of a public announcement, Mr. President, when can people start getting an absentee ballot?

[Penta]: Mr. President, Dorothy, as we all know, is our wonderful assistant in the clerk's office with Mr. Finn, and she works very hard through the years, and she's now being able to enjoy her grandchild, her son's first child, which would be her grandchild,

[Penta]: And we want to wish her the best.

[Penta]: The only problem with the dog park has been the mayor is telling everyone it's going to cost $200,000 and he's telling people to go out and do it.

[Penta]: You know, I mean, how do you turn around and tell the people you go out and get the dog park?

[Penta]: And as Councilor Marks alluded to before, you know, RF Whiting Company,

[Penta]: according to the mayor, was supposed to give the money for the dog park, and they never did.

[Penta]: And now he's telling the people, you've got to raise the $200,000 if you really want this dog park.

[Penta]: He knows how to raise money for everything else.

[Penta]: It's amazing.

[Penta]: And I think the good part is maybe, Mr. Clerk, if we have just a single number they can call the clerk's office, and maybe you should have a stack of petitions there if people come in, because that's where the licenses are as well, too, to pick up a license in your office.

[Penta]: I can't generate the petitions.

[Penta]: No, no, no.

[Penta]: If petitions are left in your office, if petitions are left in your office and somebody wants to come and pick them up, they can pick them up.

[Penta]: I think that may be a good idea.

[Penta]: Central point in the building.

[Penta]: President, yesterday, well, I think it was yesterday.

[Penta]: I got mine yesterday.

[Penta]: Other people may have got it the day before.

[Penta]: We all received in the mail our new water bill, and we also received a letter from the city indicating to the city of Medford water and sewer customers.

[Penta]: Now, the letter is undated,

[Penta]: right there in and of itself tends to indicate a lack of professionalism in the letter going out.

[Penta]: There was no notice of a public meeting or an agenda item on this particular matter.

[Penta]: The Medford City Council not only has talked about it, but at our April meeting of this year, we had a resolution that was offered by myself and passed by the seven members of the council to have the cemetery, no, excuse me,

[Penta]: The Water and Soil Commission has appeared before the council and to explain this new idea of tiered rates and commercial rates or whatever it might be and however it's going to take place.

[Penta]: And that passed.

[Penta]: Unfortunately, the mayor sends an answer back and says it's the council's purview.

[Penta]: I mean, it's the Water and Soil Commission's purview to make that decision, number one.

[Penta]: And number two, this is a matter that involves the entire city for the purposes of being involved and getting involved.

[Penta]: The council has asked on numerous occasions for the Water and Soil Commission.

[Penta]: I personally have met with the chairman of the Water and Soil Commission.

[Penta]: I asked him to come here.

[Penta]: We're still waiting for him to come here.

[Penta]: The mayor has never offered a public meeting or a hearing on this particular increase.

[Penta]: So there is a complete lack of public education on this increase.

[Penta]: And as a result of this, we have problems here.

[Penta]: Look at your bill that just came out, and it talks about

[Penta]: The rates only apply to homes with up to four families and residential condo buildings.

[Penta]: And then it gives you a 0 to 800 as a base.

[Penta]: And I don't know where they got that 800 as being the base.

[Penta]: Again, no determination from that.

[Penta]: And then from 800 cubic feet to 1,600 feet, you get to another rate.

[Penta]: And it goes on.

[Penta]: And after that, there's a third rate.

[Penta]: So as a residential owner, you could have up to three types of rates in your particular house.

[Penta]: And then it goes down further to indicate

[Penta]: Every other person or every other type of an account will be charged 0.138.

[Penta]: Now, does that mean that that's going to be a commercial rate?

[Penta]: I thought we were led to believe that there was going to be allegedly a commercial rate, which would be different than the regular rate.

[Penta]: But if you go back to the first paragraph, they talk about they're adopting this in response to Chapter 165, Section 2B.

[Penta]: And 165, Section 2B is very explicit

[Penta]: where it talks about, shall institute water charges and fees that incorporate a base rate for all, provided, which means other than or maybe, that said base rate shall be increased at an increased block rate to fairly reflect the resource demand and consumption of high volume uses of water.

[Penta]: Now think about high volume uses of water.

[Penta]: If you live in a three-family house, for the example that they use, you are a single person on the first floor.

[Penta]: There is two, three people on the third floor, five or six people on the third floor.

[Penta]: And they use the example you used, 2,100 units of water.

[Penta]: Well, they're going to take the 2,100 units of water, divide it by three, and everybody's going to be tagged with 700 units of water to be charged.

[Penta]: That doesn't make any sense at all, number one, because number one,

[Penta]: Not everybody has a meter in their apartment.

[Penta]: And if it's a single meter that's going to cover the whole house, some houses are like that.

[Penta]: I mean, how do you distribute that?

[Penta]: I mean, where they come up with this, I have absolutely no idea.

[Penta]: And this is what prompted probably eight or nine of my 13 calls that I've already received so far in this.

[Penta]: How do they make this type of a determination?

[Penta]: But more importantly, personally, I think this is the mayor's way of retaliating against the council.

[Penta]: because we didn't give him his $600,000 in the budget.

[Penta]: Bad enough we didn't give him his parking garage.

[Penta]: And as a result of that, this rate increase not only will pick up the $600,000, it'll probably exceed that.

[Penta]: Absolutely, absolutely not fair.

[Penta]: It is not right.

[Penta]: At the present time, people should be aware of the fact, at the present time, in our water and sewer retained earnings account, we have $8,400,000 as of today.

[Penta]: $8,400,000.

[Penta]: We would have $9,600,000 if we didn't take a million two a few years ago to take the mayor out of his deficit hole because he couldn't balance the budget.

[Penta]: But with that being said, $8 million, that's a lot of money.

[Penta]: And we're talking about rate payers having to be charged right now.

[Penta]: There is nothing in this letter that would even give you an assumption

[Penta]: that it's going to take place next year, or the next billing cycle.

[Penta]: They just jam it in the letter, and there it is in your new bill.

[Penta]: Now, I went back, and to my knowledge, the last time in billing cycles in 2006, as compared to the bills that we have right now, the 2006 bill, sixth bill, tells you

[Penta]: The cost, it breaks it down for water and sewer, the cost.

[Penta]: Your water and sewer cost is not broken down in these blue bills that we've been getting for a long period of time.

[Penta]: And as a result of that, I'm going to suggest in part, Mr. President, that the city's water and sewer department and the city of Medford building department reinstitute the prior building process that not only showed the prior readings, the present readings, the usage,

[Penta]: but the rates for water and the rates for sewer per 100 cubic feet.

