City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. So, Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. so so

August 26th, 25th, 2026 Lowell City Council meeting come to order. City prayer. Dear God, today as this session opens, we pray that your presence will be before 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. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Council Liang. Here. Council McDonough. Here. Council Mercier. Here. Council Noon.

Here.

Council Robinson. Here. Council Rourke. Here. Council Scott. Here. Council Chau. Here. Council Ducotto. Here. Mayor Gitche. Here. Council Duran. Here. 11 present.

Any moment of silences?

Councilor Marcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to offer a moment of silence in docking chamber for Mary E. Betty Rourke, 84, passed away peacefully on August 7th in Pompano Beach, Florida. Born in Lowell, Mass. on March 23rd. I'm not going to tell you the date. Betty was the daughter of the late Stephen L. Rourke, Sr. and Lillian Cox Rourke. She was pre-deceased by her beloved sister Eileen C. Golden and brothers Andrew S. Rourke and Stephen L. Rourke Jr. Olive Lowell. Betty was rooted in the heart of her hometown for much of her life. She was a 1960 graduate of Keith Hall and went on to work as a switchboard operator, famously working the boards during the historic great northeast blackouts of 1965. She later dedicated many years of service to the United States government, holding numerous positions at Fort Devens before continuing her career at Hanscomere Force Base in Mitre. Active in her community, she was a member of the East End Club Auxiliary in Lowell and served a term as its president. Above all, she was known throughout her life for her warmth, strength, and deep devotion to her family. She is survived by her three devoted sons, S. Christopher Rourke and his wife Nancy of Lowell and Pompano Beach, Florida, Scott Williams of Lowell, Mass., and Patrick Williams of Des Moines, Washington. Betty's legacy continues through her cherished grandchildren, Keith Rourke of Dracut, Mass, Brian Rourke and his wife, Sunny of Nashua, New Hampshire, Connor Williams of Lowell, Mass, and Hannah Williams and Matthew Williams, both of Poway, California. She is also survived by her four beloved great-grandchildren, James Rourke of Dracut, as well as Elizabeth Rourke and Liam Rourke, both of Nashua, New Hampshire, and Trinity Demers of Pittsfield, New Hampshire. A funeral mass was held at St. Rita's, will be held at St. Rita's, 158 Mammoth Road in Lowell at 10.30 in the morning on October 24th. uh she will be truly missed we offer our condolences to the family i also want to offer a moment of silence and docking chamber to all those have that have passed on since our last city council meeting may they all rest in peace thank you thank you council mercy council chow

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would like to ask for a moment of silence in the talking chamber for a dear friend of mine and his whole family, our family friends. And I'm reading this on behalf of Councillor Rook as well, sharing this reading together. Mr. David J. Guista. David Guista, 81, formerly of Lowell, passed away peacefully on Thursday, August 20, 2026, at Billerica Crossings, with his family by his side. He was the beloved husband of the late Kathleen A. Quill Guista, with whom he shared 56 years of marriage, having exchanged vows on July 10, 1965, until her passing on January 16, 2022. Born in Lowell on August 2, 1945, he was the son of the late Julian Guesta, a native of Krakow, Poland, and the late Sophie M. Duyet Guesta, who was born in Lithuania. David was raised and educated in Lowell, attending St. Stanislaus School and graduating from Lowell High School, after which he went on to attend Lowell State College. David built his career with the Middlesex Sheriff's Office at the Billerica House of Correction, where he began as a correction officer and rose through the ranks. Along the way, he served as an instructor at the Correction Academy, passing along to a younger generation of officers the steadiness and good judgment that defined his own service. He was also a member of the NAMLEC SWAT team. In the later years of his career, he ran the facility's mattress shop, overseeing the inmates who produced mattresses used in prisons throughout Massachusetts, work he approached with the same fairness and discipline he brought to everything he did. Sports were woven through David's entire life. He was a softball umpire with the ASA and a basketball official with Board 95, IAABO, remaining devoted to both the organizations for more than 20 years. He coached baseball at Shedd Park and football with the Lowell Junior Football League, and he was a lifelong and unwavering fan of every Boston team. Most of all, he loved the games his own family played, and they were really a season when he was not in the stands cheering someone on. Family came first, always. A young father who was deeply involved in his children's lives as they grew. David was the kind of man who could fix anything. A devoted do-it-yourselfers who really called for help and really needed to. He and his family shared a great love of Disney, traveling often, And his dark impression is his son, as his children and grandchildren will never forget. Summers were spent at Salisbury Beach, another place that holds a lifetime of family memories. Those who knew David remember a man who was curious, playful, and enthusiastic, stubborn when he wanted to be, loyal and upright. disciplined in his habits, usually hungry and a kid at heart to the very end. He was the self-proclaimed North American champion of 45s. This title quickly became the North American champion of everything, a title no one in the family ever bothered to dispute. David is survived by his four children, Lisa Guesta, wife of Matthew Donahue of Vermont, David Guesta and his wife Alice of Florida, Jeff Guesta and his wife Shelly of Andover, and Caitlin Blake and her husband Timothy of West Yarmouth. He also leaves his nine grandchildren who were his pride and joy. Matthew Gregory, Andrew and Pete Donahue, Grace and Ben Cuesta, and Jackson, Charlie, and Max Blake, as well as many nieces, nephews, and dear friends. He was the brother of the late Joanne Guaman and Michael Cuesta. The family wishes to extend their heartfelt thanks to the staff of Bell Rocker Crossings and Beacon of Hospice for the compassionate care David received. I was honored to be able to celebrate his 80th birthday and had a chance to visit him before he passed away. Everyone knows him and his family. As you all know, Matt Donahue was a former Low City Councilor as well. So to his family, our praise to the entire family. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Councilor Chau. Seeing no other, if we could please dim the lights for a moment of silence. 2 mayors business 2.1 communication remote zoom participation motion except in place on file by council duran seconded by council liang all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 2.2 recognition low youth baseball 12 view northeast regional champs um if we if there are any coaches mr coach lawrence if you'd like to say a few words

