City Council - Regular Meeting

Thanks be to God.

Oh my God. I thought it was real.

I went down there that morning, the next morning.

Thank you.

July 28th, 2026 Lowell City Council meeting come to order, city prayer. Dear God, today as this session opens, we pray that your presence will be for us and everyone who serves in the decision making process of our city. We pray for direction which will lead our city to be strong and unified. May we continue the legacy of our founders. May we be granted this day the wisdom to make decisions which will be for the good of our city. We also pray for your special blessings on all those who are working to transform our city and make it a better place to live and work. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, Mr. Clerk.

May I get you up?

Here.

Councilor Duran.

Here.

Councilor Liang. Here. Councilor McDonough.

Here.

Councilor Mercier.

Here.

Councilor Noon.

Here.

Councilor Robinson. Here. Councilor Rohr. Here. Councilor Scott.

Here.

Councilor Chau.

Here.

Councilor Decoto.

Here.

11 present.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Any moment of silences? Seeing none, we'll move on to Mayor's Business. Mayor's Business 2.1, communication remote, Zoom participation. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Scott, seconded by Councilor Rourke. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 3.1, minutes of the City Council regular meeting, July 14th for acceptance. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Robinson, seconded by Councilor Noon. Councilor Duran.

Thank you. I really appreciate that the city clerk added a link to the RFP response that was attached to the minutes. If you go to the end of them, that was one of the requests I'd made during the meeting about sharing information about the Smith Baker Center. I'd also ask that all of the information that had been shared with the council ahead of time, which includes the land disposition agreement be added to the with or provided to the public. So if we could add those minutes materials to the minutes, that would be great. But I really appreciate the city clerk having taken this step. And I think it's wonderful that we're sharing that kind of information. So and in that format, so we're not just wasting paper, but we're providing the information. So that would be my request. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Duran. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. Four general public hearings scheduled for 7 p.m. will hold off. Five utility public hearings scheduled for 7 p.m. will hold off on those. Six City Council motion 6.1, Councilor Murcia, to reconsider vote taken on July 14, 2026, authorizing the city manager to file special legislation to increase the pension and 10 years back pay for Vincent Fernandez. Seconded by Councilor Duran. Councilor.

There's a registered speaker. William DeRosis.

Good evening. Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, and Mr. Manager, my name is Bill DeRoges, and I'm currently the chairman of the Lower Retirement Board. With me tonight is also two members of the board, Bob Littlefield and Michael Brennan. We are here tonight to present information concerning the request of Mr. Vincent Fernandez to receive the benefits of the Violent Act Injury Disability. The Lowell Retirement Board learned of the City's petition to the Mass General Court a few days after the Council had their initial vote to request Mr. Fernandez to receive the benefits of the Violent Act Injury Disability. As the council most likely knows, Mr. Fernandez was injured on June 4th, 2016, suffering from traumatic brain injury, shoulder, knee and back. This is the result of being hit and dragged by an automobile while performing his duties as a police officer. As a result of these injuries, the Lowell Retirement Board awarded Mr. Fernandez an accidental disability retirement in January of 2017, and he has been receiving monthly disability payments since then. On November 11th, though, 2024, just less than two years ago, Mr. Fernandez requested the Lowell Retirement Board amend his accidental disability retirement to a violent act injury disability. The Lowell Retirement Board refused this request, mostly based on the fact that an individual who is, and I quote from Perak, who is already receiving a disability pension is not eligible for the Violent Act Injury Disability, and his retirement allowance cannot be recalculated. This is a direct provision from PARAC, which stands for the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission, who along with the Mass General Laws is the Retirement Board's governing authority. I've asked PARAC if any other individual or community has submitted a petition to the Statehouse for these benefits. Their reply was no. To the best of their knowledge, nobody else, no other community or individual has asked for special legislation to get under this Violent Act Injury Disability. because everyone else was in place prior to the enactment of the law, and the law states that you can't do it, can only go forward, not look behind us. If this special legislation as submitted by the city council is approved at the Mass State House, it will first result in significant financial burden on the Lowell Retirement System. we will be required to raise Mr. Fernandez's pension by approximately $18,000 per year, retroactive to the initial date of his retirement, which is approaching 10 years ago, with a cost to the lower retirement system of approximately $180,000. That's immediately, we would have to refund that, or pay him that. This plus his retirement contributions when he was an active police officer of roughly $84,000, which we would have to reimburse this gentleman. His pension will increase if Mr. Fernandez lives until the mandatory retirement age of 65 and will cost the system an additional almost $200,000. So we're talking if this bill should pass approximately or almost up to a half a million dollars. that we would have no option, but we would have to pay it. This being said, the city of Lowell shares the cost of retirees. Again, all these figures were in addition to his current pension, which he is already receiving tax-free as all accidental disability retirees. Secondly, this process will open the door to other Lowell accidental disability retirees to submit similar requests. We have no... idea of who it would be or any numbers on that, but we feel it would open the door for it. And after calling and talking to PARAC, they would not favor this, the initial legislation or any actions by this at all. PARAC was involved with the State House developing the bill and they would not support this. Finally, I've learned that Mr. Fernandez has been working since his retirement. He has had to submit his tax return to PARAC under Mass General Law, Chapter 32, Section 91A, which is a very common form that all disabled retirees have to submit. He has to submit that form for earned income starting in 2022. As has always been the case, the Low Retirement Board will follow all Mass General Laws and requirements of PARAC and the city. And although we sympathize with Mr. Fernandez's current disability, the Lower Retirement Board has a fiduciary responsibility to the entire system. And we feel this special legislation from Mr. Fernandez is counter to fiscal responsibility and counter to the state legislators and PARAC's intentions when they wrote this law. That's all I have. We're here. We can answer any questions you have of us. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you. Council Marcia. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. At the last city council meeting on July 14th, 2026, there was a vote taken to authorize the city manager to increase the pension for Vincent Fernandez and give him back money in the span of the last 10 years. I voted with my heart and overlooked what the facts might have been. As you heard, I wish we would have got it two weeks ago. I never researched what those who have more knowledge in this matter would have submitted to this council and recommended because no data on the circumstances were submitted for review. No recommendation was submitted to this council as well. Therefore, I hate to admit it, but I voted blindly. I was wrong. And the reason I say that is because if we have an ordinance that we're going to look at and it involves either zoning or the planning board, we know that it's coming up and we refer it to the proper board and then whatever the board decides, it comes back to us. I don't know all that much about zoning I'm going to be honest with you I'm not a planning board member I don't know that I'm not a retirement board person I don't know that either not that I'm stupid but I mean I rely on those that have more knowledge than me and whatever their recommendation is I tend to go on their recommendation however Two weeks ago, there was nothing. But I heard police officer. I heard injury. I voted with my heart. Therefore, I, being on the prevailing side, have the right in a timely manner to reconsider the vote that was taken at the last city council meeting and ask for another roll call vote. The back of money we are talking about for the past 10 years would have amounted to about $200,000. And I'm wondering, Would that open a floodgate for other city employees to come forward with the thought being, if Mr. Fernandez can do it, so can I. I do not want this on my conscience. I suspect I respect the taxpayer enough to rethink what I have hastily done. And you heard from the retirement board chair just what I think, and I would have loved to have had that two weeks ago, but it amounts to like a quarter of a million dollars or a half a million dollars. That's a lot of money. I urge this council to vote, to not let the city manager file legislation so that we can review the facts which you just heard yourself. and the costs concerning this case. So I'd like to have a vote to reconsider and refer it back to the Retirement Board. That's my idea. Thank you. Thank you, Council Mercia.

Council Robinson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a couple of questions for the Retirement Board based on what we heard tonight, if you don't mind.

Mr. Roche.

So out of that money that was discussed potential half a million dollars in back pay is that also 70 subject to the 7525% split. So the city's responsibility for any of these kind of money would be the 75% share.

I believe it would. I'm not exactly sure. I know the city has their responsibilities, significant responsibilities annually to commit toward the retirement benefits of all city employees. I believe it is 75-25, but I'm not sure on that. I know that the weekly contributions are, and I'm not sure of the other finances.

The financial, and you mentioned that they'd also be included, we'd have to pay back service time?

What I meant by that was, it's in the law. In fact, it was in the documents that was submitted All his contributions that every individual person working for the city, they have to pay retirement contributions to the system. Under that bill and under that piece of legislation, he would be receiving a refund of all his contributions back to him. That's where the $86,000 came from.

Oh, so this bill that was passed refunds contributions to the pretty much pension retirement system for that employee?

That is correct. But remember, it's a fine line we're working here because to be under that bill, the Violent Act injury disability, that was passed in 2024. So it's only prospective for that. It didn't count for the people that had retired prior to that, prior to that date. That was only going forward.

As you mentioned, no look back period. And this kind of would be clearly precedent setting, correct? So other employees could seek this same kind of adjustment if this was to go through?

Yes, but I mean, they would have to meet certain guidelines. You know, it would have to be...

Within that criteria.

It would have to be guidelines similar to what this gentleman had submitted, yes.

So it does, though, as long as they fit similar criteria, they would be eligible as a result of this change to look back now?

It's my personal thought is they'd have to come back to the council and have them pass it individually because I think this bill was an individual bill that was submitted to the courts.

Mr. Mayor, through you to the city solicitor, Would this be precedent-setting should it continue forward down this path? Someone meets the same criteria as PARAC's guidelines request. This goes through for this individual. Is that anybody else with similar circumstances would be eligible?

Solicitor Williams.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I suppose I'll just clarify. This special legislation has nothing to do with the Critical Incident Stress Management Act from 2024. Nothing to do with it because Mr. Fernandez would not be eligible for that. The time that he would have to file something to petition the Retirement Board to get those benefits has long run. This special legislation mirrors special legislation that was filed in 2013 for Mario Oliveira. He was a detective in Somerville. It's the exact same language that is in that that was passed in 2013. And I suspect a lot of what went into that that 2024 amendment to Chapter 32 was likely based off of that special legislation. So again, that was passed like 13 years ago. It's difficult for me to say one way or another if this would be precedent setting and that it would bring in a wave of people that would be applying for this. At least the facts that surround Mr. Fernandez and those that surround Detective Oliveira They don't happen very often, so there aren't a wave of people who have had those things happen to them. If that helps give any perspective to it. I don't know if it would or it wouldn't. If people did, the council, the retirement board can simply say no. It's all fact-specific. Every situation is going to be different.

So my question is more so, and I thank you for that, If this passed, we're not setting the criteria for this. That's something set with PARAC and the organization or agencies that administer this. But is this petition specific to an individual? Or if this petition was to move forward, is it NOW SET THAT THAT WE WILL HONOR ANY ANY SITUATION THAT MEETS WHATEVER ESTABLISHED CRITERIA SO THIS IS JUST FOR VINCENT FERNANDEZ INDIVIDUAL INDIVIDUALLY HIMSELF YES OK, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. AND MR. MAYOR, LAST QUESTION THROUGH YOU TO MR. MANAGER. I MEAN, IT'S KIND OF TOO LATE, BUT I WISH WE COULD HAVE GOT A BREAKDOWN BEFORE WE WOULD HAVE HAD TO KIND OF WEIGH IN ON THIS, THIS VOTE. IS THERE A WAY TO DO THAT STILL TO GET MORE OF A DETAILED BREAKDOWN FROM THE RETIREMENT BOARD OR WE JUST TAKE THE VOTE ON WHATEVER WAY IT GOES TONIGHT?

Thank you very much, Mr. May, through to the counsel. I think Mr. DeRoges gave the breakdown. We could put that into some type of writing. But this was all, this has been with us for some time, and this has all been really pushed by some news outlets calling to find out what was going to happen next. And in speaking with, I think it was Attorney Sacco from your, you know, from the Lowell Retirement Board, this is the only way it could happen. So the Lowell Retirement Board I believe voted no. But the only way you could possibly do this would be to send down special legislation. I have an opinion on that, because I think that in the legislature in 2024, they decided to go prospective on this and not go backwards. So would it happen? Could it happen? Anything can happen if this body decides to send it down. But I think this has already been discussed in committee multiple times. And in 2024, I want to stand, not to stand corrected here, but everything is prospective. So if this body decides to send it down, what would be the outcome? It'd be up to the legislature in the next five months. And then we'd have to file it again, if that was the wish of the body.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Robinson. Council McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I've been kicking this one around for most of the day now, actually. I saw Mr. Baldwin earlier today on Market Street, and I think I asked about it. Part of my issue here, and I don't know a former officer, Fernandez, I don't know anybody, this is just... When this vote came to us two weeks ago, it wasn't in response to a council motion. There was no kind of political push from this body looking for this. This was something that the administration, and this is not a criticism. This is something the administration brought to us for approval, and it was my assumption two weeks ago, and quite honestly, it's still my assumption, I think, right now, that, you know, I'm outside of my normal lane, but some measure of trust towards the city administration here in accounting for the financial impact of the special legislation that they brought us, I guess, right? Like, I would hope My hope and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I'm just I'm truly trying to grapple with this here. But but my hope would be that if this is this is special legislation initiated by the city administration and brought to us that the financial implications would have been vetted. I am concerned. now hearing from the retirement board that maybe that didn't happen or maybe it didn't. There's a disagreement that I'm not understanding and or maybe I'm missing some information, but it's it is difficult for me to go back on the vote. Just thinking about, you know, if if I were at home and I found out, you know, the tragic incident, whatever, I got hurt. We made it over that first hurdle and then two weeks later we take it back and I'm not really Not that I want to go just on feelings here, right? But I guess I'm trying to just stay, and I get that I'm rambling. two weeks ago i trusted that the city administration was not going to give us a request to file special legislation that was going to bankrupt the retirement board and i think i'm still kind of that's what i mean i think i'm still in that position today i'm not i haven't seen anything that i i can't imagine that anybody would kind of do that on purpose so i i'm a no on this or i give him a yes on whatever means file the special legislation is how i'm going to vote at the end so far thank you thank you council mcdonough manager golden

thank you very much mr may through the council consulate this is a right to petition we had someone that came to us reported back we had news folks calling us to make a decision this wasn't us trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes on this this you know my opinion once again with what happened in 2024 is a prospective vote. I don't think there's any problem with sending it. My opinion is it probably will not be accepted because of exactly what the, excuse me, the chairman, the chief, what the chairman was talking about, because PARAC would get involved, et cetera. They'd be asking for this. This is just an opportunity for Mr. Fernandez to be heard in another level. That was the whole purpose for this. And if the council were to decide not to do this, I don't think that that's a problem either.

Councilor Dakota.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. When we had this vote two weeks ago, I actually asked, I go, is this setting a precedent? And it looks like it absolutely will be. I'm a bit hesitant to vote tonight. I think I want some more information. And if I could ask Mr. DeRozier to come to the lectern for one second.

He already took a vote, though.

Thank you, Mr. Dorgia. You had mentioned that Mr. Fernandez, so once again, we've gone from a disability to a, and now you said no to a violent disability.

Is that just, can you say that one more time? I couldn't hear that.

The violent part of that.

Violent act, disability, pension. Yes, the Violent Act, I don't know if you've had a chance to see the definition of a violent act, but it's an intentional act by an individual against a police officer, say, that involves a weapon. whether it was shooting, like, for instance, they talked about the initial police officer that was shot and severely disabled back in, I think, 2013. But it could be a gun, it could be a knife, it could be a club. It even listed a car as one of the violent acts. It's something that's, and the definition states that it's used not necessarily as it was designed.

So in Mr. Fernandez's situation, it was a car, though? It was a car. Yes, it was. All right.