[Penta]: So the people have an informed, knowledgeable bill, rather than getting a dollar amount and trying to figure out the hocus pocus that's going on.

[Penta]: Baseline water usage of 800, where do they get that?

[Penta]: I have absolutely no idea who determined, and they don't even tell you where it came from.

[Penta]: The bill, as I said before, it doesn't ID the water and sewer rates.

[Penta]: But back and prior to 2006, it did.

[Penta]: It gives you everything that you would want to know to try to figure out your bill.

[Penta]: Now, your old rate consumption as compared to your new rate consumption, that's another thing that's not on here.

[Penta]: Because all they're doing and they're telling you on the blue bill, it's just telling you what you had last time, what the reading was, and the amount.

[Penta]: And once again, what's water, what's sewer, I don't know.

[Penta]: I think what really needs to be done on this particular issue is two things.

[Penta]: You can't send out bills to people and just tell them it becomes effective now.

[Penta]: That's number one.

[Penta]: Number two, you don't send out a letter that's undated.

[Penta]: Number three, you don't turn around and tell, for an example, a three-family house, you're going to split it between the three floors, and everyone's going to pay the same amount on a per-unit charge.

[Penta]: You don't do that.

[Penta]: Second of all, there's nothing on this bill

[Penta]: on this letter that talks about a commercial rate.

[Penta]: And I think Councilor Marks, is he here?

[Penta]: I think there was an issue relative to a commercial rate before.

[Penta]: You know, where are we going with that?

[Penta]: It says all other rates will be 0.1381.

[Penta]: And that will be the same rate as someone who goes from the 800 to the 1600 level in a residential home.

[Penta]: I said it before and I'll say it again.

[Penta]: If families are going to be penalized because they have

[Penta]: children or mothers and fathers or seniors living with them.

[Penta]: That's not fair.

[Penta]: It's absolutely not fair.

[Penta]: And as the law says, the resources should go on the demand and the consumption of high volume uses of water.

[Penta]: A residential home, maybe just over this 800 level or whatever it might be, those aren't high uses of water.

[Penta]: That's baseline wherever they got it.

[Penta]: Maybe the zero to 800.

[Penta]: should be maybe the $0 to $1,200 or $1,400, and then change it after that.

[Penta]: Because I don't think it's bad enough rate payers, you're hitting them with a federal tax.

[Penta]: You hit them with your state tax.

[Penta]: You hit them with a meals tax.

[Penta]: You're hitting them with a gas tax.

[Penta]: You hit them with your real estate tax.

[Penta]: And now you want to raise their water and sewer tax with an $8.4 million surplus sitting in a kitty.

[Penta]: It's wrong.

[Penta]: This is not what the council asked for.

[Penta]: I believe this is the mayor's

[Penta]: way of getting back at the council because $600,000 was taken out of the budget for which the council voted for to knock off the 10% rate increase?

[Penta]: Well, this rate increase is definitely going to exceed the 10% that the mayor was losing, or the $600,000.

[Penta]: And who's going to pay for it?

[Penta]: It's the everyday person.

[Penta]: I would strongly suggest, Mr. President, once again, as we did in August, if the mayor says this is within the purview of the council,

[Penta]: Then let it be in the purview and strike that respectfully request that the Board of Commissioners appear before the Medford City Council for the purposes of explaining not only the letter, but the rates as to where we're going.

[Penta]: And also respectfully request that they change their billing process to accurately show the rate for water, the rate for sewer, where it's going, and the amount.

[Penta]: Now with that being said, Mr. President,

[Penta]: I can't find anyone, and I'm still waiting.

[Penta]: I had a long talk today with Mr. Remsburg, who was the chief legal counsel for the MWRA.

[Penta]: And in my conversation with him, which represented the same type of conversation I had with him in August of this past year, we're back to the same issue for which I believe we're on the same page.

[Penta]: The bigger users, the demand for bigger users and demand for more consumption and high volume of users of water should be the first ones, according to this chapter of the law, to be paid.

[Penta]: It says, all municipalities and water districts within the jurisdiction of the MWRA, but not including community service by the Connecticut Valley Aqueduct, shall institute water charges and fees that incorporate a base rate for all users.

[Penta]: Okay?

[Penta]: They're saying 800 is the base rate.

[Penta]: But it says, provided that said base rate shall be increased at an increasing block rate to fairly recollect

[Penta]: the resources, demand, and consumption of high-volume uses of water.

[Penta]: If somebody is 801, is they going to be tagged as a high-volume use of water?

[Penta]: Because that person at 801, which could be residential, is going to be tagged at the same amount that everyone else is going to be tagged that's not residential.

[Penta]: And you're going to have to assume it's commercial, because they don't say it.

[Penta]: But what is it?

[Penta]: Everybody else but residential.

[Penta]: It's got to be commercial.

[Penta]: So with that being said,

[Penta]: I think this needs to be addressed.

[Penta]: I think somebody needs to be here to address it.

[Penta]: I think the billing needs to be addressed.

[Penta]: And more importantly, I think it's absolutely unfair that somebody would put a, an increase in your bill on the same time that goes out with no public education, no public notice.

[Penta]: You know, this is three strikes that the mayor has given to us.

[Penta]: He's taking money away from people on cable access on Verizon and Comcast bills.

[Penta]: He's sitting on $303,000.

[Penta]: It's sitting downstairs.

[Penta]: He just now signs, he just now signs a pay to park program that didn't have one public hearing here for the taxpayers to talk about and discuss.

[Penta]: And thirdly, he's now hitting you with a new tax on your water and sewer charge with no public input, no public information, no public hearing or anything.

[Penta]: That's three strikes since the summer of this year.

[Penta]: How much more is it that the people of this community want to take?

[Penta]: When are you going to realize that your open government is not open like you think it is?

[Penta]: And your notorious government is as notorious as it can be, because there's no transparency as to what's going on.

[Penta]: This letter should have been ID'd with a date, and it should have addressed itself DMF resident.

[Penta]: In the near future, giving it the date, your bill will be going up the following, and it'll give the reason why.

[Penta]: But the insanity of saying that a three-family or a two-family or a four-family house is going to be divided by the amount of units, and that's what they're going to pay.

[Penta]: They have no right saying that.

[Penta]: They have no right doing that.

[Penta]: So with that being said, Mr. President, I'm moving that our Board of Water and Soil Commissioners appear before the Medford City Council to discuss this particular matter.

[Penta]: I hear what Councilor Knight is talking about.

[Penta]: My point of clarification is this.

[Penta]: While he may be running off a string of resolutions, we had asked for a public hearing and a public meeting on this and for whatever

[Penta]: the Water and Soil Commissioners might have done or made the determination.