Hello, everyone. Mr. Mayor, thank you. Members of the council, thank you for having us here tonight. Mr. Manager and your team, it's very exciting for these guys to be here in front of you in this building tonight. My name is Billy Florence. I've had the pleasure to coach these kids, most of them since they've been eight years old. along with Pat Sweat, Tom Zaharias, and Steve Kane. The amount of hours the coaches put in, the assistant coaches over the years is immense, and I can't thank them enough for the help in all of that. A couple other people I'd like to thank. Chris Snow and the Little Youth Baseball Board, they spent countless hours behind the scenes putting things together, practice time, schedules, teams, raising money. The list is really endless, and the amount of time that they put in, we can't thank them enough. One guy I'd like to single out as well is Matt Lelacher, I think he's upstairs somewhere. I should probably actually thank his wife, Shannon, for letting him do everything that he does. But he's really the guy that steers the ship here for this league and a lot of things for the kids in the city. So, Matt, thank you very much for everything that you've done for these kids down here and all the kids in the city of Lowell. I'd also be remiss if I didn't thank Brendan Occasion, the Boomer Baseball Program. Brendan's program allows these kids and several other kids in the city of Lowell to play high level baseball in the spring. That's cost effective, it keeps them local, and it really allows them to practice starting in January throughout the spring, which leads them into the summer months where these kids have had so much success over the years. um the parents of this team many of who are up top and in the chambers this is a group that sets an example for other groups of parents to follow they've volunteered endless hours spent their time i'm not sure how you guys all survived the last couple weeks from work and everything else that you guys did they've hosted tournaments to include a state tournament in the city of Lowell and really should be commended on how they've represented the city and Allowed other towns to come in to see kind of what Lowell can offer and what Lowell's all about The players to put a little perspective onto this coming into the season at nine-year-old. Yeah, these guys won the East of Mass State Championship. They did the same thing at their 11-year-old year. They've been very successful, not quite able to get over the hump in the regional tournament until this summer. Some of the things that the coach is trying to instill in the kids are to be good teammates, have 12 leaders on the field, and to manage their emotions, good or bad. I think this was a year that they've taken the step to really take hold of those things, which pushed them over the top, and they were able to become the first District 2 team, Matt, you can correct me, to ever win a New England regional championship and represent this area at the World Series down in Branson, Missouri. This summer in particular, they played, just for some perspective, they played 43 games in 57 days. They never quit. They started the summer at the district tournament on June 20th. The city solicitor can attest to how difficult it is to get out of that first step of the Cal Ripken tournament. They were able to move on from there. Went to the state tournament in Tewksbury. They're a team that never quits. They were down in the championship game. They were losing at one point three to two in the fifth inning. They were able to come back. They moved on. They managed their emotions that we've always told them to do to win the state tournament. Again, where they moved on to the regional tournament in Dover, New Hampshire. Again, they were down in that championship game five to one to a very good Brookfield, Connecticut team. They never quit. They never gave up. They never wavered. And they were able to be victorious in that. After the regional tournament, that's where the real excitement started, they went to Cooperstown on July 30th. And from there, we were together as a team, whether living in a barracks together or in Branson, Missouri for 17 days straight. In Cooperstown, they went 5-0. We had to, unfortunately, leave that tournament early to go to the World Series in Branson, Missouri. And I can't speak enough about how they represented themselves, their team, their coaches, and their parents in Branson. Their pool play games did not... wins and loss-wise go the way we would like, but they never quit. They didn't waver, like we said. They managed their emotions. They went on to a consolation tournament where they beat teams of the like of Canada, Panama, and Indiana before losing in the semifinals, the second to last day that we could have been in Branson, Missouri. We were there, I think, for a total of, I've lost count, 10 days straight. The players, you guys should be immensely proud of yourselves. You represented the city as best you could. I know myself and the coaches and your parents. I know I can speak for everyone to say how proud we are of you guys. And I'd just like to thank the city again for having us here tonight. So thank you.

Coach Florence, on behalf of the residents of the City of Lowell, the Lowell City Council, Manager Golden's office, we would like to present the U-12 team with a plaque that reads, the City of Lowell presents with gratitude the Lowell Youth Baseball 12 U-2026 New England Regional Champions. A remarkable season that showcased the team's resilience, sportsmanship, and teamwork. The first Lowell team to ever win a New England Regional Championship and qualify to go to the Nationals. Their dedication and achievement brings immense pride to the Lowell community and the Lowell youth baseball program. On behalf of the entire City Council and the residents of Lowell, we hereby extend our deepest congratulations, and we are proud to honor and recognize Lowell Youth Baseball U-12 for their achievements. If the team and the coaches could come forward.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

It's crazy how nice that is. Again, thank you to the U-12 little baseball team for the nice baseball and gifts. manager golden i'm not sure if i could take this baseball because it might be worth more than 50 bucks in the future motion to accept and place on file by council rook seconded by council robinson all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 2.3 recognition michael laffey michael would you like to come Michael, let me read the official citation before you say anything. So just give me one second. We have an official citation hereby known to all. The city of Lowell in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts hereby offers a sincere congratulations to Michael Mike Laffey. The city of Lowell recognizes Michael Mike Laffey for his outstanding work ethic, positive character, and meaningful contributions to the Lowell community. Mike has been employed by UPS for the past 22 years, serving in a variety of roles throughout his career. Now, therefore, I, Mayor Eric R. Gitcher, on behalf of the entire City Council and the residents of Lowell, hereby extend our deepest gratitude and appreciation to Mike Laffey for his exceptional years of service, work ethic, and positivity he brings to the residents of Lowell, giving this the 25th day of August 2026. Thank you.