So why did the retirement boy say no to that? Because he had already been on a disability pension. This act wasn't available at the time when Mr. Fernandez retired, that the lower board passed it. It only came into play, I believe it was 2014, November 2014. 2024, I'm sorry, 2014. And you said that Mr. Fernandez is actually working too as well now, right? That's what PARAC told me. Every retiree, disabled retiree, has to file a 91A form along with their tax return to PARAC to show that they're not exceeding the limits that they have on their... on their ability to work and their pension. And so we contacted PARAC and they said, yes, since 2022, Mr. Fernandez has filed the 91A for earned income.

OK, I feel like the data is kind of murky here, and I'm not sure about a vote tonight. And no disrespect to Council of Mercy. I just like maybe the city solicitor to give us the pros and the cons of this. Give me all the information I can make a rational vote. I just don't feel like I have that data in front of me to do that. And I know there's at least one other police officer that's going to be going down the same path is going to be asking this council to do the same thing. So this is a dangerous precedent. We are talking some serious money here. And I want to make sure that my vote is accurate. And obviously, I'd like, if the city solicitor can get all the data from the retirement board, I'd like to have that in front of me before I make a vote. And obviously, I'll let my colleagues speak on it as well. Thank you.

Councilor Decoto, tonight you're reconsidering a vote you already took. So you can't if you push us off, the other vote stands. So that's.

We could never bring this back.

You can bring it back. But tonight you're reconsidering the original vote. If you want to get more information, then you would vote to reconsider and then you would ask again for more information. But you have to reconsider before you can ask for more.

I appreciate that, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you.

Councilor Duran.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I heard the city manager say that this has been with us for some time, but I didn't understand that. It sounds like the press has been asking the city, but that wasn't anything we heard last time. And I don't understand the facts behind this and really what is driving this. I mean, the press asking about something to me shouldn't have been an incentive alone. So I'm curious what the context is.

Manager Golden?

Thank you very much, Mr. May, through to the council. The context, councilor, is just simply that there was a right to petition. The gentleman did, and we needed to answer. That's what we looked at from that perspective. The rest of everything I'm saying, it still stands. The petition needs to come here if the council doesn't want to move the petition forward to another venue, i.e. the state legislature. We don't have to. Like I said, in speaking with the retirement board, talking to their attorney, this is the way we had to go if we were to do anything about this.

and so I I appreciate that um I and I appreciate that he wanted or has whichever it is the right to petition um I think it's really the question of the recommendation of the city administration that I think is the question rather than sort of a neutral position but be that as it may I I do worry about the precedent I did last week or last meeting also. And I also worry about the precedent it's setting for us as a council about punting these issues to the legislature rather than making an informed decision considering all of the implications, including not only the impact on this one individual, but on others who might be in similar situations. I appreciate that this might be somewhat unique, but perhaps not that unique. Everybody can come up with their situation and make a make an argument about that. And I think, as I did say two weeks ago, we need to balance our responsibilities to any individual as well as to the city as a whole. So I am concerned that this would just be punting to the legislature and maybe making assumptions about how they might approach this. But I do think it's our responsibility to consider this fully. So there's my thoughts.

Council Rourke. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, it seems by hearing everything, especially from this list of people listening to it or not, but the officer did what was in his right to do. You know, anybody could do it. It's come before us before with prior employees. You know, I do have an issue with trying to make Officer Fernandez look like a bad guy here because he had, you know, tax returns. We had no idea what he was doing. You know, he could have been, you know, inscripting, you know, for an online paper or magazine, you know, on these laying bricks or banging in nails. So to try to characterize him as a bad guy here, you know, I have a real problem with. And also, this is the state's call. We could say yes all day long. We can recommend that they accept it. It doesn't come from us. We can't. tell them what to do either way. They created the law. They're the ones that will say yes or no. As far as the council is concerned, all we did was do what we do is just send it and they make a decision. It doesn't matter if the mayor, myself, or any councilor says, yeah, he should get paid or no, he shouldn't. We have no say in the final decision. So I think the least we can do as a city council for an officer as the Chairman's exact words were, suffered a traumatic brain injury, is give him the opportunity to go to the State House to see if his act that was against him qualifies to get the extra retirement. I mean, I'm sure, you know, all the injuries that the Chief mentioned, He would much rather probably be working to this day rather than, you know, suffering what he's going through. So, you know, I think it should stick, of course, and go to the legislature for a petition. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor McDonough.

I don't think I had my hand up. I might have forgotten, but I agree with Councillor O'Rourke, actually. That's all I got. I do. I mean, I'm going to actually, you know what? I didn't think I had my hand up, but I'll go one more time anyway. I'm not understanding, and it's not just the individual, whatever person. It came in front of us. We had the facts that we had at the time. I have not heard anything I've heard from the retirement board, but I haven't heard anything from the city administration to kind of call into question the vote that we took two weeks ago. It does sound like there's a disagreement between maybe someone, the administration and the retirement board. But this is it. Is there a Mr. Mayor, through you probably to the city manager, is there anything stopping Mr. Fernandez, even if we did, if we didn't, if the council didn't vote to file the special legislation, would there be anything stopping Mr. Fernandez from trying to petition one of the other members, a member of the state delegation to file special legislation on his behalf?

Manager Golden.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, through the council. He could go to one of the delegation members to have that filed. And then it would just end up coming back. And it would still come back, yeah. Correct. So in a roundabout way, yes, you could. You could do either or, I suppose.

Yeah, I guess I would just ask that if anything further comes to light in the next five months, if we reconsider it tonight, I guess we reconsider it tonight. If we don't reconsider it tonight, I would just ask that if anything does come to light, this still has to pass through the state legislature. So if there is some, you know, big white whale out there that's going to tank us if you could let us know and you know let the state delegation know to not pass this right or to oppose it after it's been sent down i think that would go a long way but right now i haven't heard anything that would make me feel like that's going to be an issue so thank you

Thank you, Councilor McDonough. Councilor Marcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The motion is to vote to reconsider the vote that was taken last week. A yes vote means to vote to reconsider so that we can get more information. It's as simple as that. Roll call.

Councilor Noon. wanted to speak and he hasn't had an opportunity to speak. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Mayor, through you to the city solicitor, with vote to reconsider, Mr. Solicitor, after that vote taken, the same majority said to reconsider, The next vote, can it be that we would like more information, you know, on this subject matter, not just on Mr. Fernandez's cases, but potential future so that we have an informed going forward or even this case, you know, informed decision making on this. Is that right, Mr. Solicitor? Solicitor Williams.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, that's correct. You take the vote to reconsider. If there's a majority that ultimately decides to reconsider the vote, you just would be at that point as if we were two weeks ago. You hadn't voted yet. You can not move forward with the vote and request the city manager, myself, retirement board, whomever, collect more information for the council.

I do share both views on the floor tonight. I understand that like previous former officers who filed similar special legislation before, they do have right to petition this council. And this council further sent it to the legislature for special legislation, whether the legislature passed it or not. From the experience, from what I learned from Mr. Managers in the past, that very unlikely that that will happen, but likely or not, that's their opportunity to do so. I also share the concern. The concern is that the impact that would have on the retirement board. If this were to go through, the impact is huge. And also, the impact is that it may be a precedent for a future petitioner to file this petition along that line. So with more information, certainly informed information is helpful, both from the planning, from the retirement board. As Councilor Moosia said, I mean, I too share that there's no fault to the managers and his team. But in the future, you know, because a lot of this board and commission, we do have them there, the land board, the retirement board and whatnot. We have them there for a reason because they do have specialized in those areas or have more experience in those areas with input from them, just like input from the via inspection or the planning board and zoning board and whatnot. The same with the retirement board certainly is going to help us down the road. So I tonight thank Councilor Murcia for bringing up the motion to reconsider this. I will vote to support it and get more information. With that more information, I will have a better informed decision as to vote for Senate forward for special legislation or not. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Noon. Councilor Liang.

I think we can do this all day, but it's more the onus is on me. I took the vote, and at the same time, it's going to be hard for me to go back and say just because of new light of information, it's me that should have asked for more information, but I think it's all the research or the information that was given. But at the same time, there's always gonna be more information that will come out afterward. But just for me alone, it's just that it's gonna be hard for me to just go back and undo what I did. And I think it would be, it's just hard for me to do that.

Thank you, Council Leang. I would just, if I can make one statement from up here, as a politician, if you find out more information after a vote and you have a second chance at it, you might want to review it. Roll call.

Mayor Gachier.

Yes.

Councilor Duran. Yes. Councilor Leang.

No.

Councilor McDonough.

No.

Councilor Murcia. Yes. Councilor Noon.

Yes.

Councilor Robinson.

Yes.

Council Rourke? No. Council Scott? No. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Motion passes. Going back to the public hearings. For general public hearing, 4.1 ordinance amending zoning curb cuts, motion to withdraw and refer to the Planning Board for report and recommendation by Councilor Mercier, seconded by Councilor McDonough. All those in favor? Signified by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. Five, utility public hearing. 5.1 National Grid requests installation of a utility pole at Westford Street and Technology Drive. Give a second reading. We're going to open the hearing to those in favor. State your name and address for the record, please.

My name is Alec Bartsong. I'm here to represent National Grid in this matter, and the address is 1101 Turnpike Street in North Andover.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak in favor? In favor? In favor. If you just leave that area, someone will be able to walk up in case they do. If we need you, we'll call you up to the mic, sir. Thank you. Anyone wishing to speak in opposition? Opposition? Opposition? That portion of the hearing is closed. Motion to refer the wire inspector for report and recommendation by Council Yang, seconded by Councilor Duran. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 5.2 National Agree Request Installation of Utility Poll 1 at 1270 Westford Street and 1 at 1299 Westford Street. That portion of the meeting is now open. In favor?

Yep, I'm here to speak in favor of it.

Just state your name and address for the record.

Alec Bertsong, National Grid, 1101 Turnpike Street, North Andover.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak in favor? In favor? In favor? That portion of the hearing is closed. Anyone wishing to speak in opposition? Opposition? Opposition? That portion of the hearing is closed. Motion to refer to the Wire Inspector for a report and recommendation by Councilor Decoto, seconded by Councilor Chau. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. Motion to suspend the rules by Councilor Decoto, seconded by Councilor Chau, to take 8.3 out of order. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 8.3, vote authorized payment of bills incurred in excess of appropriation. Waveful reading and second reading by title.

Thank you.

Vote to appropriate the payment of unpaid invoices from prior fiscal years for the school department. Motion to adopt.

Mr. Mayor.

Council of Dakota.

Could I have Dr. Pinto to the lectern for one second, please? Sure.

Dr. Pinto, welcome. Good evening.

Thank you, Dr. Pinto. Obviously, this is a $179,000 bill. My question to you is, basically, it seems like somebody dropped the ball here. The PO was from services from the beginning of the year. And I guess I'll, before I ask you a question, I'll ask the city solicitor and the auditor, the reason for the denial of the PO is because of services rendered beforehand, Ms. Oaks? Through you, Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry.

Auditor Oates.

I'm sorry, the reason for the denial, I missed that last part.

was due to the fact that services were rendered and it didn't get to your office or the city solicitors sometime in April, May, looks like maybe.

Right. I mean, there was a request for a contract on or about April 9th, 2025. Yeah. I received the contract on May 30th. While reviewing the contract, I noted that the contract term was 4-9-25 through 6-30-25. But yet the scope of services also included with the contract was for transportation for six special ed students for 200 plus days. So, I knew that 200-plus days was not between April and June. I brought it to everyone's attention and said, I have a contract for $277,000, but I will only be able to pay bills from April 9th through June 30th. So, I alerted everybody so that perhaps there could be a remedy by, you know, making the contract term the entire school year. That was not possible because the law department can't backdate a contract. The bills came forward. I could only pay from April through June. Now, we do have a full encumbrance because a purchase order was issued for the full contract amount of $277,000. Those funds are reserved. There was an appropriation in 2025 for transportation, and we encumbered the funds. Now, as auditor, I'm in charge of any reserves against fund balance. I know there's a valid claim for services rendered by this vendor, so I have not closed the encumbrance.

So in April, did you communicate with Dr. Pinto that, in fact, you could not pay that, and what resulted from that?

Yes, I communicated with my contacts at the school that they had a contract that I wouldn't be able to pay any bills prior to April 9th. So I did communicate that, and I advised them to contact the law department.

Thank you. Mr. Pinto, the ball's in your court. What happened at that point?

So I think that thank you. Thank you, Councillor Dakota. So I think this is a combination of a vendor issue. So providing services without a contract in place and also staff oversight on our part. So as you'll appreciate, it's a very complicated area there. I do. Thank you. Sure.

Thank you, Councillor Dakota. Councillor Durant.

Thank you. I think my question probably got answered because I was confused about the invoice period ranging from July of 2024 through March of 2025. But that's because that was the, because these invoices are not just even in the 2025, 26, or sorry, and they're not even just in fiscal year 26. They were in fiscal year 25, if I'm understand that look at them correctly. So and that's that's what I was trying to understand. But that's the issue that there the contract would have had to been retroactive all the way to July of 2024 or in order for the. So these have really been out there for a long time. And the contract was delayed until even April, May of 2025. So I think I understand at least the facts now. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Duran, Councilor Rook. I think you submit. So Dr. Pinto, you said one of the reasons, I guess the blame game was staff issues. So what are you retraining the staff? I, you know, Councilor Durian said this is, you know, almost three years old now. And, you know, I mean, the last time you were in front of us, It was only a few grand, right? It was not a big deal. I know you said you had found some invoices on the desks or whatnot, but in this instance, what's being done to hopefully stop this from happening?

Thanks for the question, Councillor Rourke. So of course, we've been very active in trying to manage these kinds of things. We've instituted a master tracking document because the area is particularly complicated with dozens of vendors and hundreds of students that need to be transported. We have offered training to staff and we have instituted a monthly review process. So we are reviewing between accounts payable and transportation and our budget analyst on a monthly basis to ensure that this doesn't happen again. or at least these are minimized. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Noon.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Dr. Pinto, so from what I heard, that this is, the service has already been provided here, and that you have stepped forward, planned forward to address this issue from happening again. Is that correct?

That's correct. Actually, we've had great success in this area year over year. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Newell. Councilor Marcia.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, through you to the gentleman at the podium. Is it true that the school department has the money to pay for these? So you're just coming as a formality before us to ask us to allow you to pay the bill, right?

Councilor Marcia, that is correct. It is actually less than the encumbered amount.

and you do have the money so it's not coming out of the city side it's coming out of the school side right that is correct and does this not happen all the time it happens every year that i've been in politics it's like 32 years now that i've seen this happen so i have no problem with approving it thank you mr mayor mr mayor moved to approve moved to approve by council robinson seconded by council noon roll call

Mayor Gitche. Yes. Councilor Duran. Yes. Councilor Liang.

Yes.

Councilor McDonough.

Yes.

Councilor Mercier. Yes. Councilor Noon.

Yes.

Councilor Robinson.

Yes.

Councilor Roy. Yes. Councilor Scott. Yes. Councilor Chau. Yes. Councilor Dakota. Yes. 11 years.

Thank you, Mister clerk. Going back to the council motion 6.2, Councilor Mercier requests the City Manager have the proper department evaluate and repair the dangerous conditions on Gage Street as well as the overgrown UML empty parcel of land that abuts Gage Street. Seconded by Councilor Noon, Councilor Mercier.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I did have a call from some residents that live on Gage Street and they told me that the dangerous conditions in the street exist. Now, I don't know the ramifications of the situation in the city. I don't know if Gage Street is an accepted street and that's why we haven't done it. But if we could take a look and see if it's, number one, an accepted street and see if we can try to help that problem. As far as the overgrown UMass Lowell property that's empty that abuts that Gage Street, It was overgrown. It was an eyesore. I did get a call this afternoon from actually Patty Coffey from UMass Lowell that said the property was all cleaned up as of today. So thank you very much, UMass Lowell. You did a great job. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Marcia, Councilor McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to take this opportunity. I want to thank you to Councillor Merz here for the motion. And I'm glad that UML, that the university cleaned up the overgrown, empty parcel of land on Gate Street. But I do want to just take the opportunity to remind the council, as well as everybody at home, that there is another vacant parcel of university-owned land that I'm still waiting on a plan for, which is the Indian Conference Center downtown.

i just i i have sworn to too many of my constituents to bring that up anytime i see uml on an agenda so took the opportunity thank you thank you council mcdonough all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 6.3 council mercy request the city manager of the proper department provide an update regarding zoning laws for data centers seconded by counselor i second noon the registered speaker mr matt

Ciana Herbert.