[Penta]: The council has been asked to be apprised, and they've been asked to appear before here, and they never have.

[Penta]: So 800 getting to the baseline, how did you get to it?

[Penta]: Where did you come up with that number?

[Penta]: Because if you look at a lot of the residential homes, they're going to be between 800 and that 1,600 mark.

[Penta]: So by going over by one cubic feet, you're going to be putting that residential homeowner, who might have two or three kids or taking care of a senior citizen, paying a higher rate.

[Penta]: And that's where I think the discussion needs to take place.

[Penta]: I'm not denying the fact that the more you use, the more you should pay.

[Penta]: But this is a big gap from $800 to $800 to $1,600.

[Penta]: And if you are just a little bit over that, you're going to be saddled with that additional thing.

[Penta]: And again, as I said, if somebody has multiple people living in their family home, they're going to be penalized for using the water.

[Penta]: If they use a dramatic amount, that's one thing.

[Penta]: Yeah, clarification.

[Penta]: Okay.

[Penta]: I hear what Councilor Knight is alluding to.

[Penta]: The point is valid.

[Penta]: It went from zero to 1,000.

[Penta]: Why did it come down to 800?

[Penta]: Now, if you speak to some of the members, they're going to turn around and tell you, this is part of the conservation mode of saving water and within families and stuff like that.

[Penta]: Which I wholeheartedly support.

[Penta]: Right.

[Penta]: But I don't think anybody's going to deny the fact that, you know, you don't want to penalize people because they have people living in their homes.

[Penta]: who might be seniors or elderly or babies or two or three children or for whatever it might be.

[Penta]: And I would be not in favor of having a subcommittee.

[Penta]: I would be in favor of just having, calling for the public hearing and have them come in and explain it.

[Penta]: They've already mean what they did.

[Penta]: And one point further, and I think as a Councilor, Councilor Marks, I think we had this conversation.

[Penta]: Getting to the point of the households, as Councilor Knight has just alluded to, how did you make this determination?

[Penta]: Where are the numbers of those homes that are between 0 to 800, and from 800 to 1,600, and over that?

[Penta]: They have to have statistics to do that, because if they just decided to go to 800 because it sounded good, because it was a good conservation move, well, that's not good.

[Penta]: If there's people between 800 and 850, whatever it might be, there's nothing wrong with going to 1,000.

[Penta]: I mean, that's a compromise.

[Penta]: I got no problem with that.

[Penta]: But I want to see these numbers.

[Penta]: I want to see these numbers.

[Penta]: Thank you for your point.

[Penta]: I just remind councilor Dello Russo, one thing we had asked at one point in time,

[Penta]: to have our city engineer appear before the council.

[Penta]: And she didn't come because the mayor told her not to come.

[Penta]: OK.

[Penta]: So we can ask the Water and Soil Commissioners to come.

[Penta]: But if they choose not to come because they're told not to come, where does that put the council?

[Penta]: Point of clarification, Councilor Penta.

[Penta]: The law says explicitly if the estimated income is more than the total appropriations, the excess shall be appropriated to a separate reserve fund and used for capital expenditures of the enterprise subject to the appropriation or to reduce user charges if authorized by the appropriate entity.

[Penta]: responsible for operations of the enterprise.

[Penta]: He can the law.

[Penta]: Absolutely.

[Penta]: Mr. President, also the letter indicates further down that they're going to keep this baseline rate for the first year.

[Penta]: So the intention is that they're going to be going up.

[Penta]: So with that being said,

[Penta]: I'm going to make the request that the Board of Water and Soil Commissioners appear before the Medford City Council to discuss this letter that went out that's unsigned, undated, as it represents, and that a new bill be forthcoming.

[Penta]: They revised the bill that includes the rate for the water and the rate for the sewage.

[Penta]: and along with the total amount.

[Penta]: Also, the letter negates to put in here that it's nothing more than the new use.

[Penta]: They don't have the old use by consumption and water and sewer charges.

[Penta]: And I think that would be, once again, pure transparency for the rate payers at least to see what's going on other than, once again, just getting a letter saying, you know, this is what you're going to have to pay and your rates are going up and, you know, with no clarification, absolutely no education.

[Penta]: There was absolutely nothing.

[Penta]: You notice that the mayor did not.

[Penta]: Listen, the Board of Soil Commissioners worked for the mayor.

[Penta]: They're his appointments on that board.

[Penta]: The mayor owns this one as well.

[Penta]: This is his responsibility.

[Penta]: If he knew the rates were going up, for which they have.

[Penta]: And if this is his end run to circumvent this council, because this council wouldn't give him his parking garage and wouldn't give him his $600,000 in the budget for 10% water rate increase, this is certainly the wrong way to go, especially with $8.4 million.

[Penta]: sitting in the surplus account.

[Penta]: That is just so wrong.

[Penta]: You know, you're ripping off the taxpayers once again, Mr. Mayor, knowing that their money is just sitting in an account to make you look good at a bond rating at the expense of the taxpayers.

[Penta]: Maybe they'd like to enjoy some of that money and spend it on their family or their kids or what have you.

[Penta]: So with that being said, I move the question, Mr. President.

[Penta]: I can go either way because it's obvious that this has already been done.

[Penta]: From the documents that I have secured from the Water and Sewer Commission, they've been talking about this since April of this past year with the city engineer and Mr. Woodcock, the MWRA, the legal counsel, and what have you.

[Penta]: So their determination has already been made.

[Penta]: My question is going to be very simple and germane, basically what we had here tonight.

[Penta]: I mean, the one thing, you know, they're saying that they cannot make the recommendation to reduce the water and sewer rates.

[Penta]: Well, if they can't make the recommendation to reduce it, how can they make the recommendation to increase it?

[Penta]: It doesn't make any sense.

[Penta]: The law doesn't prohibit them from doing that.

[Penta]: And with an $8.4 million surplus, in the best interest of this community,

[Penta]: It would have been a wonderful exposure by the Water and Soil Commission to recommend to the mayor that we not increase and we take this out of the Water and Soil account.

[Penta]: But as we all know, this is the mayor's board, and they're going to do whatever the mayor tells them to do.

[Penta]: So I can go either way on the resolution.

[Penta]: Councilor Penta.

[Penta]: On the motion.

[Penta]: I got no problem with that.

[Penta]: We only have three more meetings between now and we're off for two.

[Penta]: So I would request that this meeting take place within the next two to three week, next two to three meetings that were available.

[Penta]: But in the meantime, if we could have some information forwarded to us so we could at least know the proposed that they're giving us here, how they got to this baseline of 800, if we could get some information on how they got to that, if we get some information ahead of time, once again, what's the old rate compared to the new rates?