The mic is all yours, Mike. I wish I could have my coworkers here with me. There's 10 of us that serve the city of Lowell with 147 years of experience. So you get the same guy in the community. Whoever you see, that's your guy. I've been in Belvedere for six years. It just so happens my customers and my sister can write a really good letter that gets me up here in front of you all. But I just want to thank my parents here, Pat and Terry Laffey. They showed me the meaning of hard work and to do it with a smile on your face. And then my most important stop of the day, my family here, my three kids, Samantha, Caitlin, Morgan, and Evan. Just thank you. That's all I got.

Okay.

Motion by Councilor Decoto, seconded by Councilor Chau, to accept and place on file. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 2.4, proclamation overdose awareness day. Ms. Golden.

Thank you, mayor, manager, counselors. So on Monday, it will be the fourth annual Overdose Awareness Day. I think everybody saw the purple flags out front. So it'll be the fourth annual day. 10 a.m. outside in the front. We'll have a little bit of a speaking session, and we will have tables with Awareness Day. The purple flags are for the lives lost for overdoses, and the purple stands for healing and recovery. September is also recovery month, and we are partnering with Megan's House. So Megan's House will be here as well. It's a recovery home for women in recovery. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Gold. So we have a proclamation for International Overdose Awareness Day. It will be the fourth annual. Now, therefore, I, Eric R. Gitche, Mayor of the City of Lowell, do hereby proclaim August 31, 2026 as International Overdose Awareness Day in the City of Lowell. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Scott, seconded by Councilor Noon. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. Councillor O'Rourke, did you have anything to suspend the rules? Is it 7.5?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, please.

A motion by Councillor O'Rourke to suspend the rules to take 7.5 out of order, seconded by Councillor Mercier. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 7.5 vote, authorizing City Manager to execute LDA with Wind Development Company Limited Partnership.

Mr. Mayor, there is a registered speaker. Mr. Clerk?

carolyn snow i'm here to vote on seven five that's it go ahead okay thank you i didn't realize we moved it so i am here to ask the council to table this motion due to inaccurate and misleading backup that was presented to the citizens as part of the agenda parcel 12 as mentioned in this motion is not actually vacant Partial 12, if my understanding is correct, actually houses the transitional living center. And while I understand that there are many things I could say about that, it is not vacant. So I would appreciate this vote being tabled until the backup information is correct. In addition, when that next vote is taken, I would appreciate understanding what financial benefit when corporation gets from this deal. Will there be a tax break? What supports will the city get, whether that is benefits to the schools or benefits to the canal system? What is the financial bearing on the city, and how does Wynn profit from this deal? Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we have no other speakers. I'll turn it over to Assistant City Manager Yvonne Baez-Rose.

Hi, just to clarify for the council's additional information. So I won't speak to the sort of second half of the residents' comments. She had a number of questions. But for at least the initial question or comment related to parcel 12, it is a vacant parcel of land. It is directly in front of parcel 11 in the Hamilton Canal District. Nothing there. It is a parcel that is owned by the city. To clarify for the council and others, it is a parcel that the city will have to change the form-based code on in order to allow for development on that site, as it had been previously designated as open space. But we have not changed the form-based code until there was a vote of this council to pursue the LDA. So with this vote, that would trigger a form-based code change. But there is no development on that site. It is a parcel that is owned by the city. It is, in fact, vacant land.

Thank you. Mr. Manager?

Thank you very much, Mr. Manager, to the council. I think to better handle this issue, the what's happening on Parcels 11 and 12, I'd like to introduce Mr. Mike O'Brien from Wind Development just to have this discussion. Mr. O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of city council for allowing us to present our next investment here in your great city. As was mentioned by the city manager, I'm Michael O'Brien. I'm the executive vice president of Wind Companies. And I've been luckily before this board many times speaking about advancing your vision and your goals via housing with Wynn's support. I'm here today with Steve Sena. He's an SVP, a Senior Vice President with Wynn, and Project Director Hagop Toghramajian, as well as somebody familiar to you and on our team, Steve Panagiotakis. We've been working with City Manager Golden and Assistant City Manager Yovani Baez-Rose for the better part of 18 months, perfecting this development program that we will present here today. You should be proud of this, of your team, for tough but fair negotiations. This program is reflective of the Lowell community's goals and vision, particularly in the Hamilton Canal Innovation District, wind companies. We build once, we build to the highest of qualities, and we portfolio our investments and keep those assets for basically forever. We're not merchant builders. We don't build a community, a new community, stabilize it with leases, and then flip it to a new owner, such as a pension fund. That doesn't happen. The people here today, will be the people you can call to ask questions about this project, about 201 Canal, and about our portfolio in Lowell. And right up to Gilbert Nguyen, our CEO, they'll respond to those calls. And so what you see is what you get from us. We're bullish on Lowell. We've got over 650 homes, apartments here already. We're a great corporate citizen. We're a good neighbor. And we appreciate being part of this community. Our next venture will add about 120 apartments opposite of our 201 canal apartment across the canal. It'll be a development worthy of Lowell's Hamilton Canal Innovation District and one we believe you'll be proud of. Parcels 11 and 12 is a challenging site. We've got to make it work, and we will in spectacular fashion. I will now turn it over to Project Director Hagop Togromagian to go into more detail of our development program.