Hello. Can you hear me? Perfect. My name's Ciana. I'm a community organizer. I've been living here for six years. My husband went to UMass Lowell. I don't represent myself today. I represent the crowd that's outside.

So we just need your name and address

Yes, Sienna Herbert, 35 Riverwalk Way. Thank you. You're welcome. So I represent the community that's outside and the Lowell community at large. The Markley Data Center has never been our choice. We never voted on this as a community and would never agree to this. That has nothing to do with this. Markley Group came in saying it would be a storage facility, and now it's a 50-megawatt data center with a plan to scale to up to 368 megawatts by their own admission on their website. For reference, Lowell General Hospital uses 10 megawatts at peak capacity. If this body doesn't do something, it will continue to spread like a cancer on our city. The moratorium as it stands has failed in court and no longer applies to Markley Group's new construction. We are reaching a defining moment for our city, one where this body has run out of conventional options and has no current recourse to stop Markley Group. We cannot become a company town.

Can we just not mention individuals? Because we're just talking about zoning.

I know. I'm getting there. I'm getting there. So let's not... I'm allowed to say whatever I want. I'm a member of the community.

That's not the case. When we talk about motions, we're just trying to stick to the motion, which is about zoning. You can talk about the zoning issues, but please don't talk about a business itself.

I'm not. I will discuss zoning. I'm getting there. Thank you. The moratorium as it stands has failed in court and no longer applies to Markley Group's new construction. We are reaching a defining moment for our city, one where this body has run out of conventional options and has no current recourse to stop Markley Group. We cannot become a company town burning fuel day and night to house secrets for evil corporations will the working people of low are left to deal with the consequences this is the most pressing issue for our city please as a community we beg you to do your jobs our community has put together a petition with the following demands and when listing them i am speaking on behalf of all signatories and the countless others

Point of order. We're talking about zoning here.

I'm actually, it's part of, we are talking about zoning.

I'm getting it. No, the demands and all that, unless there's zoning related.

Are you an elected official, sir?

Yes, I am. Oh, okay, perfect. Councilor Robinson has the floor at this point. Point of order.

Point of order is, please, I welcome any speakers to discuss specifically what this is about here. An update regarding zoning laws for data centers. Yes. Not a list of demands unless they're in regards to zoning laws for data centers.

They are.

You asked once already not too much.

Do I have a time limit?

This is not going toward your time limit.

I'm sorry? I'm speaking. This is not going toward your time limit. When he calls a point of voting, the time limit gets stopped. Okay, what is my time limit, though? Three minutes. Oh, okay, perfect. I'm well not even close to that.

The thing is, please, you've been asked.

I'm getting to my point. I'm allowed to say whatever I want to say about zoning. This is all in relation.

You haven't mentioned zoning once.

Yes, I have. I've mentioned it three times.

Councilor Robinson just addressed it.

Okay, so Mr. Mayor, zoning hasn't been mentioned once and we'll get into a list of demands, community-led demands. If they are to zoning, I'm all ears. If this is not specific to zoning, I would ask that we stop the speaker because they were already warned about mentioning specific businesses and that has popped up again as well.

Solicitor Williams.

Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Yeah, so I think the easiest place to start is that the motion that Council Mercer put forward is to have the proper department provide an update on the zoning laws for data centers. So the discussion has to be germane to that topic. And if it's not, discussion has to stop. Again, all within the three-minute time limit.

Thank you. So you have 30 seconds left. To finish what you had.

Oh, yeah, of course. To stop the Markley data center expansion in general, to permanently repeal the tax exempt status for Markley Group, enforce the 12-month moratorium on new construction, and zone out all new data centers, we need to ensure future protections against corporations who seek to exploit us, zone out all projects that surpass a reasonable megawatt limit. To be clear, this is the absolute bare minimum. To deliver true justice, the existing data center shouldn't exist at all. This is a compromise with actionable demands to you. It is time to act. Do your jobs and protect the people of Lowell from this ongoing attack on our city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Mercy. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. When we talk about data centers, we realize that modern life depends on them to store important information. Facilities such as UMass Lowell, Lowell General, and the list goes on and on, they depend on data centers. For if none existed, they might have to store their respective data on their own property in many single neighborhoods. The problem is not the data center. The problem is bad data centers, facilities built without sufficient transparency, without strong environmental standards, without ratepayer protection or meaningful community benefits. If data centers are going to come here, they must come under rules that protect the public. Rules must protect ordinary ratepayers from infrastructure costs caused by data center demand. This is not radical. This is basic fairness. It is incredibly common for municipalities to find themselves with a completely blank slate when it comes to data centers. Historically, cities and towns lump data centers under light industrial or warehouse uses. But creating a zoning law and outlining the rules, the approach, the framework, writing a data center-specific ordinance is a smart, proactive move of which we don't have yet. First, we define what a data center is so developers cannot claim they are just building an office or a warehouse. Then we define it for what it really is, such as the principal use being a facility used primarily for the storage, management, and processing of digital data. housing servers, network equipment, and associated utility infrastructure, cooling towers, backup generators, substations, tiered rules, power consumption. Rather than just regulating square footage, consider defining them by electrical demand measured in megawatts. Like as far as tiers, tier one, low input up to two megawatts can fit into standard industrial zones with the permit. Tier two greater than two megawatts requires strict deciding or outright exclusion near residential zones. Secondly, noise and vibration mitigation. The constant low frequency hum from the cooling fans and HVAC units is the number one source of residents' complaints. Third, water resource manage required annual reporting of water storage effectiveness, which is WUE. Four, backup and air qualities. Data centers house massive banks of diesel or natural gas generators. Fifth, Setbacks buffer yard aesthetics establish a minimum distance of at least 150 to 500 feet from any residential property line are sensitive, receptive for the principal building or even further for electrical substation, heavy landscape buffer, 25 feet wide strips on mature evergreen trees. Consider creating a data center overlay district. If a corporation wants to build a facility requiring the electricity demand of a small city, it should not expect families, renters, elders, small businesses, or municipalities to carry the risk. If a facility needs new grid infrastructure, the cost should not be buried in someone's utility bill. And I checked. with the markley group and i asked them that very question and they said it isn't i'm only going by what they told me i can't prove that but they told me it doesn't if it uses large volumes of water local residents should not face higher water bills we need environmental monitoring and zoning laws before harm happens not apologies after the damage is done not saying that damage is done i'm just saying that we talked about a zoning ordinance and i will say we had a very effective meeting at the butler school where about 200 people were there but it was no talk about what should be in a zoning ordinance it was just criticism and harassment to the markley group and when a sole markley employee got up to speak they treated her like she was a spy for the United States government. I mean, I was embarrassed for the young lady. I saw fights being picked on people that work at Markley, like step outside, I'll punch lights out. But it was a little bit more graphic than that. And people were there not to fight. We were there to get ordinance rules for zoning. And that's what this motion is about. I'm asking Whereas the zoning, we must shape our future before the lack of it shapes us. And that's why I made this motion. Any information on data centers? None exist. And we want to put some forth. And I don't know where we are with this, but I think it's very important. And I think it's like shutting the door after the horse get out of the barn, because we never had anything to go by to begin with, which we didn't probably realize it, but we should have had it. And I think we're going to have it now. And that's what this motion is asking. Where are we with that? That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Council Mercia. Council Duran.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, Councillor Scott put a motion on the council agenda and we all approved, or it was approved in January to have a temporary moratorium on new or expanded data centers. And there were planning, there was at least one planning board meeting after that. There was also a motion that Councillor Scott and I jointly sponsored on March 24th to ask the appropriate department to provide a draft plan regarding the work to be done regarding those zoning changes during this moratorium period and to share updates at least every two months. And I think if we were to get those updates, that might help us know what progress is being made. So that's one point I wanted to understand where we stand with that request.

Manager Golden.

thank you very much mr may through to the council council right now the moratorium is in effect from i believe it was march 10th when it finally day one if you would until uh until next year uh in march so uh the butler school was uh one instance when we did have a meeting and i know it didn't turn out the way everybody had hoped it would but i know that the dpd had accepted some uh some information from people with some suggestions. It just didn't go as smoothly as possible. I know that, and I'll check with the Assistant City Manager, but we do plan on having other discussions, not just about data centers alone, but zoning laws. And Madam Assistant City Manager, do you know what that time frame is for that company that we have hired to help us with our zoning?

So, yeah, we have been working on updating, doing a comprehensive zoning update. The data center language is obviously sort of in the zoning update, but has required additional, more focused conversations. So, it's not, which is why, you know, the session at the Butler was just about that, not about the broader discussion. I actually have a draft, We had planned to submit it as an informational, but then I saw this motion come on, so I think we're just gonna change the format of it. But we'll have a draft motion update with information about sort of what has happened to date as a response to this motion and just in general trying to keep counselors informed. So the steering committee has been meeting actively. We did collect information and comment from people both at the meeting, but also people have been sending emails, so we're collecting that as a part of the record to try to inform the language. As we stated at that meeting, DPD's job is to sort of bring forward options to this council for your review and approval. And so there will be different versions of things for the council to consider that will be brought forward. And we're working on what that language and those details will actually be through the subcommittee and through public meetings, which are gonna continue to happen. for the next several months. The plan was that we would bring a packet forward to this council well in advance of the sort of year point of the moratorium, so you all have time to actually review your options that are available and have the opportunity to deliberate as a body as to what kind of language you want to use. consider adopting. So, DPD is actively working on that. You'll have a motion response at the next meeting, but ultimately, the plan is to present this body with some options for language that you can consider for adoption.

Thank you. I would go back to the March 24th motion, which asked specifically for a draft plan for how we were going to deal with this year of the moratorium, as well as getting updates every two months. That doesn't mean we need to be finished by any means in two months. In fact, that's exactly the point. But what we don't want, I think, is to be, first, uninformed, and secondly, given a packet with a lot of information at the end when we don't know either what the process was for getting there, which was the idea of asking for a plan, not that it had to be set in concrete, but sort of how this was being envisioned as that we were moving along during this 12-month period and getting updates during that. So, that was approved by the Council, and I would ask that we stick to that commitment or request, approved request. Coming back to something that the speaker said about the moratorium having failed. I don't understand where we are if that's an Accu I don't know where we are if that's an accurate statement, so I want to understand that because I want to make sure we have have that in place or So, Mr. Mayor, if you could ask the city manager, he looks ready to answer.

Thank you very much, Ms. Mayor, through to the council. Council, the moratorium is in effect currently right now. There won't be any new building of data centers. And I think that the way the assistant city manager has brought forth this idea and the chair of zoning subcommittee has been there as well, there probably will be different iterations of what people want. I've seen some of the requests to get this to fruition, but I think we're still a little bit of a work in progress, which I think in the next couple of weeks, we will have some report, the first report. But I do agree with you. This council has made it crystal clear. We don't want to be waiting on this 11 months and 24 days and then all of a sudden come out with, you know, this is the plan. So I think we're working towards that goal. And I think it's important to know that this moratorium started, and I believe it was March 10th, for the sticks in my head, was the first day. So we have until now and until next March to fix this or extend the moratorium, whatever we choose to do, or whatever this body chooses to do.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Jermaine, Councilor McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do think just from listening and if I've misunderstood something, that's OK. But I think some of the concern that I have heard, I guess, both from the speaker tonight, but also from, you know, neighbors of the one data center we have in the city is is trying to understand what work was approved prior to the moratorium and it's kind of a continuation and what work. I'm not looking necessarily for the answer tonight. I guess I'm trying on that first point just to understand when you see someone cutting the street to run what would appear to be electrical lines for a data center and we have a moratorium, it's like, well, hold on a second, how could you be doing? you know, if you're doing demolition work at a site that you're saying you want to turn into a data center, like these are kinds of the things I think when people say it failed, whether it actually failed or not, I think there's a perception of, well, all this work is continuing. And so I think if we were able to kind of clearly articulate what work was previously approved and what the scope of the moratorium is and just kind of Yeah, and I'm not leveling an accusation anywhere here. I guess I'm saying that that's the concern that I've heard, and to hear it kind of turned into a, the moratorium failed, whether it did or didn't, I don't want to speak to that right now, but I think that, and that, I think, Councillor Scott and I, I think it was last meeting, it was Councillor Scott's motion that I signed onto, about the Tanner Street the update on what was going on at Tanner Street and the demolition, even though there was a moratorium, I think was kind of to that end. Just to continue, slightly related, is I think I don't want to say it's uncomfortable, but it's a lot, I think, for this council, for any council, I think for municipalities probably across the state at this point. The data center issue has become a national issue, but I also want to remind everyone that this was a whole issue before it was a national issue. And I get that there can be an instinct to kind of look at, you know, outside organizations and acronyms and whatever and say that this is agitators or this is whatever, but this started with the neighborhood. The neighborhood is still there. And I do want to make sure that we all keep that in mind and that outside support is outside support, but they don't necessarily, no group really can speak for anyone except the neighbors, but just like a company can hire very expensive PR managers, neighborhood groups can go find advocacy groups to try and help them too. It's just they didn't go to Yale or whatever. Lastly, just I want to thank Councilor Mercy here for the motion, but I also want to point out just I agree actually fully with the one megawatt, two megawatt, three megawatt and trying to wrap our heads around that. But I also want to remind everyone that the data center we are all talking about is, I think, a 40 megawatt facility and growing or wants to be growing. So when we look at other towns, kind of press a panic button and talk about a three megawatt facility being too much. We have, you know, ten times that in the city of Lowell. And that I think is important. And I and also as we try to come up with zoning regulations, being aware of, you know, that prior use is grandfathered in and in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and figuring out what kind of rules we can put in place that maybe are not grandfathered in is the puzzle. That's the puzzle to solve. So thank you.

Thank you, Council McDonough. Council Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also, I agree with Council Mercia's motion, the intent of it. It's exactly what we were looking for around the data, my motion for the data sent to moratorium, just to define what we're looking for. Same thing with the draft plan motion Councilor Duran and I made, looking again for the same thing. And we asked via monthly updates, which we haven't received. And we did have the community forum. I think it was a good forum. I don't think they expected the crowds that were there, so we couldn't have the individual input that we expected with over 200 people showing up. I think they did come out clearly to say that they did not like what we had allowed to this point in time. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. If that was the input that was given, I think we should consider that. I would like to know, I guess right now, I thought there was going to be an overarching kind of like a committee for zoning, members of the planning board, a member of the city council having meetings about this citywide reform that included data centers. How many times has that group met at this point in time?

That group definitely exists. They definitely have had discussions off the top of my head. I don't know what that number is, but Councilor McDonough is on it, so he would know.

Okay, so perhaps with our update, our bi-monthly update, if we could get some, you know, updates to the council about what's happening with that group. also maybe a summary of the input that has been received via email and via I know a lot of people did put post-it notes up you know they did take the time to do that and I think that would be helpful we need to move forward obviously with this so this is a very good motion thank you thank you Council Scott just a number Council McDonough how many times do they meet

I think it was twice. I think I've gone to two. It might have been three, but if it was three, the first one was like a preliminary scheduling meeting. There were only two like real discussions that I remember. But it's substantive discussion there. They're, I think, about two hours long. Thank you, Council.