[Penta]: And something as it relates to, you know, revising the bill that includes the water rates for water and sewer usage and the dollar amount.

[Penta]: So at least when somebody gets it, they could figure it out rather than just getting numbers.

[Penta]: Then the conversation on that particular night would just basically, you know, figure out the tiered rate.

[Penta]: This lacks the word commercial rate in here.

[Penta]: It says all other, all other establishments.

[Penta]: which I'm assuming is going to be commercial.

[Penta]: We'll find that out.

[Penta]: So if we could have that and a roll call vote.

[Penta]: On that motion, Councilor Dello Russo's amendment, we just got a notice I think today relative to a meeting that's going to take place on June 3rd by the folks that are doing the work over there.

[Penta]: So that may be something you may want to bring up for the purpose of letting them pay to do the road.

[Penta]: So it's in your, pardon me?

[Penta]: You want to amend that further?

[Penta]: Yeah, amend it further, yes.

[Penta]: Why don't you repeat that again?

[Penta]: The amendment is that the Department of Transportation is having a public meeting on June 3rd.

[Penta]: I believe it's in Boston.

[Penta]: We got a notice today in our emails.

[Penta]: There's one of six locations, that's the next one coming up, and that will make reference to Councilor Camuso's and Councilor De La Rosa's thoughts relative to Medford Street.

[Penta]: On that motion, could we get a copy of where the

[Penta]: Dog packs and the amount of money was supposed to be coming from October of 2011.

[Penta]: The mayor made a public announcement.

[Penta]: We've been talking about dog packs since 2011, because that was supposed to have been part of the mitigation that F.W.

[Penta]: White, or J.F.

[Penta]: White, was supposed to be giving the city of Medford for the FAST-14.

[Penta]: So we've never seen the dog pack.

[Penta]: Could we just get the handle on what that mitigation terminology was on dog packs?

[Penta]: $50,000.

[Penta]: I have no idea.

[Penta]: Mr. President last Tuesday night.

[Penta]: Um, I thought we had a very informative conversation and after I went back and I reviewed the tape, um, I, I, I think to some degree we will mislead or at least I was misled because I asked the question as a related is the new location on Salem street going to have the capacity

[Penta]: to do a broadcast from there.

[Penta]: And the answer was yes from the manager of the station.

[Penta]: Now, subsequent to that, immediately following the meeting, the transmission of the module, or whatever you want to call the terminology, was in the corner of the room over there.

[Penta]: And the conversation finally alluded to the fact that on Riverside Avenue, there is absolutely no Comcast, and there is no Verizon capacity to do broadcasting or to bring cable in.

[Penta]: Now, if you remember correctly, Mr. President, it was you who brought up this issue, I think some five to seven years ago, relative to a business client on High Street who was trying to get Comcast, I think, or Verizon, into the building over there.

[Penta]: It was Comcast.

[Penta]: And at that point in time, I believe there was, in our conversation, I believe we had someone from Channel 3, and I don't know who, so I don't want to mention any names.

[Penta]: because I'd be absolutely wrong, but I remember somebody from Channel 3 indicating that that was one of the problems that we had in Medford Square, the inability or the lack of capacity to have broadcasting in the downtown Medford Square area, which seems to be pretty kind of evident.

[Penta]: Now, again, from the conversation that took place last Tuesday night and from the information that was ascertained, there is a two-year contract signed, I believe, at 32 Salem Street, Riverside Avenue, excuse me,

[Penta]: There's no Comcast.

[Penta]: There's no Verizon there.

[Penta]: So how do you broadcast out of have a full-fledged studio if you don't have that capacity to broadcast from there?

[Penta]: So what's going on now, if I understand all of this correctly, is the modular transmission, lack of terminology.

[Penta]: I don't know the proper terminology.

[Penta]: But it's here in this particular building, or it was brought here in this particular building.

[Penta]: I don't know if it's still here.

[Penta]: And the whole idea is that the transmission would come from Verizon or Comcast to City Hall, and then they would somehow bounce it to 32 Riverside Avenue.

[Penta]: And I'm saying to myself, well, wait a minute.

[Penta]: What is this all about?

[Penta]: This is not having a full-fledged studio that's equipped on its own merits at its own location.

[Penta]: Then I started to think about this thing even more.

[Penta]: And I'm saying to myself, we have a concern here.

[Penta]: We're putting channel-free equipment into Medford City Hall.

[Penta]: And by putting Channel 3 equipment into Medford City Hall, are we talking about having a liability issue here?

[Penta]: Are we talking about the equipment here in City Hall?

[Penta]: Are we talking about the access to City Hall?

[Penta]: The keys and who would have keys to City Hall?

[Penta]: Who would be coming into City Hall if, in fact, something were to go wrong in the transmission from City Hall to 32 Riverside Avenue?

[Penta]: And there's a whole host of questions here.

[Penta]: And the city has a liability policy as it relates to being a self-insured.

[Penta]: Now, we all know that Channel 3 is a separate private nonprofit corporation.

[Penta]: So, I mean, we have two separate entities here running around.

[Penta]: We were also told at that point in time that there was, I believe, less than $100,000 operating budget that they were operating in, but there is another budget for whatever that might be worth.

[Penta]: So I tried to get down there on two separate occasions on Riverside Avenue.

[Penta]: Both times I couldn't get in.

[Penta]: Both times the door was locked, but on one particular day,

[Penta]: The paper was down, I did have a chance to look in, and it didn't look like there was hardly any work, if any work at all was taking place down there.

[Penta]: Now this goes back to March of this year.

[Penta]: So now we have a station manager that's getting paid.

[Penta]: We have no transmission, no broadcasting coming forward.

[Penta]: We have, for whatever the reason might be, if in fact the city of Medford is now being a part of whatever Channel 3 is going to be involved with, if the mayor is doing this, I have no idea why Channel 3 would even be here.

[Penta]: and entertaining City Hall, but more importantly, why would they even want to stay on Riverside Avenue with no access to cable television, Verizon or Comcast?

[Penta]: You know, poor choice, they've been around, they know the situation, they know what Medford Square is about, they know what Riverside Ave is all about, and that was a poor choice to go there, especially being in the business for, they're not novice, these people that are working there, and they're a part of Channel 3, they've been around for a while, they know what's going on.

[Penta]: And since they know what's going on, the sad part about this is they've got themselves locked into a contract for which I would assume, I would hope that they would be able to get out of.

[Penta]: And even if they had to get sued, who cares about getting sued?

[Penta]: Look at the time that you're costing the city, the taxpayers, each of the rate payers, each and every cable bill are paying for something.