Good evening, everyone. Thanks so much for having us here tonight. I just want to echo Mike. What a pleasure it's been working so far with city staff on this project. And that's really why Wynn as a national company, uh, with over a hundred thousand apartments that we manage across the country, working in 27 states, why Lowell is our sister headquarters with our second largest office and why Lowell is the largest concentration of homes that Wynn has created nationally. We come back to Lowell again and again to build mills, to rehabilitate mills into housing, to build new construction because of the vision that the city leadership and staff has consistently had. You guys know what you want to get done and you know how to get it done. And that's why we are here and we're so happy to be part of the city. So I think it is useful to quickly, I'm going to zip through these slides, but give some context to the parcel into the project. It's in the Hamilton canal district directly across from a new construction project when completed about five years ago, 201 canal. And it's directly next to the city garage, the Hamilton canal garage. In a lot of ways, this project, if it goes well, will be very similar to that successful 201 canal project, a similar number of apartments created, a similar innovative mix of incomes. WIN has been on the forefront, the pioneering middle income workforce housing to go with deeply affordable housing, to go with market rate housing, so that in one building, you have a community that brings together people of all incomes, all backgrounds, and lifts everybody up. That's what we did with 201 Canal and exactly what we hope to do here right across. The last year, we've been working closely with city staff on due diligence. It's, as Mike alluded to, at times been complex between the title and the long history of ownership on this parcel, but also the complicated topography. the detailed geotechnical work we've done, the environmental studies, and then a lot of building and site design and engineering, not to mention utility studies, traffic studies, very detailed cost estimation. So it's been a productive and in the weeds year. And we're now at the great stage of reaching a land disposition agreement that I know the council has looked at and is ready to vote on this evening. As I mentioned, the proposed project will have a mix of incomes and it will also have a mix of unit sizes ranging from one to three bedrooms. So there's something for everybody in our proposed building. And just to give recognition to the many people who have worked on this from a design perspective, truly the best in the business architecturally, civil engineers, landscape architects, environmental engineers, structural engineers. It's been a year of dozens of people working very hard on this project. I'm going to go through some aerial views quickly. This is zooming in a little farther from what I showed a minute ago. The parcel is highlighted in red, the triangular-shaped parcel right next to the garage on Canal Street. Picture is worth a thousand words. So this is exactly how it looks now in the undeveloped state. Nothing's on it. It looks like a perfect site for development and in many ways it is thanks to the city's vision. Thanks to the roads that were laid out, the infrastructure, the parking garage, most particularly. There are challenges, of course, with the steep drop off down to the canal, the canal deck, and that's what we've been working through to get to this stage. Another view of the garage and the wind building across the canal. And then here's the proposed site plan and shape of the building. So what you'll immediately notice being that it's surrounded by these roads and canals, there's no natural back door. The whole building really exists as a front door, a public facing building that needs to show its best self on all sides. The way we've worked with this is to have Canal Street be the active public realm with retail, with two to four retail units on that frontage, as well as a plaza. And then the other plaza you see off to the left, that is more for residents. And then there's a canal walk down along the back. And tucked into that resident plaza is where most coming and going will happen, keeping Canal Street free for traffic and flow. We really view this building as the root or the foundation of the neighborhood that's taking shape in the Hamilton Canal District. It's going to fit into the neighborhood it creates. It's going to drive foot traffic. It's going to help support other projects and benefit from other projects. So you see the green building sort of in the middle of this image is our proposed building and how it fits into what we hope is going to be built just around it. It does fit in well, but it also is an impressive building. We worked really hard to combine some of the best of Lowell's traditional architectural heritage with modern design. You're looking at on the left is where the retail and possibly even cafe or restaurant space would be. And on the right, as I said, is that residential courtyard. We have a draft landscape plan with the plantings and with the elements of hardscape and green space that we would like to put in. So in terms of timeline, we would absolutely like nothing more than to break ground tomorrow. There's a few things that need to happen before then. So now that we're getting, God willing, this LDA executed, we will move on to the permitting and the financing stage. There's one optimistic version of this where we can secure some funding through Lowell's new Front Runner City status in partnership with Solar International Corps Canada or other partners. That could potentially make this move a lot faster. There is also a base case under which we apply for tax credits at the state level, and that involves a multi-year application process and requires formalized local financial support. But that's very, very similar to what happened with 201 Canal. It's a proven model that works really well for the city. And for everybody, it just takes a bit longer. So this is the timeline as it would look under that base case or less optimistic scenario. If all goes well, we would be breaking ground in about two years after financing and permitting, and then construct for about a year and a half. And just like 201 Canal, which leased up I think in three months, this would also be occupied, we anticipate, very, very quickly. There's actually a waiting list at 201 Canal of over 200 people. So that sums up our presentation, and we're very happy to take any questions. Thank you.

7.5, waive full reading and second reading by title of vote authorizing the city manager to execute a land disposition agreement with Wind Development Company Limited Partners relative to the development of parcels 11 and 12 within the City of Lowell's Hamilton Canal Innovation District. Need a motion to adopt? So moved. Council noon seconded by Councillor Scott. Any questions on it? Council of McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to say that this is pretty close to my backyard or front yard, depending on how you look at the building. And having lived for quite a bit of time in a Wynn building before getting into a condo, I did want to say that I'm excited about this project. I know it's just a proposed landscape and it's not part of the LDA, but it's something that Wynn has done pretty well at most of your properties. in the city, and I really appreciate the attention to providing some amount of publicly accessible space and the walkway. The only, and again, it's not part of the LDA, I'm just saying it now, maybe less stairs. Only there are a lot of people with either mobility challenges or maybe a stroller that might wanna walk on that walkway. um other than that uh you know i know we're looking forward to talking a little bit more about something else but this is this is great so thank you thank you to everybody who was involved in this thank you council mcdonough roll call councillor yes

Councilor McDonough.