I'm sorry. Council Scott.

Can I ask that we get updates to the council, I guess, when they, you know, in regards to what happened around them? Are there minutes on the website? Are there? Because I wasn't aware that they had already happened.

so in the motion response i will we are creating a subpage to dpd's website where that information will live dpd can either put in periodic informationals it can go to the subcommittee i mean i think we would defer to the council but the the motion response that is coming for the next meeting will include sort of where people can find updates ongoing information and information that sort of we're we're on the receiving end. We're going to try to summarize it. Some of the comments we got in advance of the public meeting people sort of, I think, wrote emails that I'm not sure they would have written to us if they thought we were going to just like scan them and post them online, right? So, you know, I'm Giovanni, I live at 123 Main Street, and this is my opinion. So I don't think that we are comfortable just putting that stuff up online. But our thinking was that we would either redact some of that stuff or provide some kind of summary. Because I think you should give people advance notice if you ask for and make it clear, I think you need to make it clear that that information is gonna be like totally put out on the internet, and we didn't do that in advance of the public meeting. So I wanna be a little sensitive to some of that, but I do think it's important that we capture those comments that we've received from people. So I think we're still trying to figure out exactly how we're gonna get it online, but the plan is that that would all be available online. Thank you. Council Scott.

I would just say, yeah, an aggregate of the information would be helpful, I think, just for people. You know, just a summary of, you know, if the comment is we don't want data centers at all, then that's the comment. If the comment's, you know, we want buffer strips, then, you know, how many people are kind of, you know, bringing things forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Scott. Council Robinson.

thank you um with the clock kind of ticking seven months left to the moratorium currently this is asking for an update on the zoning laws around data centers um through you to the assistant city manager how soon do we have a working base draft that that we can bring at minimum the neighbors that brought this concerns to our attention initially To get them on board at least with a base draft working document because it seems like there's a ton of input being fielded But we still don't have something to say. This is step one It's great to keep having conversation after conversation, but we're down to seven months So I think realistically we need some kind of document to start and work from there Do we have an estimated timeline to see step one in writing?

It's just in City Mayor's Rose

I'm going to be very repetitive in my motion response next week. Um, yeah, so we are working on pulling together language. I think one version which we heard based at the sub that that public forum was a version of language that zones out that use in the city. That is that is one sort of draft of language that I think, based on what we have heard from people, is something people want to see. So that's sort of one iteration. The second iteration, to Councilor Mercier's point, is that we would have kind of specific locations that we would recommend, buffers, setbacks, those kinds of things. That language is still sort of being worked out through this larger zoning process. The whole... zoning review and update, we do have a drop dead deadline that was grant funded through the state, and so it has to be done and submitted for your review. And so our plan, the sort of back end of that is the fall, and so we are anticipating having public meetings, going to neighborhood group meetings to have those sort of smaller scale, not everything is gonna be sort of like a forum style discussion. I don't think it allows for the language to, I don't think it allows people to have like a detailed enough conversation and that kind of setup. So the idea is that we'd sort of take the show on the road a little bit and attend sort of neighborhood group meetings and have some smaller scale public discussions where we could gather feedback and input, and that that is, once we've sort of collected that information, that the council would, that the stuff that gets brought to the council would have seen sort of public comment and feedback already. So my thinking wasn't that we would present something to this council first and then bring it to the community, is that we would sort of get some feedback from people um have some options to weigh and then bring versions of that back and then again allow for time for either discussion at a subcommittee or in the full council to to sort of get to the finer points thank you so we don't really know when we're going to have a baseline document it sounds like that's i mean with seven months going on through you to the city solicitor i want to be clear because something was brought up

Is that even a realistic possibility to zone out something that's already existing? I mean, I understand the expansion piece, but is that a possibility to zone something out that's existing?

I think that may walk on the legal issue.

And if that's the case, then the solicitor, please advise that. But that came up that some are saying they'd like to see them zoned out altogether when it's already existing. I don't. That's why I'm asking.

Solicitor Williamson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think I can probably answer generally. I think as a part of some of the moratorium discussions, this may have come up, but something that was legally allowed, such as the original data center, there isn't an avenue for the city to come back. Of course, there are extenuating circumstances that might apply in certain scenarios, but to go back and do that, there is not a way for the city to do something like that as it stands. Everything would be moving forward. And if there are other issues that we need to discuss in an executive session, we certainly can, but generally, no, no, we cannot.

Greatly appreciated. Now, see what I'm saying. This conversation, it took two seconds to flush out one thing that's not going to be in the starting document. How soon till we can get a starting document to move forward so we can continue to work forward? I mean, it's not that difficult because if we keep for seven months chasing input, input, input, and it's not getting vetted to wipe out what's not even possible with the solicitor in the law department and any other parties that need to be involved, then we're going to be five months from now with with the clock ticking down to two months left and we're just going to start seeing documents then i think we if this is a priority which i'm hearing it is pretty loud and clear from the community from my colleagues i don't know do we need to bring somebody that can help facilitate the drafting of this document separate from an entire rezoning mapping i mean if we're going to have one third party come in to look at the entire city and start working on zoning changes in all different zones, that seems a little much in seven months. This seems to be a priority, especially with the seven-month moratorium left. So, I mean, I don't know if that's something my colleagues might want to consider. Do we need assistance, somebody that's going to be dedicated and prioritized drafting what zoning regulations around a data center in our city moving forward look like? I think that's a wise idea where the clock's ticking. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Robinson. Councilor Duran.

Thank you. I was curious about the committee that Councilor McDonough is sitting on. Is that, and I don't know if it's to the city solicitor or Ms. Baez-Rose or Councilor McDonough, is that a public committee? And like, is it open to the public? Then does it follow a law? Assistant City Manager Baez-Rose.

It's a steering committee. It follows the same format that we used for the master plan. And so, there was planning board members, members of the public, a representative from the council, staff working with them, and representatives from community scale, which is the consultant. Sorry, that word escaped me.

Yeah, just more trying to understand if it's open to the public, if it's minutes are available, that kind of thing. I think that's a follow-up to Councillor Scott's question, but trying to understand kind of how it fits into the overall process. And I don't have a particular opinion. I'm just trying to understand.

Thank you, Councillor Germain. Councillor McDonough?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think going off what several people have said twice, I would ask that maybe we refer this motion or the response to the zoning subcommittee with a dedicated meeting for the data center. you know, listening to everyone in the public, I think continuing to try and bundle this whole thing together as part of a whole rezone. And I think there's too much public interest. So that's what I would like to do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, are there other communities that already have a data center zoning ordinance? Are there any other? I think there are. And what did they use? And we asked a motion one time to say if our solicitors on experts in a particular field could we could the city hire someone of that specialty and maybe in the dpd they have someone that specializes in zoning i don't know zoning issues so we could probably hire them in coordination with the zoning subcommittee so we could all work in tandem as a unit, as a team.

Is there a motion to send this to the zoning subcommittee? Yes, I'll second it. Councilor McDonough, seconded by Councilor Marcia. Councilor Noon. I'm all set. Councilor Scott.

Just one question in regards to talking about a consultant or anything about this is that Dylan Ricker has been hot at work and very responsive for any input that you provide. I mean, I've sent over many cities and towns across the country what they've done for data centers, and he's spent a large amount of time compiling all of this information. um so I mean I would leave that I guess just um if the assistant city manager thought that they needed that level of support then I would offer that I believe but I think um I guess I would leave that to her thank you thank you Council Scott Council German

Yeah, this is on the new motion. I think sending it to the Zoning Subcommittee would make sense, except the challenge has been trying to set up subcommittee meetings. And I would prefer that we not defer getting the report from Ms. Baez-Rose that is already in the works. So perhaps we could do, or I wouldn't want sending it to the Zoning Subcommittee to prevent us getting in the information that was almost ready.

All in favor of sending it to the Zoning Subcommittee, signify by saying aye. Any opposed?

I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, did Councilor Duran try to amend that motion?

Well, trying to clarify. It was an amendment to a motion. Well, it was a double amendment, right? So we got to take the first motion first. And if you want to vote that down, we can go to the second motion. Second.

Well, does it have to?

I don't know if it has to. Assistant City Manager Baez-Rose.

Just to clarify, my thinking, if we're going to send it to a subcommittee, is that I would still just answer the motion, submit all of the information I had anticipated, and add a line at the end, which we typically do, which is if you'd like to discuss it at a zoning subcommittee in the future, we'd be happy to do that. So it won't change DPD's plan to you will get a motion response at the next meeting that hopefully will summarize a lot of this, and then that can hopefully be discussed in more detail at a subcommittee.

Perfect. Thank you. Roll call.

Thank you.

Councilor Noon.

Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Through you to Assistant City Manager Joe Byrosis. So you indicated that there's going to be a motion to respond on this. If you could also do it. I understand that the rezoning update is going to be seven months away from now. But given the urgency, as Councilor Robinson indicated, stated that, why Can you specifically address the data center in terms of those two points that you mentioned in the way to zone out and the other way to zone with the recommendation and send it as report to the council and then from there the council can refer that to the zoning subcommittee to have further discussion on that. Thank you.

Did you get all that? All right. All in favor of sending this to the Zoning Subcommittee, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. Motion to suspend the rules by Councilor Chau, seconded by Councilor McDonough for 8.4. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 8.4, vote, designate Lowell High School wrestling room as a polling location. Wave 4 reading and second reading by title, vote to designate the wrestling room at Lowell High School as a polling location for Ward 4, Precinct 3, 3A, 4A, Ward 7, Precinct 2.

Any discussion? Yes. I have a question. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Before I vote on this, this polling place is handicap accessible?

Oh.

Hi. Go ahead.

Yes, counselor. Lowell High School, the wrestling room is accessible. It was used with success in the most recent in the recent special election for state Senate.

So someone with a wheelchair could easily get in there without any stairs or anything?

Yes, that is correct. Okay.

That's all I know. Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Marcia. Counselor Duran.

And just a quick question. If I read it correctly, this would be for the November election, but would it also cover the September primary election?

Right. So I am asking you folks to make this a permanent change. This would allow us to accommodate students who the schedule for them is to be in school on November 3, but not in school during the state primary to avoid confusion. Let's just make it a permanent change.

Got it. Thank you. Yeah. Good.

Motion to adopt by Council mercy is seconded by Council Juran. Roll call.

May I get you? Yes. Council Juran? Yes. Council Liang? Yes. Council McDonough?

Yes.

Council Mercy? Yes. Council Noon? Council Robinson?

Yes.

Council Roy? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Dakota? Yes. 10 yes.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Going back to the motions. Council Rourke?

uh thank you so many guys at 6.4 um i'm gonna request to pull it right now uh i guess some of the warning um could be making a legal motion to be heard in front of the council so i will be refiling it um it'll be much more comprehensive um but just um just the reasons why is after talking to uh the solicitor um i'm gonna just reword it the correct way thank you

Thank you, Councilor Roark. Councilor Roark will be withdrawn 6.4. 6.5, Councilor Robbins requests City Manager to have the proper department provide an update on swapping out volleyball surface material at Gage, as well as potentially pathway to installing a seasonal restroom facility, seconded by Councilor Roark. Councilor Robinson.

thank you um i've been asking about the the stone dust for a little bit uh i know as far as the restroom facility i know that's something that you've been in discussions with the manager and the commissioner and just kicking around different ideas what's the most direct way to do it at the lowest cost that will provide what we're looking for so i appreciate any response thank you

Thank you all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 6.6 Council Robins requested to provide a pathway as well as a possible funding mechanism to update and upgrade McPherson swimming pool facility to to preserve the lifespan seconded by Council mercy Council Robinson.

thank you um again i i think this is just one of the areas that we've been fortunate as a city it's that pool's been pretty much unchanged for at least the past three plus decades that i mean and it might be a lot older than that as far as the mechanics of it So as we saw it's it's I believe we had kind of a custom pump built from one of the local vendors Many years ago and and when that thing went down it was a nightmare trying to find a replacement I think this is a conversation. We need to start having sooner rather than later because For the most part. It's one of the two of the city-owned pools that's left and with lowe high school no longer having a pool with the boys and girls club no longer having a pool it's it's it's vital and and ever since it's been open it's been packed with with kids swim lessons all of that so i think it's time we have this conversation and in capital plan out how do we ensure the next three four decades that that people be able to utilize that space as well so i look forward to this response as well thank you

Thank you, Council Robinson. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Motion by Council Rourke to suspend the rules and take 7.1 motion response E out of order. Seconded by Council Robinson. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. Motion response 7.1 E Lowell 2026, best places to live in Massachusetts. Councilor Noon.

I want to thank Councilor Rook for taking this hour of orders. So thank you for the report. The idea was to really try to promote because we've been named as the number one city to live in And number two, best city of small business in the U.S. So the idea to promote, basically put Lowe in the map, so to speak, I think the comm team and CAS have done a remarkable job in reaching out to all these social media, newspaper, to highlight Lowe as the best place really to live and do business. So I want to thank them for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Noon. Mr. Manager.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, through the council. I want to say thank you very much to Ms. Silk, who was here today. Hopefully, everyone had an opportunity to see the video that we sent out to everybody and share that on your social media accounts and whatnot. But I think it really hits to the point, Councilman Noonan, of what you were talking about, of us trying to get out there and let everybody know it's 60 seconds. And there are a number of things that are going to be going on, as that was stated in the email today. So great work by Ms. Silk and her team.

The comp team is here, Mr. Mayor, if she can come to the podium and say a few words about it. Thank you.

Deandra, if you would like to say a few words.

Thank you so much. Yeah, we've been working on it for some time, and it's just such a pleasure to be able to share all the amazing things that are happening in our city. It's so great to see the regional recognition that we're getting, the national recognition that we're getting, and to be able to share that locally and with folks all across the region to invite them to come, not just for this past amazing weekend, but all year round. So thank you.

Thank you for all your hard work.

Thanks.

Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Decoto, seconded by Councilor Chau. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. Back to the motion, 6.7. Councilor Robinson, Councilor Scar requests the City Manager have the proper department establish a set of SOPs for maintaining, testing, opening, closing, and winterizing all aquatic recreational facilities throughout the City, including timelines. No second needed. Councilor Robinson.

Thank you. Again, I think this is something that's missing. Councilor Scott, I know, since she's been on the council, early in the year, she'll start with the motions looking for updates on splash pads and where are we and pools and any of that stuff. I think it's smart and wise especially where our workforce has been aging out and we've been getting a lot new employees younger employees as a result and i think if we can have a set of standard operating procedures that cover all of these locations it it's only a benefit to everybody involved in it hopefully will increase the timeliness that uh we should be doing this kind of checks and balance system so i look forward to this coming back also thank you

Council Scott. Thank you. As Council Robinson said, we've had this discussion over the last few years when splash parks a few years back were not able to be opened on time. There was a question whether or not we had tested the equipment to make sure it was working well ahead of time. And I'm not sure that possibly could have happened, just like the McPherson pool with the pump. All of those things could have happened, but we're asking that there is a timeline that we know. So say, you know, I don't know, March 1st or something is when we test the sprayers, the masonry. We inspect everything, the pumps, make sure everything's up and going. So that at that point in time, if it fails after that, I mean, then we're subject to delays. We can't really do anything about it, but at least we know that there was a standard protocol that we followed to open them on time. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Scott. All in favour signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 6.8, Councillor Liang. Request the City Manager to assess the prevalence of tenant displacement and the potential impacts of implementing a local version of the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. Seconded by Councillor McDonough. Councillor Liang.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I know I'm going upstream on this one, but it's an assessment and I have a lot of concern, especially from constituents. As you drive up and down Merrimack, Salem, and just around the Acre neighborhood. You can see that if you look at this this way that the American dream basically, you know, dying down a little bit. The idea of owning a home with backyards, brown fence is just dying out. Multi-unit buildings are going up, taking up spaces with cement wall, sidewalk, crosswalk, and playground in the name of housing shortage. A new system is actually taking place where the poorest neighborhoods is unable to owning a home. And instead, they are just owning an apartment and currently trapping them from one generation to the next. This motion came about from, I guess, a neighbor concerning about landlords and realtors working together and not offer these opportunities to the families where they're living and ending up not realize that their home is being sold. And so therefore this is more like shedding light into these multi-units that's going up and taking up spaces and opportunity in the, especially the acre neighborhoods. and not seeing a lot of green spaces. And I don't know what can be happening, but this is more like a spotlight and an opportunity as going away. So it's more of a an opportunity for you to at least take a look at what's going on in the neighborhoods in the acre and if there's anything like that, doing an assessment and provide opportunity for those who want to buy home and not buy this home that being sold creating two different unit and let people buy this unit in there but not owning the land and so therefore you're creating a lot of people buying this little apartment and unable to have their kids having friends happy you know, having this backyard or green space and things like that. And I just want to see something that not too much focusing on this many, many unit being up out there.