[Penta]: You're paying for station manager that has no job to do because there's nothing being programmed.

[Penta]: There's nothing being taped.

[Penta]: And then it dawned on me yesterday while we were at the cemetery and we were listening to the speeches being made and watching the people that were there and the observance, where is all this portable equipment?

[Penta]: The portable equipment that Channel 3 has had through the years from the thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars that subscribers have not only paid, but the city of Medford has transferred over to Channel 3 through the years.

[Penta]: They could have had people out there with portable cameras doing the portable televising of it.

[Penta]: And then, if in fact, and when they do come back on, that they would have a whole host of things to put on, the Memorial Day service, graduations, whatever it might be.

[Penta]: You don't see any of that around.

[Penta]: And then we were told there's 10 board of directors.

[Penta]: I have no idea who the board of directors are, and I would hope they would come forward and let us know who these board of directors are so we could get a handle on what the makeup of the board is.

[Penta]: And then, I believe one of the situations that came up, going back and reviewing Judge Jackson's report, that the city paid over $15,000 on, Melanson and Heath, the city's auditor, on one particular year, going back, I believe it was just before or after Judge Jackson, indicated there was, on a $15,000 account, $5,000 was totally unaccounted for.

[Penta]: No receipts, no records, totally unaccounted for.

[Penta]: Now I know I see one of the folks sitting in the audience, I don't know which one it is, but I know he came to the podium one night and he said it was a combination of sloppy bookkeeping, not keeping the records accurate, but we're going to do a better job and all of that.

[Penta]: Well, our resolution last week was to ask for an audit, a complete audit on channel three for the last three years and have that forwarded to the city because the rate payers really have no other alternative.

[Penta]: but to either go to the mirror.

[Penta]: And it's obvious that the mirror is either failing to do anything, doesn't want to do anything, afraid to do something.

[Penta]: So the people's voice, which is at this podium right now, is nothing more than asking, what is really going on over there?

[Penta]: You know, why would you want to put a TV station for cable subscribers for public access at a location that has no accessibility to the cable?

[Penta]: That's number one.

[Penta]: Number two, why wasn't that thought out ahead of time

[Penta]: to know that cable access could not go there.

[Penta]: And number three, more importantly, you know, they should go out and find another spot and think about what really cable access is here within this community and what it should be.

[Penta]: Because the taxpayers and the rate payers, as Councilor Caraviello alluded to last Tuesday night, they're getting ripped off each and every month.

[Penta]: There should be an accounting for that money.

[Penta]: There should be a credit coming back.

[Penta]: And the City of Medford should not be holding that money available for Channel 3 if they're not broadcasting.

[Penta]: People are getting paid for doing no work, because there's no work to be done over there, and there's no broadcasting.

[Penta]: So, with that being said, Mr. President, I think we really need to get an answer from our city solicitor as it relates to, is the city of Medford using a public building for the purposes of having transmission out of this building to 32 Riverside Avenue for the purposes of having public access cable television?

[Penta]: And if that's the case, what is, if any, legal ramifications that might be involved?

[Penta]: Let's go back to the other issue, Mr. Clark, who comes into the building, who's going to handle the phone calls, who's going to have a set of keys, who's going to be responsible for the equipment, who's going to be responsible for the city's equipment, who's going to be responsible for what's in this building if somebody from Channel 3 or one of their designees comes into this building for whatever the reasons might be.

[Penta]: That's the sad part about not having this all in one place with the ability to be

[Penta]: accessed in and out of one place.

[Penta]: And to come here in City Hall now, after the fact, having whatever the tenure was in 5 High Street, whatever that lawsuit might be all about, whatever the reason why they left there, it doesn't make any sense that they would go to another place that gives them less opportunity for the purposes of broadcasting on a daily basis.

[Penta]: On motion to Councilor Penta, Vice President Del Russo.

[Penta]: While you might be autonomous legally,

[Penta]: You are taking ratepayers' money for which the mayor of this community overrides your corporation, because he administers Channel 3.

[Penta]: He's the executive director, and technically, of your Channel 3.

[Penta]: But he's not taking any action for whatever the reason is.

[Penta]: So you feel as though it's your duty to go ahead and take action?

[Penta]: It's my duty to let the taxpayer, ratepayer know that that Channel 3 is not operating.

[Penta]: It should be operating.

[Penta]: And there is something wrong, especially when you're bringing equipment into this building

[Penta]: and trying to make the modular or the transmission go from here to there.

[Penta]: Why didn't you just go to another place that had access?

[Penta]: There's nothing to be confused.

[Penta]: Don't play the game tonight, Frank.

[Penta]: The bottom line is you're in a place that you had no right going to because there was no access, and you've taken two months worth of ratepayers' money that they're paying each and every

[Penta]: You're paying people at work that have no job to go to.

[Penta]: No, let me give you the history.

[Penta]: The history is this, Frank.

[Penta]: Frank, Frank, the history is this.

[Penta]: He hasn't earned my respect, Mr. President.

[Penta]: Well, you haven't earned mine either.

[Penta]: That's on Riverside Avenue.

[Penta]: You're in a place that does not have access to cable, Verizon, or Comcast.

[Penta]: You're not operating, and the tax rate payers in this community are not getting their money's worth.

[Penta]: That's the bottom line.

[Penta]: That's it.

[Penta]: So why did you go there?

[Penta]: Answer that question.

[Penta]: Why did you go to a place knowing that there was no access?

[Penta]: Well, who are the board of directors?

[Penta]: He said there was 10 of them.

[Penta]: Do you know the 10 of them?

[Penta]: Who said there were 10?

[Penta]: Mr. Sano, your director.

[Penta]: Well, that's what he said.

[Penta]: He told us they were 10.

[Penta]: Let me give a little history.

[Penta]: Let me give a little history.

[Penta]: Mr. Poleri, Mr. Poleri, Mr. Poleri, please.

[Penta]: Mr. Poleri, how many board of directors do you have?

[Penta]: No, how many do you have right now, active?

[Penta]: I want to say six.

[Penta]: You have six.

[Penta]: So your station manager was wrong when he said 10.

[Penta]: Well, that's what he said, 10.

[Penta]: No, I don't want any history.

[Penta]: Mr. President, we're not here.

[Penta]: That's not the resolution.

[Penta]: The resolution's not about a history of TV3 to dance around the subject.

[Penta]: The subject matter is very simple.

[Penta]: The rate payers have no one to go to, because the mayor is not doing anything.

[Penta]: So when they come to a council or a council law— Well, that's for you to discuss with the mayor, isn't it?

[Penta]: Yes, it is.

[Penta]: You may be autonomous in your mind.

[Penta]: In your mind, you might be autonomous.