Yes.

Councilor Marcia. Yes. Councilor Noon.

Yes.

Councilor Robinson.

Yes.

Councilor Rourke. Yes. Councilor Scott. Yes. Councilor Chau. Yes. Councilor Dakota. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Councilor Duran.

Yes.

Eleven years.

Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Clerk.

Councilor Robinson. I'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules and take 7.7 out of order.

motion by council roberts takes seven points oh we have to wait till after seven sorry about that yep time flies councilor marcia we'll have to we'll have to withdraw that motion since seven o'clock we're under four utility public hearings 4.1 national grid request installation of a new utility pole at 480 westford street give second reading

No, you don't need a second. Let's open it up.

I'm going to open up the hearing to all those in favor. In favor? In favor? That portion of the hearing is closed. Anyone in opposition? Opposition? Opposition. That portion of the hearing is closed. Motion to refer it to the wire inspector for report and recommendation by Councilor Decoto, seconded by Councilor Scott. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered.

Where are the minutes?

three three city clerk 3.1 minutes of the finance subcommittee august 11th city council regular meeting august 11th rules and elections law subcommittee august 18th for acceptance motion to accept and place on file by council noon seconded by council robinson all those in favor signify by saying aye any opposed and so ordered council robinson

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules and take 7.7 out of order, please.

Motion to suspend the rules by Councilor Robinson to take 7.7 out of order, seconded by Councilor Maris. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 7.7 vote transfer, $358,559 opiate settlement funds. There is a registered speaker, Mr. Mayor.

Matthew Myers.

No, he's all set. He's all set. Sounds good. Get the backer. No backer. Yep. What is it? 7-7. Thank you. Item 7, wave full reading and second reading by title, vote to transfer funds from the Opioid Settlement Stabilization Fund to the Health and Human Services Professional Services account to support various opioid reduction programs by Councilor Rook, seconded by Councilor Liang.

Roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Oops, sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I know there are various programs that come under this vote. I don't know, through you to the city solicitor, I have to not vote on the Bridge Club because I am a member of the Bridge Club. But I do support all the others. And I support the Bridge Club, too. I probably am not supposed to say it. But I can't vote on that, per se. So can I vote on all of them and the city clerk make a note that I abstain from the Bridge Club vote? Could I do that?

Yes.

Yes. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I'm going to repeat Councilor Murcia's statement. I am also in full support of the Bridge Club. But I am also on the board of the Bridge Club, so I will support everything else under this vote. It's just the clues from the Bridge Club. Thank you.

Anyone else? Roll call.

Council Liang. Yes. Council McDonough.

Yes.

Council Murcia. Yes. Council Noon.

Yes.

Council Robinson.

Yes.

Council Roark.

Yes.

Council Scott. Yes. Council Chau. Yes. Council Dakota. Yes. Mayor Gitche.

Yes.

Council Duran.

Yes.

11 years.

if there's no other objections could we just do the rest of the votes under suspension the rules and then get rid of all the votes so a motion by council mcdonough to take the rest of the votes out of order seconded by council liang all in favor signify by saying aye so motion to bundle seven point one through seven point six and omit seven point five because I was already taken up by council Robinson seconded by council rook motion to waive all the full reading and second reading by title and the motions 7.1 vote, accept, expend 117,000 GLRS diversion program grant. 7.2 vote, accept, expend $400 letters about literacy program grant. 7.3 vote, apply, accept, expend 118,915 green communities competitive Grant 7.4 vote authorizing City Manager enter license agreement with the fork included LLC 7.6 vote transfer 251 268 dollars and 75 cents supplemental appropriation HHS lease motion to accept by Council Robinson seconded by Council Rourke any questions Council McDonald

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This was the question that I asked two meetings ago, and then it got weird because of when we were going to vote on it. So I just want to ask the question. On 7.6, it's the transfer of $251,268.75. I think at the last meeting, we had talked about trying to release the executive session minutes. I don't think we did. So I'm going to try and phrase this question in a way that works. I just want to be clear that this appropriation is here as some sort of basically mistake in that it doesn't pertain in some way to the final use of 40 Market Street. That is my question. So the $251,000 for the health department lease, and I think we've talked about this, Mr. Baldwin. The $251,000 for the health department lease, we were going to need to take this. We would have, this was something that was left out of the budget probably by accident. And regardless of the final use of 40 Market Street, this vote would have been coming before us. That's my question.

CFO Baldwin.

uh thank you mr mayor essentially that is correct it was due to our negotiations at the time and just as a point of clarification for the council there was less that we could say last time because we had not engaged the unions in conversations about the move and the potential change in working conditions we have engaged them we've had that conversation with the various impacted unions So the health department, DPD, et cetera, will be moving. And this appropriation will keep the health department in place through the end of the current year of the lease. And then the move will happen, hopefully, next fiscal year. I hope that.

provide some context yeah no uh thank you um that I guess going back almost a month ago now the way the timeline played out that that was and we had talked about Mr Mayer through you to the CFO we had talked about this I think in your office that was largely the reason for for my original opposition was not understanding how we got to that number and whether it had to do with the previous vote so knowing that this was more or less a blanket oversight I'm happy to move on with this tonight thank you thank you roll call Mr clerk

Councilor Leang?

Yes.

Councilor McDonough?

Yes.

Councilor Marcia? Yes. Councilor Noon?

Yes.