Council Yang, would you like to add to your motion that the City Council have the manager send a letter of support to the State Representative's House Bill 1544? Because that's what it is in the House right now. Right. Thank you. So if you add that to the motion, just send a letter of support. Councilor?

Can we wait until it passes before we do something like this? But just my suggestion, Mr. Mayor. Okay.

Councilor McDonough.

I was just going to say, I understand. I mean, we have to support, or I would hope that we can support what is working through the statehouse. And I also understand that there's a pretty big limit to what we can and can't implement locally without the state. I do think that the motion speaks to a problem that seemingly gets worse every day and nobody really wants to talk about because to come to Liang's point, you know, the state continues to make it very easy for people that want to develop rental housing, right? It's very easy to buy a two family and say, everybody out, we're going to make it a four family. It's very hard if you're living in that two family to try and purchase that place outright. I think just trying to be conscientious as a city moving forward. Now, this is a big ask, but in the spirit of this motion, right, trying to be conscientious as a city going forward about what what meaningful regulations look like as larger landlords come to town and the kind of inspectional cert that the challenges that can be borne by inspectional services when, you know, you're the trash room and I get pictures and every now and then I'll send one to the assistant city manager. But When a trash room in a 200-unit building is overflowing for days, that's not something that a city health inspector can see unless they get access to the building, which makes it very difficult. And so just trying to think, one, yeah, I would love it if we could get more home ownership, but two, how do we make sure that all residents of the city, including renters in large rental developments have the same kind of standard of living and access to inspectional services and code enforcement that, you know, our residents in a duplex or a single family do. So thank you.

Thank you, Councilor McDonough. Councilor Duran.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I mean, I think the intent here of trying to encourage and have real opportunities for people to have the American dream to buy into the properties that they live in makes a lot of sense. I think there's a lot of confusion about what the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act covers. It doesn't cover things less than 10 units or nine units. I forget the exact number. But that's in its current form, which is not anywhere near enacted yet. I haven't compared that to the Senate version. I don't know whether they're following the same path. So, I think the idea of thinking about how we help tenants is a good one. I'm not sure that we are ready to support a bill that's in flux or could be in flux, and that we haven't really, frankly, reviewed yet. would not be in favor of telling the state delegation that they should be pursuing it until we've done that homework. But if there are ways that we can think about what's going on in the acre, that part seems fine to me. Thank you.

Leave the motion the way it is, as presented by Council Yang, seconded by Councilor McDonough. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 6.9, Councilor McDonough, Councilor Duran, request the City Manager work with the appropriate department and community partners to create interpret materials for the many immigrants and cultural monuments and memorials around City Hall Plaza and throughout the City of Lowell. No second needed. Councilor McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is something that has been a long time coming, actually. There is a group at the university that has already been working on some of these interpretive materials. It was brought to my attention. and then thinking about it and looking at the sheer volume of of monuments around City Hall, it's something I'm nervous to say it's the, you know, the dentist or the highest concentration in the country, but it is pretty close. If we're not if we don't have the highest concentration of immigrant monuments, we have we're in the top ten. I think it's something that speaks to a long and frankly proud history in the city of Lowell of We've had our ups and downs, and I don't want to say we've always been welcoming because there's also a monument over by St. Patrick's Church about, you know, the know nothings wanting to burn down St. Patrick's Church. So I can't say we've always been welcoming, but we've always been getting better. And I think it's something that the city should be proud of. I think it's something that over decades frankly, decades and many decades that different immigrant and cultural groups have fundraised for, have striven for, have managed to get that monument up. And it's not always immediately apparent. Some of the monuments do have, you know, engraving in them that tell you this is the I don't want to pick somebody out and someone's going to say, why didn't you mention mine? Some are a little bit more abstract. All of them have stories behind them that aren't readily available. And I think calling attention to that and letting people learn more about the various groups of the city that make the city who we are today is... frankly just a good thing to do and it sounds like it should be fairly uh from talking to the the people at the university it sounds like it could be fairly low cost i think it's a predominantly a digital platform that they have going right now so it'd be maybe something like a qr code or a web link or whatever but thank you thank you council mcdonough council john

Thank you. Yeah, I think the fact that a lot of this information is already available through Dr. Ferrant's class at the university, but also other historians like DeKalb and Martha Mayo and others that don't immediately come to mind, means that I think this is something that should be simple and straightforward. I don't think we need big plaques all over. I think a simple sort of, you know, something that has a title, a website, a QR code that goes to a map. Maybe it goes to the existing stuff that I wasn't aware there was actually a site at UMass Lowell with this information already. But I think showcasing this as we think about Lowell as the city of opportunity, which has been the city of opportunity for all these cultural groups, I think it's just yet another way to showcase all of the good things that you know are part of our history um but again I'm think we should do it in a simple way and we should probably just start with the City Hall Monuments first and not immediately expand to the entire city thank you thank you Council during Council Robinson

Thank you. I think this is a good motion. I've seen instances of this. And again, granted, not everybody has access to a cell phone or technology like that. But I think I've seen in Montreal, I've seen in Georgia, Columbus, Georgia, When you are looking at these monuments, you scan the QR code that's located nearby, and they would actually have people from that community reading pretty much an interpretation or providing you whatever information is relevant to that marking. So I mean, that way, it's kind of a... self-guided walking tour, so to say, that you would have prerecorded video that could pop up and be, again, the information is available through multiple agencies and you might bring in somebody from that community to maybe read segments of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Robins. I think it's a good motion also. Council Rourke, myself and Manager Golden were at the auditorium this weekend for the National Gold Gloves had their team here. And there's a painting there with two boxes just standing there and no one had anything, but there was an article next to it. So if it had a QR code, you could have figured out who the boxes were back in the 1940s and what they did. It would have been really important. So good motion. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 6.10, Councilor Duran, request the City Manager have the proper departments give an update on the plans for repaving and or traffic calming on Andover Street in the western half of Dundas Road, seconded by Councilor Marcia, Councilor Duran.

Thank you very much. It may be the southern half of Douglas Road. I always get my directions wrong, but it's the part closer to Rogers Street than to Andover Street. I am a proponent of letting the experts in the city administration do their job, and I think it's important that we don't micromanage their work. And I'm a proponent of sharing information broadly. So I know that the city has plans for these projects, which various department leaders have shared with me from time to time. But residents ask for information and have suggestions. And I thought it would be helpful that, you know, the full information be shared in this public forum so that everybody can learn about what the plans are for these and if there are any other significant projects being planned. It would just be good to sort of get it out there rather than sort of having it come through me or just at a neighborhood meeting that not everybody attends and that isn't recorded. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Duran. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 6.11, Councilor Duran, request the city manager have the proper department give an update on the plans for pickleball courts at parks around the city, including at Shedd Park, including fencing to ensure that the courts are properly separated from each other. Seconded by Councilor Chau, Councilor Duran.

Thank you. So pickleball, I have learned, don't play, is the fastest growing sport in the U.S. And I appreciate that the city, to support that demand, has installed courts at Shaughnessy School and Father McGuire Park. An avid pickleball player mentioned, though, that the courts are set up such that two are behind you know each other with no fence or barrier between them and so players are forced to chase balls through the other court court which causes players to stop playing um and i have looked at the court so i understand what he's saying i haven't seen them in use so i don't know how it actually plays out but i get the concept um it it My concern is that if this is a legitimate concern, which I could imagine it is just physically looking at it, if that causes people to avoid using the courts, then we've wasted money and not solved the goal of installing them. So if there is a simple remedy of installing fencing or whatever, again, I'm not the expert on this. But to ensure that the courts are truly usable and people will not avoid using them, I think that would be, that's important for our investment. And again, given the popularity of Pickleball, you know, whether we look at places like Shedd Park and or others to install them as we get the funds to do so, I'd appreciate that thought. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Duran, Councilor McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I support a lot of this motion. I got a pretty big problem. I agree with Councillor Duran. I thank her for the motion. I do occasionally pickleball or whatever the verb is to pickleball. But I also play tennis. have been helping out with the Lowell High School tennis team. And while I agree with making sure that the layout of the courts that we're putting in actually makes sense and they're not back to back against each other, because that does sound rather miserable, i am adamantly opposed and let belvedere come for me to pick up all courts at shed park um i i think that's a that's a massive park that already has a very high unless unless somebody can find somewhere on a map to show me where they would go that doesn't take out a tennis court um i i would have a hard time with us because those tennis courts are the the six tennis courts um over by the Whatever the name of that road is, that's the high school tennis. That's the girls' and the boys' high school tennis courts. The courts desperately need to be repaired. I appreciate the crack fill that went in. That was big, but going forward. The advantage of pickleball over tennis, pickleball is more accessible. It's easier to play, all the things. It also takes a lot less space. We can fit a lot more pickleball courts into smaller and less utilized parks in the city. I think that is the correct avenue. I think the Father McGuire courts were, right? Is that where I'm talking about the pickleball courts in Pawtucketville? Phenomenal. The ones at the Shaughnessy, phenomenal. I think where you have tennis courts that are actively used, not just during the high school season, but by residents all over the city, I think it's... You know, Shedd Park and Callery Park seem to be the two places that everybody in the city who plays tennis plays tennis. I do think Callery, I don't live in the Highlands, but Callery would be a good place for pickleball courts, just going by a number of people that show up while you're trying to play tennis and think they can play pickleball there. That's all. I don't want to lose tennis courts at Shedd. They are almost always full. We hear stories about tennis declining, but people who say tennis is declining have not gone to Shedd Park because, boy, do they play tennis at Shedd Park. That's it.

Council Robinson.

Thank you. Pickleball, hey, it is fast growing. I see it in the community I work. One thing that I hope we're just keeping an eye on, because we are so dense, sometimes it tends to be a noise complaint from some of the neighbors. But on the bright side, there are some pretty good sound mitigation improvements that can be added. I've been seeing, I know Manchester by the Sea did a pretty extensive study on it because they were facing the same kind of challenges back in 2023. EVERYTHING FROM LIKE WIND SCREENS THAT GO UP AROUND THE COURTS TO DIFFERENT TYPE OF BALLS AND PADDLES ENCOURAGED TO BE USED SO THERE ARE WAYS TO MITIGATE IT ESPECIALLY IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS WHERE WE MIGHT START SEEING SOME OF THOSE NOISE COMPLAINTS COME IN THANK YOU COUNCIL YANG

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have friend who plays tennis at the Shedd Park and also really into, I guess, a lot of students are using the park. I can't see a piggy ball, I mean, being fenced up doing that. And I really, I have to say it just because I do have people who are using the tennis court a lot and to tailor it in a way, fencing it up. I can't see that's happening, but I just wanted to say that just because that we do have a lot of friends and also high school kids are using the area as well.

UMass Lowell has done this wonderful thing. They paint both on one court and you can use it either way. Can you imagine? Councilor Duran.

Yes. No, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I have seen that too. I think the point here, my point in taking Shedd Park off the table for one second is that there have been new courts installed and they are standalone courts and it's just making sure that they don't interfere with each other. So that They are actually used. That's the key goal. If it's possible to deal with moving nets and all that kind of stuff, which I have seen, which can be, I think, a challenge in having tennis and pickleball courts overlapping, that would be fine if we can do that. I wouldn't want courts to be broken because they get moved, et cetera. Or sorry, nets broken because they have to get moved to play one versus the other. It can become complicated. So I'm not looking for a particular solution except to ensure that at least the courts that we have get used because they're thought out.

We've had a major challenge at Shedd Park with redoing the tennis courts, but I think Mr. Manager Golden is in the middle of getting done for us. So that was a request from the school department. Manager Golden, if you want to just elaborate

Thank you, Mr. May. I threw you to the council. That is correct, just as edification for all our tennis players out there. We're in queue for the end of the summer. And when I say in queue, it doesn't happen when the rain goes on and whatnot, but I'm hoping by the end of September that it'll be completed out there at... At Chet Park. And that's for the high school team, of course.

And others to use. My hope is that school committee member Conway is watching. All in favor of the motion signified by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 6.12, Councilor Chow requests the City Manager of the Police Department increase traffic enforcement on Stephen Street. I heard it's happening. It happened today. Seconded by Councilor Yang. Councilor Chow.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I think you answered the motion already. I just want to add that I appreciate all the activities the city has done, tried to slow down traffic, make traffic better in our city, and we even had the traffic speed radar on Stevens Street. This is one of the street that It's not part of the 25 mile per hour default. It's one of the few streets that's not included in that. But I believe that doesn't matter what speed limit you post on that street. A lot of people are speeding. You have schools on that street become unsafe for pedestrians during the daytime. And then adults walk in the evening. It's just rather unsafe. So I appreciate the manager and the lower police department that take on this task right away. And I hope that the street will become safer.

Thank you, Councilor Chau. All in favor? Oh, Councilor DeCotto.

Mr. Just quickly, Mr. Mayor, I want to thank Dan Damaris for his work in that neighborhood. He's done a tremendous job, and I've seen many cars being stopped. So, thank him again.

Mr. Thank you, Councilor DeCotto. Councilor Duran.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm looking at the map of speed limits in the city just because of Councillor Chao's comment. I think Stevens is a 25 mile an hour street, or at least it's not shown at a different, so we should be encouraging people to drive at 25 miles an hour on that street. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Duran. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. 6.13, Councilor Chau, request the City Manager direct the appropriate department to evaluate the feasibility of a residential front yard depaving and regreening pilot program to reduce urban heat island's effect and stormwater runoff that includes a homeowner rebate component, seconded by Councilor Noon. Councilor Chau.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I receive a lot of requests from various type of residents in the neighborhood, and walking through various neighborhoods this summer, you can definitely feel the heat. Neighborhoods with green space versus not. What's interesting about the request too, we have some residents that bought houses that have their driveway, the front yard paved, and they bought a house because it's the house that they want, the right location, and so forth. but they didn't want that front yard paved and they want to revert it back to green space. So if there was some kind of incentive for the homeowners to do that, and so many of us benefit to greening the space in our city that many of the councilors have focused on and administration have focused on, but it would be great to have some kind of incentive for homeowners just to revert back to green space, thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Chau. Councilor Doran.

Thank you very much. And I think the concepts here are great and I'm thankful for Councilor Chau for bringing it forward. The goals are really important. I do think that we need to think about how people re-green and that really matters. Do they plant native plants or do they put in a lawn that is treated with pesticides? How does this fit into the entire ecosystem conversation we've been having about pollinators, et cetera, over the last several meetings. And I also worry about the idea of a rebate, just thinking about, again, what are we incentivizing, which approach, and then how much and how long do the incentives last? So they're just questions that we need to answer. And maybe the sustainability council and sustainability director, perhaps with input from the finance team, may come up with a proposal or a way of working on this to address all of the pieces here that we get the right outcomes that achieve not only the heat island and stormwater effects, but all other key goals. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Duran.