[Penta]: But you are using ratepayers' money.

[Penta]: You're taking ratepayers' money that the mayor is giving to you because of the contract.

[Penta]: But you have no access.

[Penta]: There's no television.

[Penta]: There's no broadcasting.

[Penta]: You're paying for people that don't have a job to go to for two months plus more.

[Penta]: Tell me.

[Penta]: Yeah, I'm really serious.

[Penta]: Well, tell me why you're not broadcasting.

[Penta]: Once again, you're ridiculous.

[Penta]: Why are you not broadcasting?

[Penta]: And for you to come down there to a building to try to get in.

[Penta]: Why are you not broadcasting?

[Penta]: Tell me why you're not broadcasting.

[Penta]: You have my phone number, Robert Diamond.

[Penta]: Tell me why you're not broadcasting.

[Penta]: I will talk one-on-one with you.

[Penta]: Why aren't you broadcasting?

[Penta]: Tell me why you're not broadcasting.

[Penta]: Councilor, I'm not.

[Penta]: Why are you not?

[Penta]: He has to answer the question, Mr. President.

[Penta]: Point of information, I wanna know why you're not broadcasting it on Riverside Avenue.

[Penta]: Answer it, I don't want a long history, just tell me the reason why.

[Penta]: All right, go ahead, go ahead with your statement.

[Penta]: What's your answer?

[Penta]: Point of information, Mr. President.

[Penta]: Point of information, Councilor Powell.

[Penta]: Quick question for you.

[Penta]: Why did you move from 5 High Street to 32 Riverside Avenue?

[Penta]: If you're having issues at 5 High Street.

[Penta]: I understand that.

[Penta]: I also know that the city's Board of Health went down there too.

[Penta]: Yes, I do know.

[Penta]: We had to move for the safety of our members.

[Penta]: Just answer a simple question, Frank.

[Penta]: 32 Riverside Ave does not have Verizon or Comcast.

[Penta]: Why did you go there knowing that?

[Penta]: You went there knowing it didn't have it.

[Penta]: Point of information, Mr. President.

[Penta]: Why did you bring your transmitter over here last week and have it stored here?

[Penta]: Because you were going to transmit here and then from here it's going to bounce back there.

[Penta]: Why'd you do that?

[Penta]: So you cannot broadcast legitimately on your own at 32 Riverside Avenue?

[Penta]: That's not true.

[Penta]: Forget City Hall.

[Penta]: You cannot do it, Frank.

[Penta]: You just got through saying there's a feed here, which is going to allow you to broadcast them there.

[Penta]: You cannot go to 32 Riverside Avenue on its own without City Hall.

[Penta]: You need City Hall.

[Penta]: That's the bottom line.

[Penta]: So why don't you just go someplace that had cable accessibility?

[Penta]: Councilman Iacocca, so a few years ago, five, six years ago, brought up that issue, and your people were here one night when we had a discussion on how Cable Comcast was being broadcast, and as a matter of fact, it went all the way to Haines Square, and it was a business person.

[Penta]: Remember, who's the person?

[Penta]: My belief is Riverside Avenue going up to High Street is not wired.

[Penta]: Was not wired.

[Penta]: You mentioned High Street.

[Penta]: That's what I said.

[Penta]: Well, you weren't specific.

[Penta]: You said High Street.

[Penta]: Excuse me.

[Penta]: Five High Streets.

[Penta]: Bottom line is you're wasting taxpayers' money, ratepayers' money by being in a place, you're not broadcasting, there's nothing going on over there, you're paying a station manager and one other person for nothing.

[Penta]: There is nothing going on for him.

[Penta]: There isn't.

[Penta]: Point of information, Mr. President, have you got any legal opinion from a city solicitor as it relates to the liability, if anything, and how this is all going to work?

[Penta]: Have you discussed this with the city solicitor?

[Penta]: I have a meeting tomorrow with the mayor and the solicitor.

[Penta]: So in other words, you're going ahead, making an assumption over here by going into construction and spending money, but you haven't met with the city manager, I mean, the mayor and the solicitor.

[Penta]: So you went ahead, ahead of time, two months ago, going in there, and now you just decide to go to the city solicitor.

[Penta]: Why is it inaccurate?

[Penta]: You just said you're meeting tomorrow.

[Penta]: So the Mayor has given you his blessing to put your equipment in this building.

[Penta]: Is that what you're saying?

[Penta]: That's essentially correct, yes.

[Penta]: The Mayor of Medford said to you, Frank Palleri, Board of Directors at Channel 3, you can put your

[Penta]: your equipment here and broadcast from here to that studio.

[Penta]: Point of further information, Mr. President.

[Penta]: You just used the word, hopefully.

[Penta]: Give the same services, hopefully.

[Penta]: Yes.

[Penta]: The word hopefully should never have even been used.

[Penta]: It should have been able to say, to provide the same services, period.

[Penta]: But to get here and there, you keep saying here and there.

[Penta]: City Hall is supposed to be a part of this.

[Penta]: No.

[Penta]: No, I just think there's a liability issue here and I think there's an issue that the city needs to address.

[Penta]: Don't tell me what I know.

[Penta]: Grandstanding?

[Penta]: This is you.

[Penta]: This is what you do.

[Penta]: This is what you do.

[Penta]: You coming up here and making a big example of what?

[Penta]: The bottom line.

[Penta]: So let me go ahead and give a step.

[Penta]: Mr. President.

[Penta]: Point of further information, Mr. President.

[Penta]: You keep saying you're in the process of building what?

[Penta]: You don't have the ability to transmit out of there.

[Penta]: What are you building?

[Penta]: If you can't transmit from the internet.

[Penta]: I don't care about that.

[Penta]: I care about- How do you think they transmit over- Keep your voice down, please.

[Penta]: I care about Channel 3 and the subscribers paying for the money.

[Penta]: You know, if you're going to have this ability to come into this building because your equipment is here, what do you expect the city to do if you have to come in here

[Penta]: and the building is closed.

[Penta]: Do you expect to get keys to the city?

[Penta]: City Hall closes at 12.30 on a Friday, you have Monday through Friday, so if God forbid something had happened, you'd be down all weekend, whereas if you were in a location,

[Penta]: where all your equipment was there, somebody could get in, it could be serviced within an hour.

[Penta]: Again, this does not make any sense.

[Penta]: Staying in a place.

[Penta]: staying in a place that does not give you access.

[Penta]: And you have to do a habit.

[Penta]: No, you're being ridiculous.

[Penta]: You went to 5 High Street.

[Penta]: You didn't have to get another place at 5 High Street.

[Penta]: You didn't have to get another place at Canal Street.