Councilor Robinson?

Yes.

Councilor Roy? Yes. Councilor Scott? Yes. Councilor Chau? Yes. Councilor Dakota? Yes. Mayor Gitche?

Yes on all but 7.6.

Councilor Duran?

Yes.

Mr. Mayor, as we're under suspension of the rules, could we take up 5.8, your motion?

It should go pretty quick through the motions if you want to, because we're at the motions right now.

That's fine. I just saw a bunch of speakers.

If you want to, we can do that. Motion by Councilor Decoder to take 5.8 out of order, seconded by Councilor Scott. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 5.8, Mayor Gitche, I request the city auditor to work with the school department on finding a creative way to pay school employees for August 31st, September 1st, September 2nd, and September 3rd in the payroll check distributed to the employees on September 4th. Seconded by?

Mr. Mayor, I got to recuse my wife's paycheck. I got to recuse myself.

There is a registered speaker.

I have to get a second.

Pina Maggio.

Seconded by Councilor Decoto.

Good evening. My name is Pina Maggio. I live at 115 Florence Road in Lowell. On July 1st, I became president of the United Teachers of Lowell. It's the second largest union in the state. And I follow the shoes of Paul Georges. So you can imagine, this is quite a challenge. And then July 29th arrived with an email to the staff, to our members, that on September 3rd, what was to be their first paycheck, they weren't going to get one. All hell broke loose. all kinds of accusations, and I do wanna state emphatically, this was no one's problem. No one sat up all night and said, I'm gonna think of something, and it's really gonna get everybody upset, and it's gonna be, nobody did that. And everybody wants what's best for the teachers. So there was nothing illegal. And really, not really immoral, it was a perfect storm. Now, I could spend some time explaining it. There's Mass Wages Act that got involved. The fact that we started late. All of those created the perfect storm. Now, if I'm sitting up in the balcony, or I'm listening, and I'm one of those parents or teachers that's not going to get paid, I'm going to say, Pina, I don't care. And I can't blame them. Who's going to pay my bills on the first, my mortgage? Who's going to pay for those? And so we have to come up with something very clever or original. And then a miracle happened. standing out in the hall and the mayor introduces me to kelly oaks now i have to tell you parenthetically this is kept this has probably taken 10 years off my life and i am way too old to be losing that kind of let me tell you i'm not 50. But one of the things that really bothered me was I'm standing in front of the school committee, and now I'm standing in front of you. But I'm not getting to talk to the people that are involved in this that actually are not necessarily important, but can help make a difference. And all of a sudden, I'm talking with Kelly. And I can't tell you, it was like, oh my god, thank you. I must have done something good today. And we exchanged ideas. I came up with a plan. We had a easel here, all kinds of papers to hand out. And then Kelly came up with her idea, which was absolutely fabulous. So what I would like to do is I would like to share with you, both she and I, and I've talked to some of the colleagues. Now, most of the members don't know anything about this because it just happened an hour ago. And this is the most, I don't know, you know that I'm not good with protocol and with the time, but I'm really gonna get better. But I would like to propose that the city council consider this. On September 10th, teachers and parents will get paid two full weeks pay. On September 17th, they will once again get paid two full weeks' pay. Now, as it stands now, legally, they do not get a paycheck on the 3rd, and they will get a full paycheck on the 17th. What I was proposing was getting half a paycheck on the 3rd and half a paycheck on the 17th. But you don't even have to think about that. The fact is that getting paid on September 10th, and I don't know if I can make the motion, but this is, you'll make the motion. I don't want to take your job. I'm sorry. What we would like you to propose is that paying the teachers on September 10th full two weeks and then again on the 17th full two weeks now we all know we can't make everybody happy i gave that dream up a long time ago but i do believe that this is probably the best situation It is a compromise because they're not going to get a paycheck on the 3rd, but you're going to get a full one on the 10th and a full one on the 17th. So I'm going to stop right here. I'm going to make that proposal, and you're going to do your job, whatever you have to do, and I'm going to let you do it. Okay? I'm all set. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Maggio. Before I make a substitute motion, I would just turn the mic over to Ms. Oetz, the auditor, and have her explain that this isn't anything that's outside the norm. It's still going to be 26 pay periods. It's going to get their pay up. Ms. Oetz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, I mean, what happened this year with the way the calendar falls and every year the school central office goes through a process where they establish payroll calendars, and this decision was made by the school central office to delay the payment to September 17th, which is one of the normal biweekly pays within the month of September. Now, I mean, I wasn't consulted on this. This was a decision they came to on their own, but I certainly do see the reasoning behind it, and I do agree with it, because the way the calendar falls, teachers and parents return to school on 8-31, and they would be paid on September 3rd. In order to produce a biweekly payroll for thousands of employees, everything needs to be submitted by Monday, September 1st. I mean, that's August 31st. By Monday, August 31st. It would be impossible to take attendance to verify who returned to the Lowell District and that happens every year, lots of people get a job somewhere else, they don't return, so it's imperative that we take attendance in order to avoid overpaying employees who no longer work for Lowell. So that is the reasoning behind it. They also brought up the wage act, which, you know, saying you can't pay people before they've worked any hours. I mean, I would, I mean, teachers are different. They earn their salary over the school year, but they have the option to defer it over 12 months. And we have consistently always had payroll calendars where we pay teachers and paras over 12 months. And that's from September through August. Now, my proposal, instead of deferring to September 17th, is we run an off-cycle payroll on the 10th of September, which would be their paycheck number one out of 26. On the 17th, it would be paycheck number two. Then they're back on the normal city biweekly schedule. And I felt that was a good option. And if the union agrees, then I think we can proceed. with that, and it is certainly paying them consistently as we always have. They've returned to school on 8-25. They're paid on September 4th. They return to school on 8-26. The first payroll is September 7th. There's always been a cushion that allows for the payroll process to take place so that we can verify and accurately pay employees.