Councilor Scott. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I would just, I think this is a good motion. I would just also emphasize that we need to enforce properties that have been paving their entire yards and their side yards. It is not something that is, you know, it's just not acceptable. I mean, it causes heat islands. It causes distractions in the neighborhood. It causes a lot of issues. And I think that we have to enforce 100% across the board fairly. Thank you.

Thank you Council Scott on favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered. 6.1 for may get your request the minutes of the July 1420 26 executive session be released regarding the UHC tiff once released all discussion be held in open session for this topic seconded by Council Robinson. The minutes are on your desk if someone will make a motion to release them we can release them and go from there feel like Council Robinson.

I'll make the motion to release the minutes that were released to us.

Motion by Councilor Robinson to release the executive session minutes from July 14th, 2026, seconded by Councilor Marcia. Councilor Duran.

So first of all, the minutes for July 14th are not just about the topic that was on the motion. So I don't think that we are in a position to release all of those minutes. And I don't quite understand why we should be releasing the minutes on this topic when things are still fluid in the situation. So I don't and I don't want to be speaking about it since they are still under executive session. So I just don't see why we would be doing this. Thank you.

Councilor Nguyen, could you take the podium? Or do you want to speak first? You go first. Mayor. Thank you. I think that anytime we have discussions in executive session that there is no harm to the public by releasing the minutes to it. I don't see that there's a harm in any way, shape or form on a TIF to any company being discussed in public. I think it's already back and forth, especially when we're talking about two municipal agencies. And I think that's all documented. So I don't think there's a harm in doing this. I think that people should understand where their monies are going in public. But that's the reasoning for trying to release these so that we can have a public discussion, because I think it's fair.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilor Noon. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I remember the last, Mr. Mayor, the last executive session we had, the last council meeting, we directed the manager to go back to renegotiate the TIF with a certain organization, not named organizations, um that said that's one of the reasons why we should keep it in the exact session because it has not concluded yet and we just directed the manager to go back and to renegotiate the percentage of that tip um you know and and and so i have a question mr um point of order mr mayor What's the point of order?

I just want to be, we have not voted yet on whether we are discussing the content of the exam. I want to make sure that we're not discussing something that we shouldn't discuss before we vote on relief. So sorry, I've composed my question now. My question is, should we be discussing anything that came up in executive session regarding any sort of direction on negotiations or what have you without having voted to release the minutes for a public discussion?

I appreciate that. Mr. Mayor, through you to the city solicitor. What do you have opinion on that, Mr. Solicitor?

Solicitor Williams.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Typically, when the vote is taken to enter into executive session on a particular topic, At least at that point, the entire body agrees that what it is that they will be discussing or what they know at that point is best served in executive session. Now, once that happens, the minutes are confidential. Now, there is nothing in the statute that would prevent the council from voting to release the minutes right now. If you were to ask me my opinion on whether you should, no, because the reason why the body went into executive session was to have a further discussion about a topic that, in my opinion, was best served in executive session. So where that's not complete, And being consistent with my position on this always, I think until the city manager and the administration has completed those discussions and has brought it back to the body in executive session with an update, I think it would be premature to release them. But as I said, there's nothing that prevents you from doing so, but in my opinion, it would be premature.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, citizens, for the response or your opinion on it. The other part of your motion, Mr. Mayor, the half part of it is that one, release all discussion to be held in open session for this topic. just wondering mr mayor there's a lot of time over the years as many council before me that we had company developers and or companies that we give tiff and tie to mr mayor that we go into the exact session to have that discussion and do deal into in-depth internal thing as to what we're going to get out of this and whatnot. And I'm not sure, I don't know, I don't understand why just this organization, and if we do that, we should do that across the board, Mr. Mayor, wind development, heritage, ONN and so many other companies that come before this council and ask for a tiff and tie and we go to exec sessions, we had those meetings after the discussion. This council has been great in terms of, Mr. Mayor, in terms of release the minute after it's done. My feeling is that this matter has not concluded. Just as City Solicitor indicated that we can as a body do that. That's fine. But the part about is that why this organization and why, I mean, it seems as if, Mr. Mayor, seriously, it seems as if we are targeting this organization. And I don't think it's fair.

Would you like me to answer the question? Or do you want to keep speaking? When a company comes out and invites all 11 counselors to sit down and look at something, and then it gets projected into executive session, it's different than when or any of the other ones who we get first hearing in an executive session. So it's basically already released to us outside before we went to executive session. So we could have discussed all of this because we've already given it in the public. So it's already a public document at that point. That's the reason why. We can get into who likes who and who don't like who. But if you're going to do backroom deals, we all should sit here and we all should say it's in public. Let's talk about it in public because it was handed in public. Councillor Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess my questions around this is I understand why we're in executive session when we're trying to attract businesses or we're having labor negotiations. But this is a negotiation basically between two public bodies. So I guess that's my question. I guess what's the legal exception? I guess like why is it in our favor as a public body to bargain in private over, you know, an agreement between two public bodies if the solicitor could possibly answer that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess I'm not sure what the difference would be. I mean, either way, regardless of who's on the other side, you're still, as a body, trying to negotiate specific terms, financial terms, relative to a TIF here. So I think, I guess I don't necessarily see the distinction with it being another governmental entity as opposed to a public labor organization or uh you know a land transaction with a buyer or seller i think you know the reason for going to the executive session is so that the position of the city council can be discussed privately thank you counselor vice mayor could you take the podium please

No, this is not going into the pickleball thing. Trust me. Mr. Mayor, go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Noon. I think that when we first met with this public entity, they handed us and I still have it that was not private at that point, which is the same exact thing that was given to us in executive session. So we shared it with other people prior to that. So I'm not sure why now it's so private. And that's the point is when we met and more than I met with this public company who didn't want to have anything private until it needed to be private, we were all handed a packet and sat down. And now the information was already out there and already given. It was the same exact thing that was given in there. This isn't like the win-win where we walk in and the manager and the city solicitor have something we haven't seen and we sit down and see it. So that's the point, Mr. Solicitor, is that this was already in public for months before we were called in there because they didn't have an opportunity to meet with all of us on the side and get our take on it. So we were able to share that with other people. So it's already out in the public. So why not just, they provided it to the public and now all of a sudden it's a hidden document. That's the only reason why Council and Vice Mayor Noon, it had nothing to do with which company it is. I already had it into the public. It already got shared into public. People had asked about it. We already shared it. Now you're saying to me, I can't share it. So how is that right? The same exact thing that was in executive session was already shared in public.

because we weren't told that.

And then all of a sudden we end up in executive session saying can't share it. So we already violated our own rules because it was already shared. So there's a very different piece here. That's the reason why. It has nothing to do with who it is. It's the process that was taken to get to the position of executive session. If that makes any sense, Vice Mayor. That's all I had to say.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I know that we can share this now. It's our option. But I have a philosophy about if this topic of discussion has been completed, then I would release it. Through you, Mr. Vice Mayor, to the city manager, the topic we're discussing in this business, has this all been completed? has the negotiations been completed are we done with this subject are we still talking about it mr vice mayor three to the council not at this time it is not completed it's not completed so i can't support it

Councilor Decoto.

Thank you, Mister Mayor. While my colleagues were speaking, I've read the executive minutes twice. And one of the topics that we discussed was a directive to the city manager, which he just answered, Councilor Mercier, that it still has not been finalized. And to me, I think it would put the city in a vulnerable position if we did let those executive minutes go. So I will not be voting for this. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Dakota. Councillor Liang.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. For me, it's not about the issues that we talk about, but it's more of an executive session. If we do this, we don't need an executive session because it's going to be coming out at some shape or form. So it means a lot to me that when we talk inside the executive session, we should be able to open up and discuss what's going on without the possibility of maybe, I know some time it'll come out, but at the same time, to me it's about the word executive sessions and it's about being able to discuss openly the different topic that come before us and I can't knowingly, you know, go into executive session and then just open up and support this. I can't do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Yang. Council McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to ask, it looked like the city solicitor had something to say, and I was interested in that, if we could.

Solicitor Williams.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Actually, I think Councillor Liang kind of just hit the nail on the head. The distinction or maybe a point I wanted to make was that the executive session, at least in this scenario, is more about the discussion that follows, not so much the documents. And I know that was mentioned. Typically, in these scenarios, if it happens a different way, those documents are also confidential as a part of the discussion, but it wasn't here. But it was the piece that allows the council to have the private conversation around it. I think that is where the benefit maybe was or could be. So, thank you.

So then I guess my question kind of going off, my question from listening to everybody now at this point would be, if the document that we discussed was a public document, would we not be able to talk about that document? We might not be able to talk about what an individual count, the discussion that was had we couldn't comment on, but the document would be already public?

Solicitor Williams.

Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I mean, truth be told, any of you can speak about it at any time. I mean, not that that's necessarily the best. That is not legal advice. I'm just clarifying that, you know, you certainly could. I think there's certain matters we would all agree that we shouldn't talk about. And I think, Councilor McDonough, to your point, since that document's out there, and if you wanted to speak on it and give your opinion and so be it i mean that's and you know i would hope that you wouldn't say oh well counselor noon and council rourke when they were in there said this and that i think that is where the narrative changes a bit but to your point yes for the documents already public you want to provide your opinion that's up to you

OK, I think so. I'm quite honestly, I'm a little bit a lot of it conflicted on the current motion because part of me, I agree with what several colleagues have said. It's a public entity negotiating with another public entity. the terms of the public document are not great. I'm not actually sure that the city's position is possibly reduced. However, I also can understand, you know, on the other side of this issue that, you know, future discussions being held in public where we don't really yet know the content of them, I can see why that, and this is what makes it difficult. I also I understand executive session. So when I say closed doors, I don't mean executive session. I think this motion also speaks to just a broader, whether it's anxiety or what. And I think it exists in the whole city. I think it also exists outside of the city, just around who has influence on who and who's pulling people for what conversations and what's motivating votes. And I'm not throwing an accusation here. I think that's just kind of a broad conversation that's happening everywhere right now. That said, you know, transparency is great until it isn't, which is not a great quote to have on camera. But I personally am on the transparency is great almost all the time. I would support releasing the executive session minutes. I don't know that I would support mandating that every conversation going forward is done in public. That's all. Thank you.

Roll call on the motion.

May I get you in?

Yes.

Councilor Duran? No. Councilor Liang? No. Councilor McDonough?

Yes.

Councilor Murcia? No. Councilor Noon? No. Councilor Robinson? Yes. Councilor Rourke? No. Councilor Scott? Yes. Councilor Chau? Yes. Councilor Dakota? No. Motion filled.

Motion feels 6.15 may get your request manager look at funding sources to reinstall the rod iron fence back around the Latin Whitney monument seconded by Council Robinson. Vice mayor noon would you be able to take this again.

Mr. Mayor, we both get our step in tonight.

I think that's good. I think. Thank you. Go ahead, sir. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The Latin Whitney Monument is a major part of our country's history. It needs to be preserved. Back on June 17th, 1865, the governor of Massachusetts, John Andrew, charged the citizens of Lowell with keeping and preserving the monument in the memory of Latin Whitney. Luther Ladd was the first soldier killed in the American Civil War, and Addison Whitney was killed shortly thereafter, both from Lowell. Both responded to President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers, and they joined Company D of the Massachusetts Regiment, where they were part of the first regiment in the country to organize to defend Washington, D.C. After their deaths, they were buried in the land that houses the Latin Whitney Monument. The state paid $2,000 and the city of Lowell paid $2,000. We are taxed with preserving that area. The monument had a nice wrought iron fence around it at one time, but now it's gone. And then it had also posts with chain afterwards in its replacement, and that too is gone. People climb on the gravesite as they did over the weekend during the Folk Fest. People climb all over it. They throw trash on it. and they stomp on somebody's grave. You would never see this in Arlington Cemetery. We have an obligation in this city of Lowell to at least have a gravesite over there that is honorable for the first two people killed in the Civil War. Arlington National Cemetery has a permanent fence protecting its monuments and graves. Bunker Hill Monument in Boston also has a fence around it, protecting it. There is no reason why that monument shouldn't be protected and graves be protected. If you go to Lowell Cemetery, it's protected better than the monument there. That monument, we all took it on, and you can see it in the pictures. I have the pictures on my phone of the old wrought iron fence. I have pictures that show the post with the wrapped chain around it. There is no reason why we don't protect two of our history. And if we don't want to do that, we should pay to have them move to Arlington Cemetery where they belong. Respect it. I implore this council and Manager Golden to please step up and let's get some money over there and let's get it done. I'm sure there's money somewhere in this country that would pay for that. I'm sure people would pitch in too. So, Manager Golden, I hope that this can get done very shortly and we can protect that area like it should be and treat it, whether it's cutting the grass, whether it's maintaining that area, just cutting the grass, simple things. It just says that, you know, thank you to two people who risked their lives for the American Civil War. Thank you. Council Robinson.

THANK YOU. I JUST WANTED TO ADD, AS I'M SURE THE CITY MANAGER IS VERY WELL AWARE, I MEAN, YOU TAKE A STROLE THROUGH THE NORTH END AND LOOK AT THE NICE FENCING THEY HAVE AROUND A LOT OF THEIR MONUMENTS AND A LOT OF THEIR CEMETERIES THAT ARE OVER THERE, EVEN THE SMALLER ONES. SO, I MEAN, IT IS COMMON IN A LOT OF COMMUNITIES.

Thank you, Council Robinson.

Council Rourke. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I agree with the motion. Mr. Manager, could we just make it look as good as possible? Maybe a couple options ahead of time we could just take a look at. You know, the fear I have is that it just looks out of place with the fence around it. But to the mayor's point, which is they're all correct in this motion, we should do something over there. But just try to make it look as professional and as nice as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Noon.

Mr. Mayor, I see the gentleman in the back there raised his hand. I file a motion to suspend the rules to have him speak in support of it. Mr. Mayor.

Motion to suspend the rules by Councilor Noon, seconded by Councilor McDonough. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Mr. Boyle.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good morning, councillors. Good morning. Not that long yet. Good evening, councillors, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Manager. My name is Joseph Boyle. I live on Lura Street in the Highlands, and I'm a member of the Solidarity Law Coordinating Committee. I came out tonight to speak out in favor of the proposal to install a protective fence around the gravestone at the Lad and Whitney Monument. Solidarity Lowell is one of the primary users of this site. We've been holding regular demonstrations and occasionally other types of gatherings at Monument Square for almost a decade. Several of you as well as the members of our legislative delegation have joined us there. Mostly, we have small visibilities, you know, sign holdings like you do for your campaigns at the point in the front of the Victory Statue. That's actually the one place in downtown Lowell where a public space abuts a busy intersection so that people can do a visibility and be seen without crowding and blocking the sidewalk. Sometimes we've had larger events there as well. Shortly after the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville in 2017, we had an anti-hate rally there, at which I was inspired to tell the rest of the attendees the story of Privates Lad and Whitney and how they died at the hands of a pro-Confederate mob. and point out that Heather Heyer had been murdered by the same white supremacist evil that had killed the Lowellians lying underneath that gravestone. It was very meaningful. And I think it got through. And I was inspired to do that. And I was able to do that because this event took place at Monument Square, where the Lad and Whitney Memorial is located. What's great about this city What's great about Lowell and why I chose to be here is because the history is real and present in our lives, in our daily lives, and that's just one example of it. But on occasion, as we've had these events, we've needed to inform people that the rear area in that monument is in fact a gravesite and the monument a headstone. It's not immediately obvious that it's a gravestone. When we have an event with new people, we often have to keep an eye out and sometimes herd them back to the front of the site. I recall a few, sometime last year, The city sponsored an event, a day of remembrance for people who had lost their lives to overdose deaths. Really a wonderful thing. And it involved planting these little plastic purple flags in memory on the lawn in front of City Hall. Then it spread over into Monument Square. And the thing is, they were planted right up to the base of the grave. A grave site, it shouldn't be taken over for somebody else's. It should be about them. You know, you don't want to say anything because it's such a sad cause, and you don't want to upset people and things like that. But quietly, to myself, I found it a little jarring. I live near you. I live in the highlands near Callery Park. In Callery Park, there's two monuments to fallen soldiers, which are marked off by a square perimeter fence about, I don't know, 10 feet around from the edge of the monuments. Something similar at the Lad and Whitney Memorial would serve to protect and dignify the gravesite. What it would also do is turn those perimeter-fenced memorials in the neighborhood parks into reflections of the Lad and Whitney Memorial. It's like almost a consistent branding type of thing. Also, it would really help us out, the users of the space, the people who know the space and have been there and love the space and use it, to have one less thing to have to worry about during our events that somebody's gonna be over leaning on the tombstone or something.