[Penta]: You didn't have to get another place at the high school.

[Penta]: This is the only one.

[Penta]: This is your fourth move.

[Penta]: And on the fourth move, you need another place to put your equipment.

[Penta]: Yeah, it really bothers me.

[Penta]: Why does that bother you, Councilor?

[Penta]: It bothers me because it doesn't belong here.

[Penta]: It belongs in the place that you're renting, that you're taking the money.

[Penta]: You took the money.

[Penta]: You took the money from the ratepayers of this community to have a public access channel.

[Penta]: Yeah, I remember it.

[Penta]: That's right.

[Penta]: The vote was four to three.

[Penta]: You know why?

[Penta]: All right.

[Penta]: He's just going to keep repeating the same thing.

[Penta]: So I'm going to go to another question.

[Penta]: Your station manager last week said he has a budget of $100,000.

[Penta]: You have a separate budget that's doing all that work down there.

[Penta]: How much is that budget?

[Penta]: What is that costing?

[Penta]: Excuse me.

[Penta]: What does that cost?

[Penta]: No, no, no.

[Penta]: He indicated that there's two separate budgets.

[Penta]: One is an operating budget, one's a- Well, we have an operating budget and a capital budget, sure.

[Penta]: So what's paying for that, operating or capital?

[Penta]: Last question, Mr. President.

[Penta]: Last week, because your station manager couldn't answer the question, so maybe you can answer it.

[Penta]: When's the last time you've been audited?

[Penta]: Did you give him an opportunity to answer the question last night?

[Penta]: Yes, I did.

[Penta]: He said he didn't know.

[Penta]: No, not an audit.

[Penta]: You filed your report to the state.

[Penta]: I'm talking about an audit.

[Penta]: You're the station manager.

[Penta]: You have your money managers over there.

[Penta]: They should know.

[Penta]: You're the president?

[Penta]: I am the president of the corporation.

[Penta]: And how long have you been there, Frank?

[Penta]: I've been affiliated with TV3 since 1986.

[Penta]: Well then, from 1987 to this particular time, you should have a pretty good idea how a station runs and what they're responsible for and what to do.

[Penta]: I have a lot better idea than you and some other people in this room.

[Penta]: I just asked you the question then.

[Penta]: The last time you think was three to four years ago.

[Penta]: Three to four years ago, yeah.

[Penta]: That's not an answer in your world?

[Penta]: So you didn't adhere to Judge Jackson's report and her findings.

[Penta]: Apparently you didn't follow her recommendations.

[Penta]: Well, that's a very interesting comment to make.

[Penta]: The city pays $15,000.

[Penta]: So you're saying that city solicitor Rumley, he hurled car bombs at you too?

[Penta]: Is that what you're saying?

[Penta]: No comment.

[Penta]: Yeah, no comment.

[Penta]: I guess so, huh?

[Penta]: All right.

[Penta]: Councilor Caraviello.

[Penta]: What was that remark supposed to mean?

[Penta]: Well, it was just a little fun.

[Penta]: No, no.

[Penta]: What's that supposed to mean?

[Penta]: Lighten up, dear boy.

[Penta]: No, I'm not going to lighten up.

[Penta]: I'm serious about that.

[Penta]: You think I'm going to go in there and take your equipment?

[Penta]: What are you talking about?

[Penta]: I didn't hurl any accusations.

[Penta]: You would take offense to that?

[Penta]: I didn't hurl any.

[Penta]: I just made comments.

[Penta]: I didn't hurl anything.

[Penta]: I didn't point the finger at anyone that was doing anything.

[Penta]: I asked questions.

[Penta]: Is that right?

[Penta]: Yes, that's right.

[Penta]: Is that right?

[Penta]: Yeah.

[Penta]: Well, what about this missing money?

[Penta]: You tell me about it.

[Penta]: There's no money missing.

[Penta]: Well, then, Senator Heath, read its report.

[Penta]: Frank Leary was right.

[Penta]: If that's the case, Frank, I would be more than happy to do it.

[Penta]: But when your money managers say that you people keep sloppy bookkeeping records, I have to find out.

[Penta]: All right.

[Penta]: Point of information, Vice President Del Russo.

[Penta]: Now, with... Point of information, Councilor Penta.

[Penta]: You guys get $200,000 a year from the subscribers of this community.

[Penta]: $200,000 a year.

[Penta]: And you're telling me you cannot afford to have an annual audit on your books?

[Penta]: That's right, yeah.

[Penta]: And they do more, too.

[Penta]: And as a matter of fact, they go before the legislative body almost quarterly to explain what they do.

[Penta]: the programs that they're presenting, and they tell them about their income levels.

[Penta]: We have, and he hasn't responded.

[Penta]: That's why we're discussing it right here.

[Penta]: He's not the only proper authority.

[Penta]: We represent the people of this community, and we represent cable TV subscribers.

[Penta]: Now, if you folks want to come here and give your sales pitch, you go right ahead.

[Penta]: They can hear you, and they can hear any one of us.

[Penta]: Where am I getting my information?

[Penta]: Wait a minute.

[Penta]: No, you just made a comment.

[Penta]: Yes, I did, Mr. Penta.

[Penta]: Who am I getting and where am I getting my information from?

[Penta]: You don't think I have the ability to do this on my own?

[Penta]: Is that what you're trying to say?

[Penta]: You think I'm somebody else's mouthpiece?

[Penta]: I'm not going to stand here and listen to that nonsense.

[Penta]: All right.

[Penta]: All right, Councilor Panta.

[Penta]: One last question.

[Penta]: You may have won the award, but so didn't 10 other communities win the award, all right?

[Penta]: So you weren't the only community.

[Penta]: We won the National Excellence Award.

[Penta]: On that motion, Councilor Penta.

[Penta]: If I understand how the motion just did not pass, I understand that.

[Penta]: So the question then becomes of the mayor, that the mayor should be reporting back to the council that he is allowing Channel 3, he should update this council, that he is now allowing Channel 3 to house and use this building for the purposes of supplementing

[Penta]: First Councilor Penta.

[Penta]: Mr. President, I'm thankful that Councilor Lingo-Curran now has added on to the resolution in thought and in practice.

[Penta]: What we have here is a whole host of issues.

[Penta]: As we had our discussion tonight relative to the pool issue, the bottom line to all of this is the mayor says everything is a priority.

[Penta]: Well, everything cannot be a priority.

[Penta]: Taxpayers in this community are going to wind up paying for everything that's a priority in the mayor's mind.

[Penta]: We have a police yard.

[Penta]: We have a fire department.

[Penta]: We have public works.

[Penta]: We have whatever the heck is going on on Commercial Street.