Thank you. Council Rook. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, if we get into discussing payroll issues at the school department, we'll be there for the next week and a half. But my question would be is teachers a salary, right? So why? Why should they have a issue? Shouldn't they be paid every two weeks? What's the difference between you getting paid every two weeks and a teacher at the high school or at the Gavin or whatnot?

Right. Yes, no, they are salary, and we've always looked at the entire contract year as a whole rather than, you know, treating each biweekly pay period based on the number of days they actually worked in the pay period. So, they are different. There is, you know, a regular city employee, there's a holdback period when you start a new job, but with teachers under a teacher contract, they're paid from September through August over the 12-month period They earn their salary from September through June in full. They just defer it so they get a paycheck over the summer. So it slows down the payments.

So does this happen once every four or five years?

I mean, it's the first time I've experienced this. But, yeah, I mean, it looks like it's going to happen again next year based on the calendar. So, I mean, I think we can just adjust accordingly. But, you know, I believe they should get two payrolls in September and then, you know, three in October.

I was taking care of it for them, but I guess the question is to what is in the future is Is it a union negotiation issue that they're not in the same schedule as, again, the solicitor, the auditor, the DPW? Is it salary people who should get paid? You would think in the city, everybody on the same date. That's not the case. That's schools different than us down the city side.

I mean, I believe schools are different because just of the nature of they work 10 months and they're allowed to defer over 12 months so that they get a regular calendar year payroll.

So when they defer for 12 months, are they on the same schedule as anybody that works for the city side?

They are on the right. We try to get them on the same payroll schedule as everybody on this, on the city side. It just, when situations like this happen where they returned to school on 8 31 and the regular city payroll is September 3rd, it just does not allow enough time to process that payroll.

I don't understand what the answer is because if their salary teaches they get paid year round right if they should choose to do so if you're the answer please tell me what's the difference between you know again anybody that works in the city with a salary and a history teacher or a cm teacher or anybody you know it doesn't make sense that everybody's not getting paid the same two weeks you know why should it be is there a gap on the city side

No, because what happens is on the city side, you actually work those days. So there's a difference in the calendar as it shifts because you have 26 weeks pay period. You're not talking about work days. So when you get into the end, they got up front of the money, the 26 pay periods. which doesn't come into the full calendar year. So every year a day may get lost if they push off the scheduled start of the school. So most schools are starting before Labor Day. They push it off further away from days that were counted as work days that you can start paying someone from the amount of money. So that's what happens is because it got pulled off and you start your payment, your salary starts on day say X, you start the 26 work weeks from there.

So does this happen in Draco schools, the vocational school?

People normally, it got missed this year. It got missed in, that's the best way I can put it, because. So just saying that, it's going to happen next year again. It could happen next year, but we're going to catch it this next year because it's in our face right now. So it would happen that they would actually pick up on it and now make it, make the adjustments. So instead of this week, instead of getting $100 every two weeks, you're going to get $98. So it makes up for that pay period at the backside. If it makes any sense. It probably don't.

No, it doesn't. That's fine. No, I would agree.

The school committee was in favor of bringing this here. I'm sure that you guys are in favor of bringing this here. There's no expense to the city. They're just going to reduce down and get caught back up into the pay salary. It seems like a lot of aggravation and anger. It is. It is. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So, did Councilor...

I was just going to ask a similar question. So you're just going to do an off-cycle payroll and that's going to solve the issue, right? Thank you.

Council Robinson.

thank you um so this is just a matter of how it's getting paid there's no increase or any of that it's just a matter of and it'll get caught back up by mid-year or towards the back end of the 26 week pay period correct okay i mean again with back to school i'm sure the families could use that full paycheck it's the start of the new year so i'm going to support this thank you

so I'll need a substitute motion by Council Robinson seconded by Council of mercier to address the order to have the auditor work with the school side for proposed off-cycle payment on September 10th and then get back onto the cycle on September 17th as long as it works out with the unions council chow

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and the councillors before me asked all the pertinent questions already. But first, I want to congratulate Mrs. Maggio. You spoke very well. I don't think Mr. Paul George has had anything on you. Just as much as I love him, thank you, Mr. Mayor, for working through this with the teachers' union. I hope many teachers at home are watching this and the president is working in your best interest. and I'm glad that we're able to work out this plan that the teachers will get paid because I know I have many teacher friends who are already spending their own money for some of the school supplies that they normally do every year. So when the paychecks doesn't come in on time, you know, they have an extra little burden of spending their own money on some of the school supplies that they normally need every year. So I will full-heartedly support this motion. Thank you.

Thank you. And again, thank you, Ms. Maggio. And thank you, Auditor Oates, on getting together and figuring out a solution that works for everyone. Roll call on this, Mr. Clerk.

Council Leang.

Yes.

Council McDonough. Council Mercier. Yes. Council Noon.

Yes.

Council Robinson.

Yes.

Council Roark. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chau. Yes. Council Dakota. May I get you? Yes. Council Duran.

Yes.

Tends.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Going back to... actually mr mayor i just wanted to confirm there were nine days right the counselor dakota and yeah okay it just wasn't i heard nine or ten yeah those two abstain yep thank you we're going to go back to the regular portion of the oh we're not going back council mercy this is out of honor but that's right i'd like to get eric lamache out of here

If we could take 6.1B, the veterans homelessness, please.