Mr. Boyle, you're at the three minute mark. Okay, I'll finish up.

Okay, thank you for your opportunity to address the council. I have one more very, very short point. I don't know how many of you have noticed, but on the north side of the Ladd and Whitney Monument and Monument Square is a lower, narrow triangle, and that has a monument on it too. And that's a monument to the North Canal Urban Renewal Project that destroyed Little Canada. It's not a monument to Little Canada. It's not a monument to the victims. It's not even a monument to the people who resisted that. It's a monument to the politicians who carried out the destruction of Little Canada. I hope that at some point the city could address that while we're talking about Monument Square.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Councilor Noon.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate it very much, and thank you for your motion. This is one of the important motions. It's one way to honor and respect the veteran, particularly these two individuals whose a Civil War veteran to reinstall the fence around the monument, it certainly is our way to honor and respect them. I think also is that if we have opportunity, we should also educate people, as Mr. Boyle said, educate people about this second place this this really you know historical place so if there's a way to do that also certainly you can do both if possible do both thank you thank you council new council mercy

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wholeheartedly concur with your motion to put a nice fence of some sort, decorative fence, to give honor to the people that are buried there and to their monument. And that is a good motion. Thank you. I support it. Thank you, Council Mercia. Council Duran.

thank you mr mayor um so having lived in lowell the last 19 years and even a time before that i just can't remember the fence unfortunately so i don't know where the fence would go so be helpful to understand are you thinking of the full triangle or as mr boyle was suggesting the fence may have been smaller in scope and i think that the answer matters in terms of the use of that space for purposes of, you know, political or First Amendment rights, et cetera. But I just don't remember.

If you look at the pictures on your phone, if you type in Latin Whitney Monument, I'm looking on my computer and I'm not finding pictures. So I don't show them to you before we go.

okay yeah but I think it but it'd be helpful to know what the answer is before my vote because if it's the entire triangle that's a different issue than something sort of protected history has it as the triangle that's the way it historically was done if you're going to follow the history of the city and how it was done it was the triangle

Councilman McDonough.

So beyond just the demonstrations or whatever, I wholeheartedly support a fence of some kind around the grave site itself. I think that is important and also the right thing to do. I understand that there is a grave at the monument. There's not a grave out at the front of the triangle. And there's, I don't know, four patches of grass downtown. That's one of them. And I think fencing off the entire triangle I wouldn't support fencing off the entire triangle. I think fencing off the back portion into Councillor Rourke's point in a respectful and nice looking way, that I fully support. But I can't imagine giving the entire triangle up, both for demonstrations and for graphs to sit on and for the number of, and I get it, that a food truck pales in comparison to a Civil War monument. But you've got businesses that are are permitted and are setting up on that corner. And you've got people sitting on the grass, which is just a public square. I don't see the need to restrict one of very few patches of grass downtown beyond what is necessary to protect the monument and show respect. So that's all.

Council Yang? I'll say Council Chau.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. A good motion. I agree 100 percent. Just a quick question through you to the manager. If the monument is a historical site, would there be funding that could qualify through CPA, the Community Preservation Act? Would that qualify for them? Mr. Manager.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, through you to the council. Possibly, but given the speed that the council is looking to have this done, we're going to have to try to put this together some other which way at this time, whether it be wrought iron or something to that effect. If we go historical from I see the photos that I've seen historically, it's around the entire triangle. So I just want to be clear what the council's wishes will be prior to moving forward.

Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Noon. Mr. Mayor, the idea to protect the monument and put, reinstall the fence around the monument, like I said, I wholeheartedly support it and also want to educate the public of the importance of that site. But if you remember way back, I believe the previous city manager, I remember back then, city managers, Aline Donny, who there was a protest on the national grid issue. I think it was a remodernization project. They came here with sign and all that. They sat there in front of you, Mr. managers, protesters, and at that time, I think, then-Councillor Rodney Elliott and Councilor Mosey is another, but I'm not exactly certain that it was Councilor Rodney Elliott then that looking for space, like a free speech zone, at that time, and then-Manager Donohue said, okay, go over there for a free speech zone. And I think at that time, there was a fence around the monument, but to have it, to have it, the whole triangle, I mean, to have it on the monument itself, I think it's, you know, yeah, but to have it, the whole island. I'm just concerned that where is the free speech zone go for those people who want to speak and do their protest. I know that I've seen a number of protests happening there. I know that some will go on the ground, but not climb on the monument or sit on the monument because even though there's no fence there most recently. So I have some concern on that, Mr. Mayor. So I think other councilor expressed that as well just now. I jump on it because I thought, I mean, the motion said, reinstall the fence around the monument. My thought was that around the monument itself, not the whole island, so to speak. Thank you.

The fence that was there was the whole triangle. That was the history of the fence. And then the fence started to get in disrepair and they didn't want to spend the money on it. So it ended up getting taken down. Then they put up a chain one all the way around it, the whole thing. And then that got in disrepair and they just deleted it off. As the governor said back then, it's our responsibility. Roll call. And this is on the entire.

Entire perimeter to restore it.

Restore it back to the way it was.

I just I want to be clear, Mr. Mayor, that this council I'm sorry, this this council repeatedly, repeatedly multiple members of this council have said that they vote with the neighborhood. They care about what the neighborhood wants. And I want to be crystal clear that I have absolutely no recollection of a wrought iron fence encircling the entire triangle of one of, again, four patches of grass downtown. So if the intent of this motion is to take away the entire triangle, I am going to be voting no, and I urge my colleagues to vote no. If it fails, it fails. If the intent of the motion is to protect the Civil War monument and the graves that are there, all in. All in around the monument.

That was the purpose of it when it was installed with the fence, was to protect the whole thing. Look at the historic. Councilor Morrison.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is what I thought, too. I can remember as well a monument, the monument there, and then rods with a chain, rods with a chain. Went all the way around it. But I don't remember it being around the whole perimeter. All right, I see what you're saying, but if we had it around the whole square, then how would Solidarity Lowell be able to do their demonstrating or whatever their things, and that would be a free speech zone. How would we be able to get in there, let's say? If it were around the monument itself, I don't have a problem with that.

I guess if we regulate to when people do this four or five times a year versus what the whole premise of the monument was with everything, I don't know the answer. But the answer is that that was the history of it. Here is what it was. Here's what it is. That's what was put forth.

So you won't amend it to just...

It's like a cemetery. When you go to the cemetery, Joe, you're not willing to speak. So if we can...

I'm not speaking.

So that's the purpose of it. It's like being in the cemetery. You put a fence around it and you don't say, okay, you want to move it back because there's a better corner to park.

So even though the fence would be around the whole perimeter, would people be able to go in there? It's a free speech zone.

It's a chain that goes across, so you could do a wrought iron. That would be up there.

Because the veterans have a service there on Memorial Day, and they go right up to the stone.

And they did that back then, too.

So you wouldn't object to that happening?

That would be up to the city, right.

Roll call. Councillor Gitche.

Yes.

Councillor Duran. No. Council Lieng? No. Council McDonough?

No.

Council Mercier? Yes. Council Noon? No. Council Robinson?

Yes.

Council Rourke? Yes. Council Scott? No. Council Child? Yes. Council DeCotto? Yes. Motion passes.

6.16 request the manager provide a schedule to the city council for crosswalk painting around the school in main roads seconded by councillor newton motion speaks for itself all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 7.1, motion responses. Motion response A, parking enforcement in schools. Councilor McDonough, Councilor Marcia. Councilor McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have no interest in accepting this motion response, and I think that came off with more vinegar than it intended after the last vote. But I've waited over 80 days for 85 words, and it doesn't include the schedule of enforcement in the neighborhood zones. So I would like to see the schedule of enforcement in the school zones. Thank you.

Councilor Marcia. You run this, right? This motion? All set? Yeah, you said it all. All right. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Sidney Liang, seconded by Councilor Duran. All in favor? Seconded by Councilor Decoto. All in favor? Signified by saying aye. Any opposed? So two opposed. Councilor McDonough, Councilor Duran.

I'd like to ask for a roll call.

OK, we can do a roll call. Roll call.

On a motion to accept the place on file. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Council Gitche. Yes. Council Duran. No. Council Lien.

No.

Council McDonough.

No.

Council Mercy.

No.

Council Noon.

Yes.

Council Robinson.

This is so we don't accept the motion response?

The motion to accept and place on file.

No.

You can ask for another motion.

Council Rourke.

Yes.

Council Scott. No. Council Scott.

No. Council Chau.

No.

Council Dicoto. Yes. Motion fails.

Motion fails. I don't know what that means, but the motion failed. 7.1. It was reading a motion response. 7.1. Motion response B. Sidewalks, Wolvenstreet. Council Scott.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for the response with the amount that it would cost. This is an extremely high pedestrian area. I think it's one of the few areas that's such a busy area with no sidewalks down almost the entire length of it. We've talked about MBTA districts and transportation districts, and there's a lot of people that use this area to get down to the North Boerka train station on foot. And there's a lot of students that walk to schools in the area with no sidewalks and it's quite dangerous I would make like to make a motion I guess for us to try to incorporate this into the 2028 capital plan or try to use CDBG funding to get this to happen I'd make that in the form of a motion.

Thank you Seconded by councillor Dakota Roll call mr. Clerk Yes

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Council Robinson, yes. Council Rourke, yes. Council Scott, yes. Council Chau, yes.

Council Dakota, yes. Leveneers. Leveneers, motion passes. 7.1, motion response C, update E Street. Council Chau.

Thank you, report.

Thank you, Councilor Chau. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor DeCoto, seconded by Councilor Robinson. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. 7.1, motion D, response, injury coverage policies. Councilor Robinson.

Thank you very much. I'd like to thank, you know, Connor and the chief and both chiefs actually, and the city manager as well as the solicitor. I think it's something just to be well aware of. And it seems like you all throw a set of eyes on this and came through. And hopefully, if there's anything that you come forward with as a recommendation to protect our employees, the council will be able to weigh in on that in the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Robinson. Motion to accept and place on file by Council Rook, seconded by Council Mercia. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 7.1, motion response F, invitation to Olympians. Council Mercia.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm so glad to hear that the manager is still working on this to invite them. And when they have a chance, they will come down. That would be the men's 2026 Olympic gold medal winner, Connor Hallibach, and women's 2026 Olympic gold medal winner, Hailey Wynn. So that would be wonderful. Thank you so much, Mr. Manager.

Motion to accept and place on file by council mercy is seconded by council mcdonough all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 7.1 g motion response Kerouac Park restoration council mcdonough

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to the manager and the whole team. It's nice to see the Greater Lowell Community Foundation stepping up and the work that your office has been doing. You know, it is unfortunate that we can't find a match to the granite, but I feel confident that we'll find some grants and get this thing going. So thank you. Councilor Joann.

uh thank you mr mayor um to follow on uh follow up on the um prior motion about um recognizing the cultural monuments around city hall there may be a way to just do a similar kind of thing depending on what the kerouac estate gives us permission to do to showcase the quotes that are on those monuments and the other information there through a qr code or whatever so that the information isn't lost to the public who are visiting the space, at least in this interim period. Again, it depends on what they might allow us to do, but that could be a short-term solution to consider. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Juneau. Councilor Robinson.

THANK YOU MR. MAYOR QUICK QUESTION THROUGH YOU TO THE CITY MANAGER DOES THE CITY CURRENTLY OWN HAVE WE OWNED CARAWAG PARK IS THAT ONE OF OUR PROPERTIES BECAUSE I KNOW OKAY BECAUSE IT WAS THERE WAS SOME KIND OF AGREEMENT IN THE PAST WHEN I WAS AN EMPLOYEE HERE AND SOMETHING WITH CARAWAG PARK AND THEN LUCY LARKHAM AND National Parks used to give us a hand and maintain one aspect of it and we used to take care I think it was National Park used to maintain Kerouac and we used to maintain Lucy Larkham and it was it was because we never knew who really owned it it was just we did what we had to do to keep them maintained so it's the manager

Thank you, Mr. May, through to the council. We do maintain both of those. And now you're getting me a little concerned here. So we're going to check into that just to make sure. But I know that National Parks maybe did something with the Kerouac Park.

Yeah, I think they used to help us maintain it. And again, like I said, I think the city used to help them maintain Lucy Larkham because we were over in the area and it just made sense.

But currently right now we're maintaining both.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Roberts. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor O'Rourke, seconded by Councilor Decoto. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. 7.1, motion response H, fire department overtime spending. Councilor Marcia.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. On this report, it was very interesting, very informative. This was an informative report. I thank you, Mr. Manager. And if we could continue on the way that you did on the on the second page that says pay period of overtime, July of fiscal year 24, 25, and 26. If we could just, and it said July, August, September, we can continue doing that to July 31st. That's the way I like to see it. So we could keep track because if we did that, you would see that in fiscal year 25, it was 3 million, 3 million. And then fiscal year 26, It was 3.7 million, not just 3 million, but 3.7 million, almost 3.8. So you can see how much it went up. We have to kind of keep an eye on it monthly. So that's good. This is very good, this chart on the next page that talks monthly. So thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilor Marcia. Manager Golan.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, through to the council. Councilor, we're also going to be looking at, on a monthly basis, mid-August, we'll have another report as to a trailing report for what has been happening in July. Sure, sure. And then mid-October. Thank you so much. For the 45 days, 30 days, for the 30 days prior. Sure, sure.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Councilor Marcia. Councilor Decoto.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Once again, a very good motion by Councilor Marcia. This gives us a good tracking device. It is alarming, though, with June of 2024 to 25 with a 36 percent increase. My question to the city manager is you and the union president are planning on having some visits together. Can you indulge the council?

Manager Golden.

Thank you very much, Mr. May, through the Council. We have been meeting and discussing, and the union has offered some thoughts, 10 of them, I think it's 10 of them to be exact, whether they will quell some of the sick leave that remains to be seen at this time. That's a question I can bring back to this Council probably within the next four weeks.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councillor Decoto. Councillor Robinson.

Thank you. Great motion response. I've talked about this in the past. Something that is a little bit concerning to me outside of obviously the costs and the overtime. Something else that's jumping out with these numbers is I don't know what we can do. I know to address it would be significant cost, but We just spent, what, $12 million, $10 million on new apparatus, $11 million? 2,896 false alarms and false calls we're sending vehicles out for now. Rescue and EMS incidents, how many of those really required a ladder or rescue to respond? We're servicing, you know, everything from medicals, service calls, you name it. That's a lot of wear and tear on a fleet that we just purchased. And so I think that's something we also want to start looking at is how can we address the 3,000 false alarm and false calls without wear and tear the way we are, especially now we've added you know traffic mitigation measures in some areas so it's additional wear and tear it's it's we don't want to cut the lifespan of this fleet in half by grinding it on especially the false alarm and false calls so is that something we look to in the future where we have response maybe suvs that are a hundred thousand dollar vehicles that are going to these calls for each couple districts every two districts have one of those that respond to you know the the medicals and the stuff that the engine the lad is not required i mean i think it's initial cost up front but long-term savings i mean I'd much rather have a conversation with my colleagues here to purchase $400,000 kitted out SUVs to respond to medicals than say we need four $1.2 million fire trucks. So I think it's something worth considering. Thank you.