[Penta]: I don't know how much longer that's going to last.

[Penta]: We still haven't even resolved the issue

[Penta]: of the girls or the ladies or the women, however you want to use the terminology in the police department, you know, the locker rooms or the lack of locker rooms.

[Penta]: and the safety issues that need to be revolved over there.

[Penta]: We never even got to the point of the Water and Sewer Department after the fire in May of three years ago.

[Penta]: They were supposed to get a trailer.

[Penta]: They never even got a trailer.

[Penta]: I mean, these things go on and on.

[Penta]: I mean, we have a swimming pool that's now going to get us well up to almost $3,800,000.

[Penta]: It started off as a $2.3 million adventure.

[Penta]: So I just don't think the taxpayers of this city

[Penta]: should be led to believe, oh, we can afford it, we can afford it.

[Penta]: What can we afford?

[Penta]: Every time you slap a dollar on the price tag of all of this stuff, somebody has to pay for it.

[Penta]: Now, there's no conversation anymore about the no-interest loans that the MWRA had.

[Penta]: I don't know whatever happened to that.

[Penta]: We never heard anything more about, you know, the money that was supposed to be coming forward from the billboards and all of that to appropriate this money.

[Penta]: So, I really think, Mr. President, before any votes take place,

[Penta]: Any agreements take place on any one of these issues.

[Penta]: We really need to, if the mayor doesn't want to put it in some kind of an order of priority, then maybe the council should, between and amongst ourselves.

[Penta]: Maybe we all feel that the public works department is more important than the pool, or maybe the police department is more important than the pool, or the pool is more important than the fire department.

[Penta]: I don't know.

[Penta]: But there's only so much money that we have to go out there.

[Penta]: And you have a budget coming up right around the corner.

[Penta]: And as Councilor Lungelkorn alluded to before,

[Penta]: And as Councilor Marks also alluded to, we should have these figures before this budget even comes into place so we have some kind of an idea how much this is gonna cost and where we're going with it.

[Penta]: You talk to the rate payer, the taxpayer on the street, all they know is the cost of everything just keeps going up and up and up.

[Penta]: And the cost of government keeps going up too.

[Penta]: And I think we saw a pure example of it tonight

[Penta]: on Channel 3 coming down here.

[Penta]: To me, it's total incompetence.

[Penta]: They did not want to address or discuss the issue regarding ratepayers' money.

[Penta]: At least we can discuss taxpayers' money.

[Penta]: And at least we have some semblance of controlling of what's going on in this city.

[Penta]: Unfortunately, on the cable TV subscribers, why the mayor is refusing to get involved to do anything, I don't know.

[Penta]: Maybe they have a tie over him over something, I don't know.

[Penta]: But it's absolutely wrong as to what's going on over there.

[Penta]: But more importantly, at least on this particular issue,

[Penta]: We have some control over it, and we have the control of either saying yes, no, or maybe, or cut it in between, and maybe it's not as grandiose as it appears to be.

[Penta]: All right.

[Penta]: Councilor Longo-Kurin.

[Penta]: At the meeting tonight, there were two papers that were handled of updates.

[Penta]: I think you got one of them.

[Penta]: Oh.

[Penta]: Yeah.

[Penta]: And I think all the council should get copies of them.

[Penta]: And there was another two-page one that they had given out.

[Penta]: Joseph Pierre.

[Penta]: Is that your brother?

[Penta]: Joseph O. No, he's Joseph O. Joseph O. Pierre.

[Penta]: I get a page here from the Sailor of Weights and Measures.

[Penta]: It's unsigned and undated.

[Penta]: As a matter of fact, both of his pages are unsigned and undated.

[Penta]: Mr. Clark, they're unsigned and undated.

[Penta]: You're using Friday Canal Street.

[Penta]: What's Harvard Street?

[Penta]: What's your company?

[Penta]: You have two different names.

[Penta]: You have two different corporations?

[Penta]: All County Transportation, Inc.

[Penta]: You have one cab already right now.

[Penta]: What's the name of that cab company?

[Penta]: I don't understand this.

[Penta]: If you want three cabs, why do you have two different cab company names?

[Penta]: How could you be paying $600 a month if you didn't get the license?

[Penta]: The insurance?

[Penta]: Yes.

[Penta]: Insurance for what?

[Penta]: You paid $7,200 a year?

[Penta]: $7,200 a year, that's what you pay for insurance?

[Penta]: But you don't have a cab license.

[Penta]: How could you be paying that?

[Penta]: You are self-insured $10,000 for each car.

[Penta]: That's what you're saying?

[Penta]: Yes, most of the cabins are self-insured.

[Penta]: You put $20,000 up to insure two cars.

[Penta]: You just got through saying you're paying $600 a month.

[Penta]: No.

[Penta]: Current insurance.

[Penta]: Is your other taxi self-insured too?

[Penta]: I don't possibly can believe that you need two more cabs to operate in the city.

[Penta]: You already have one.

[Penta]: That's 44 cabs.

[Penta]: I just cannot believe there is no

[Penta]: There's no business out there for 44 cabs in this city.

[Penta]: I just don't understand this.

[Penta]: I understand that.

[Penta]: I don't know if you're from a court or what, but I can't support it because I just think this is completely out of control.

[Penta]: All of it's out of control.

[Penta]: You don't even have your own certificate of insurance.

[Penta]: You write self-insured.

[Penta]: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts tells you you have to have a stamped self-insured certificate when you're using the term self-insured.

[Penta]: That Mr. Ramirez be invited down, who was a wonderful asset,

[Penta]: at the Brookline Bank and he just retired.

[Penta]: And it'd be nice to have the people take a look and see and have him give us his resume.

[Penta]: Two papers.

[Penta]: 13-449.

[Penta]: It was laid in the table on the 14th.

[Penta]: Um, DPW parks department and Hormel commission.

[Penta]: We get a report back on that.

[Penta]: No, but he laid it for one week.

[Penta]: Yeah.

[Penta]: Why can't it be open all the time?

[Penta]: I don't understand that.

[Penta]: Why can't they be open, like, on Saturday and Sunday when they go?

[Penta]: It should be.

[Penta]: That's what I'm asking for.

[Penta]: I know.

[Penta]: What, on the track?

[Penta]: I was just talking about the track, to walk around the track.

[Penta]: Also, Mr. President.

[Penta]: All right, which one?

[Penta]: Put a request in there that we get our trash collection reports on a monthly basis.

[Penta]: We have yet to receive that report back.

[Penta]: Mr. Clark.

[Penta]: Did you send that letter out?

[Penta]: Did you send that to the mayor?

[Penta]: He didn't send it?

[Penta]: Yes.

[Penta]: All right.