I guess my question to you, Council Robinson, how would that work if you have four people at a company and they go out, two of them go out in that van, how would they take the ladder truck out when they don't have enough people afterwards?

It would be additional staffing. So whoever's working, it would be a cost up front, but compared to the cost of the wear and tear on the fleet, that's something worth examining. Thank you.

Councilor Rook. Or just don't bring in sick. Say that again, I'm sorry.

Or just don't bring in sick.

Councilor Noon.

I'm all set. Thank you.

Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Robinson, seconded by Councilor Liang. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 7.2, information report. Information report, quarter two, motion update. Mr. Manager.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, through you to the council. Council, this is our first crack at this that everyone's been looking. A second? Oh boy, sorry about that. I actually like this one better than we did last time. This is a little bit more impressive. But of the 200 items that are filed, there's 114 that are complete, and the rest is work in progress. So if people were looking through this, the outstanding activity, as well as what has been completed, this is, I think, once again, only the tip of the iceberg for this type of information coming forward. So if anybody has, if any councilor has other ideas to add to it or how to make it better to read simpler, please let us know because, once again, I was just corrected, this is the second time, but I think I like this better than we did the first time.

Thank you, Manager Golden. Councilor Duran.

thank you very much mr mayor so there's a lot here and because of folk fest i haven't done my homework as well as i should have so i haven't gone through much of this um but i think there are some items on here that are shown as completed that i think are still actually open so two examples one is the january 20th motion 5.1 which was sent to the neighborhood subcommittee um which had a meeting on March 5th, and the minutes record that the subcommittee said there should be a central location for the reports that were referred to. This is about sort of having ongoing reports. So we sort of haven't really closed the loop on the motion. We, yes, sent it to the subcommittee, but the subcommittee took an action that hasn't been implemented. So trying to figure out how we address that. Similarly, The January 20th motion 5.2 says it was completed because it was sent to a subcommittee, but the requirement was to have the frontrunner city program subcommittee and city administration meet regularly to discuss frontrunner activities and plans and report back to the city council. And that hasn't happened. So I am not sure how to interpret it. I appreciate the challenge of things that are sort of ongoing or have multiple phases to them, but I don't think these were really completed. Thank you.

CFO Bowen.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for the comment, Councilor. Having the benefit of having done this in a number of different iterations over the years, I just wanted to mention for the Council You know what you're hitting on is a perennial issue, and that is to maybe put it as succinctly as possible. When is a motion complete? And I think these quarterly reports are an opportunity to have this discussion as to how we. How we report them back to the Council, but also the words that we use and the status that we used. And so. it has been a practice for this administration and prior administrations that when a report is delivered to the council as a motion response and it's accepted and placed on file that that is the point when we consider it complete now that may not be what this body wants and that's perfectly acceptable and we just want to get some feedback because and the reason i'm saying this is because i deal with these motions and put the status on them so There is, as a side point, I think the 311 team is doing a remarkable job at putting this stuff together, and I want to commend them for what they've done to date. I think these reports are really cool and helpful for the public to track all of the requests and the work that we're doing here. There is a third report that we're working on that isn't included today but will likely be included in future reports, and that's a subcommittee tracker. So it would separately track those items that have been referred to subcommittee. And so the specific examples that you used, Counselor, made me think of that. We chose not to bring that forward in this because it's still sort of in development, but we welcome this feedback. I hope that there's more either tonight or certainly feel free to email me or the city manager as to your thoughts as to how we can make this better. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

No, thank you. I think the point you made, Mr. Baldwin, about once a motion or a response is accepted and placed on file, that that closes it out, I think is exactly the answer to the mayor's question about what happens when we don't accept. A motion response has happened earlier this evening. That means it's still open. So just sort of tying those two things together. I appreciate the challenge of doing this. I have my own motion tracker that is complicated. It has many Excel pages to it to try to deal with this. Yes, and I'm only dealing with me and not, you know, the entire staff of the city, so I appreciate the challenges and the work, but just pointing out that we all still have more work to do.

Thank you. I guess my question, Councilor Turan, was we didn't give a directive on why that didn't pass. It was just it didn't pass. If we had a directive on why, we could fix the problem, but I don't know what we did, but Councilor McDonough.

I guess first, I did. And second, on what's currently in front of us, is to start with something positive. There are a few motions opposite of what Councilor Duran pointed out, and I haven't found them all, that have been resolved, but are still kind of coming through as pending. The first one that I noticed was, 12436, which was my motion about residential parking on Perkins Street, which we changed. That amendment to the parking code had gone through. But however, I think instead of being coded as a motion response because it was an actual change to ordinance, I'm assuming is why. Spreadsheets are awful, right? are tough to deal with. So that's good. The part that I'm having a hard time with, though, is how long some of these take. And it's not every department, and it's not every kind of motion, and it's not just mine. So I see a motion about Commercial vehicles parked on public streets, overnight parking that Councillor Scott has made that's, I mean, 97 days old at this point. I don't think it's a big ask to get the update on what's going on with commercial vehicles. There was the motion that I did not accept, being the reason, again, to state was that the motion asked for a schedule of parking enforcement, took over 80 days, and I got a... 85 word response that said, I'm going to create a schedule, but that was the point of the motion in the first place. And then another one with parking. It's kind of it's a it's a running thing here, right? That it's parking city manager work with appropriate departments to ensure parking regulations are clearly posted 112 days. The elevators in the parking garage, I think suddenly came online in the middle of Folk Fest, but that motion was originally made in January? I think it was January 20th, I think. And two meetings ago, I believe, there was another motion. And I think Councilor Roark had asked for a pretty quick update. And that had to do with the fee increases and the parking garages and the transient rate. which Councillor Duran had pointed out, not corresponding with the ordinance that's actually on file. And now we're four weeks out and we still don't have a response. And it's just, it's frustrating. That's all.

Thank you, Councillor McDonough. Councillor Robinson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Three to the manager. who should be our point of contact when we do identify ones that are resolved so you guys can take that off and okay so reach out to you uh with the list of that the ones the individual counselors see have been remedied so that way they're not repeating on the next quarterly report or whatever

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So to to Councillor Robinson's question and for all the councillors here, please. What is helpful? What is the most helpful is if you could send me an email reference. There's a motion number. That's the most helpful. And if there's a question, this one is done. This one I need right away. Whatever the comment may be, that is the most helpful way for me and the team to respond to these. If I may, Mr. Mayor, Councilor Duran brought this up. We do have a, so we have to set these in the system. We do have a rejected and returned to the city manager option. So we have that on some of them and we'll use it as appropriate. It is, and Councilor McDonough, you brought this up, it does happen sometimes, a motion gets made, the motion is asking us to make a legal change, maybe it's an ordinance change, comes back as an ordinance, it gets missed. So, if there are things that you notice of that nature, please let me know. I'm happy to close these out and keep this list as clean as possible. And it is my recollection on the one for parking, because I very distinctly remember that discussion, that that was referred to the finance subcommittee, which is meeting soon. So, we will talk about that at that subcommittee. Again, I encourage all feedback, good, bad, indifferent, so that we can make this better. And each time we bring it forward, try to improve and get better at this. So thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. I'll say, Councilor, I was like, thank you. Councilor Scott. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I guess the only question I have on this is around motions that are made on the floor, like, for example, the one that was just brought up around Wubin Street. I had another one that's outstanding. I've talked to the legal department about, it was about ICE, and people had asked about banning ICE in public spaces and on educational materials on people's rights. So how are we keeping track of those types of motions? Thank you.

CFO Bowen.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you again for the question. Those are the most tricky of the motions in the way that we do it. And again, this is something we're getting better at. When a motion is made on the floor, it's recorded in the minutes. And so that requires us to go back through all the minutes, for anyone who's accustomed to reading the minutes, it would be listed by the city clerk as a motion on the floor. It is the easiest and most effective way for a motion to be placed on the agenda. That's how the team grabs it and puts it in. We do try to call the minutes to grab the ones that may be made on the floor. It's not a perfect science, so, if you notice one that is missed please let me know we'll add it on there and backdate it to the date it was made but until we get this system fine-tuned it's it's likely that some of those may be more difficult my uh suggestion might be that you know a new motion well i don't want to tell the council what to do but the new motions are easier to grab for the purposes of this report i guess i'll leave it there thank you

Thank you, Councilor Scott. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Mercier, seconded by Councilor Scott. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. Votes from the City Manager, 8.1, vote, accept deed 161, Taupman Street, waive full reading and second reading by title. Vote authorizing the City Manager on behalf of the City of Lowell to accept a deed in lieu of foreclosure for a certain parcel of land situated at 161 Taupman Road, Lowell, Massachusetts.

most motion to adopt by councilman no councilman thank you mr mayor through you to the city manager is 161 totman street is that a buildable lot mr manager oh it doesn't seem to be but i'm just asking the question this solicitor williams

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll get confirmation for your council. I do not believe it is.

I don't think it is either. But so let me ask you. So we're putting this up. We're taking the deed in lieu of foreclosure. Then what about 165 Totman also? Because it's owned by the same person. So does that mean he's not paying 161, but he's paying on 165? Oh. That's kind of odd. There's no house on that property either. So he owns two pieces of land, one he's not paying on and one he is. I don't get it.

Manager Golden?

Yes, he is. Well, it's my understanding that he is paying taxes on the first one. And the second one is landlocked and he's not paying taxes. So that's where we're coming forth with the deed in lieu of foreclosure.

OK, so we're going to that land that we're talking about today is worth eleven thousand six hundred dollars, let's say, because I looked it up. But here's the deal. I hope that we don't just take the deed and own that land. I want to unload it. So could that be a part of the yard sale program and let someone try to take it off our hands and put it back on the tax roll?

Thank you very much, Mr. May, through the council. We could do that, but we could also work with Department of Conservation and Recreation in the event we have any type of land needs, land swaps that we might have. So there's a possibility for that. There's many possibilities. One, yes, could we do that, but it is landlocked. It's kind of a funky piece, but it also abuts the state forest, I believe, which in the event if we're trying to um take some land for development then because of under article 97 we have to replace it and that would be something we could possibly replace you know a thousand square feet well that's a good thing well it's it's possible at least it would be serviceable instead of being vacant and overrun and right yeah that's not really that much of a piece uh no it's a thousand sixteen hundred square feet or so

All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Marcia. Councilor Joanne.

How much does the owner owe on the land? Because as Councilor Marcia mentioned, I think the memo indicated it's valued at $11,600, or perhaps that was on the GIS site. just curious because I have the concern which is the same concern I had about the um land we picked up on Andover Street by the nail salon that if we pick it up and take it off the you know obligation of the person but they still use it in effect we haven't really accomplished anything and I appreciate that it may be easier to go this route than trying to take them to land court. So trying to understand whether it's worth it based on how much is owed. And I appreciate that CFO Baldwin is doing his magic to look it up.

Mister mayor if I if I could just because of the right by it. Yeah, I have today. The the the popular is no longer than from council Scott to customer data. You know the city put a no dumping sign there a couple my years ago at request of the neighbors and you know of nothing for a piece of property has been touched it actually looks pretty good to me although the wild grass is all the same height and everything is not like it's a a bad look for the for the street or the neighborhood i mean i i would imagine that people on the street would just leave it the way it is and don't touch it um because the city has done a pretty good job of um there was dumping there for a period of time uh it's all cleaned up and stuff like that so i mean i don't know i can't imagine it being you can't build on it it's so small and um you know i just don't want to talk three hours about something that should take you never know they can't build on it you never know yeah not here all right thank you

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, because I'm doing this on the fly, I have the list, and whereas it's in tax title, we list each tax title as an individual separate item. So, I'd have to add all of these up to give you the exact total. If you're willing to bear with me, I'd say it's somewhere in the ballpark of 10... $10,000 or so. I would be happy to give you a report on that, but that's, please don't quote me on that number, but that gets us in the ballpark. Thank you.

Motion to adopt by Councillor Rook, seconded by Councillor Scott, roll call.

Yeah, yes, concert, you're in yes, constantly and yes, Council mcdonough yes, Council mercy, yes, Council no, yes, Council Robinson. Council rules. Council Scott. Yes. Council child. Yes. Council Dakota. Yes. And yes.

Thank you. Mister clerk. 8.2 vote authorizing city manager enter license agreement with the chiropractic healing center PC. Wave full reading and second reading by title. Vote authorizing city management to enter into a license agreement with the chiropractic healing center PC to encroach upon the city of Lowell property at 45 Palmer Street, Lowell Mass.

Roll call.

Motion to adopt by Council of Dakota is seconded by Councilor Duran. Roll call.

Mayor Gitche. Yes. Councilor Duran. Yes. Councilor Liang. Yes. Councilor McDonough. Yes. Councilor Mercier. Yes. Councilor Noon. Yes. Councilor Robinson. Yes. Councilor Roth. Yes. Councilor Scott. Yes. Councilor Chau. Yes. Councilor Dakota. Yes.

11 years. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. 8.5 vote transfer, $249,708 supplementary appropriation, HHS lease. Wait for full reading and second reading by title. Vote in FY27 supplemental appropriation to raise and appropriate $229,708. forty nine thousand seven hundred eight dollars to the Health and Human Service Department to support their contractually obligated rent payments at 107 Merrimack Street any comments yeah move approval Council Robinson thank you

So this is to re-up and renew the lease, the current location for the entire year on this?

Mr. Baldwin.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, this would be exercising the option year for 107 Merrimack Street for the health department so that we can wrap up, get the 40 Market Street facility in order, get it lit up, so to speak, in terms of technology and network, and then move everybody in. It is our plan to move everybody in at the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Okay, thank you.

Council.

Thank you, Mister mayor. So having looked at the lease for this space, which a councilor McDonough had asked for and was submitted to us several months ago. The lease reads that this amount of money 249,708 is the lease is the rental or the whatever the rent for April 1st of 2026 through March 31st of 2027. So we're not talking about fiscal year 2027. We're talking about a piece of, I'm sorry, 2027. We're talking about a piece of 2026 and 2027 with this amount. So I'm confused about exactly what period we're covering, whether we're behind in our payments, et cetera, and also where this money is coming from. Maybe I just didn't understand how this works.

CFO Baldwin.

Thank you. So without having it in front of me, this is the amount that was requested by the health department. I can certainly speak to how this works and the technical nature of that. So what will happen if the council approves this vote is that this would increase it's a supplemental appropriation it would increase the amount that was appropriated to the health department by $249,708 so that they can pay the lease that was not included in the budget because during the time when we set the budget we were still figuring out the situation for those departments in question. We don't believe this will have a material impact on the budget for 2027 for a number of reasons, the primary of which is that the snow and ice deficit that we projected in the budget after we've accounted for final payments to vendors is less. And so this will sort of net-net be where we thought in the budget. So I hope that provides some context, but this will increase the expense for the health department. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Duran. Councillor McDowell.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I think similar questions to Councillor Duran. I guess I'm not understanding how we didn't Where was the alternative location? Why didn't we budget the $249,000? I guess, does my question make sense? Why didn't we budget the $249,000, I guess? Unless I'm missing what the other office location that we might have moved into without extending.

Because they were going to . Oh, I know.

Oh, I don't know, but I'm guessing.

Mr. Mayor, this is something we discussed in executive session.

Yeah, it's an executive session issue.

So I'm not sure I would, I guess, ask the city solicitor.