Do we want to do all the motion responses first? Do you want to go 6.1A through I? Sure, sure. Okay. Motion by Council mercy to take 6.18 through I out of order, seconded by Council McDonough. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 6.1 a motion respond. Born Street Council Scott.

Just thank you. I drove by today. It looks incredible. The drainage looks good. I haven't seen it when it rained yet, but but I'm sure it's gonna work great. So thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Scott. Motion to accept and place on file by Councillor Rook, seconded by Councillor Robinson. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. 6.1, motion response B, Veterans Homelessness. Councillor Chau or Decoto?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank Councillor DeCotto for co-sponsoring this motion with me. We know many families in Lowell either have members or friends who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces, including mine. And I also want to thank the Director, Eric Lamarche, and the Veterans Services for this response. and for the outreach numbers provided to make this work. The many stakeholders in our community and in the state, including the SSVF, which is the services to support the Veterans Family Program, the Hope Team, the co-op team and the CTI. I believe the director is here. This is a great report. I see that 21 veterans in the city of Lowell have been identified as being receiving these services and the breakdown to 16 and there are 12 that track through the rapid rehousing with six obtaining permanent housing. So it sounds like a great success. Just a question. This is for the recent year here. Has this number have been improved over the years? For example, like five years ago or 10 years ago, has the situation for the veterans have improved in our city?

Councillor, this particular subject is new for me. This isn't part of what I do on a normal daily basis. I did reach out to several partners that work with the VA and the State Executive Office of Veterans Services. These are the numbers they gave me for this year, and I just built a report around that. I could certainly get some numbers from maybe from the last five years, but I do believe it's decreased just because there's so many more resources that are in the city at this time.

Wonderful. Thank you. And you're right, there are many partners in the city. One of them was the Bridge Club, which we talked about earlier. Thank you for this report. It's very, very meaningful.

Thank you, Councilor Chow. Councilor Decoto.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Very in-depth response, Eric. I really appreciate it. Well done.

Thank you, Councilor Decoto. Councilor Marcia.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to say thank you to Councilor Decoto for asking the question because I want to, it gives me a chance to say what we do at the Bridge Club at Greater Lowell. And the report, Eric, was very thorough. I really appreciated it. I want to just, for the record, say that the Bridge Club of Greater Lowell has been very concerned with veterans. At 147 East Merrimack Street, we have 15 beds. It's full to capacity. We have a waiting list for people to get in there. And that's OK, because what we do, that's just temporary housing for them. But we try to find them a job. Once they get a job, we provide transportation for them. We provide transportation to the VA hospital for them. And if they get a job, we provide transportation for their employment. Also, when they establish sufficient funds for what they work for, we then could and we have put them in 267 Pawtucket Street, our other veteran's home, which is called the Stone House. There we hold 29 veterans. These are veterans that they live there all the time. So we field the 147 people that are making it on their own, that are well enough and stable enough to put them into 267 Pawtucket Street. We have 10 residents there in that building, and they do a tremendous job. And we're working with our veterans every chance we get Over the weekend, the Bridge Club of Greater Lowell don't only help Lowell and Massachusetts, they went to White River Junction in Vermont, and the Bridge Club served 147 veterans to dinner. So I just want to say that we do our share at the Bridge Club. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Mercier.

Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Mercier, seconded by Councilor McDonough. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 6.1, motion response C, explore healthcare options. Councilor Noon.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank Assistant City Manager CFO Connor Baldwin for the report. I'm asking for this report is really to look into alternative, you know, explore that possible of cost saving. I know that every year has been increased in terms of percentage of, you know, we, you know, under the Commonwealth Group Insurance Commission, GIC, I know that in order to break any agreement with or move away from GIC, we need to work with the Low Public Employee Committee, PAC. I know that also from this report that the manager has met with PAC in June of this year. What was the outcome of that meeting? Was it good, bad, otherwise? Could you report this?

CFO Baldwin?

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. We had a very good meeting with the PEC or the PEC back in June, so we indicated at that time we get together regularly, and they're great partners in addressing this issue. We talked about this just recently in the Finance Subcommittee about how this is one of the budget busters for the city. So there's a long road that we have to travel to get to even shopping outside of the GIC, but the first step is to request the claims data from the gic it's a process that is uh it's a requirement and so we we let the pec know that we were going to start that process the city manager authorized the letter to request the claims the next step will be and this takes a very long period of time based on our last investigation the gic will send us the claims data for all of our members and then we will work with our consultants to determine whether It's a financially viable option to at least go out to RFP for other carriers. And last time we did this, it was not. So the rub here is that the loss ratio has to be such that it's financially advantageous for us to look at other options. That's to be determined. We will provide further updates to the council as we move along. But the PEC... uh was supportive of the idea we will engage them against once we have more data to talk about what they um what they think and how how we can move forward together thank you um thank you would you please keep us up to date on that you know next meeting any progress i know that the contract is end in june 2028 is that correct that's correct counselor thank you we'll absolutely keep the council informed thank you thank you councillor new council dream

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I just had two, I think, small questions. There was, in Section 6, a connection or a reference to OPEB liability. And I wasn't sure how that fits into the health care costs, because I thought the OPEB liability was the pension costs. But maybe I'm completely off. CFO Boland?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So OPEB, other post-employment benefits, is health insurance. Other post employment benefits, but those health insurance is the big one. It also includes dental insurance, life insurance, which retirees are eligible for in the city of Lowell to continue under the city's plan for dental insurance. It is a de minimis component of the cost relative to health insurance, but the pension liability is something separate. Our OPEB liability is just under $600 million as of the last audit, and it is one of the major challenges hanging over the city in the long term. And later on in the agenda, there's a discussion of the credit rating. It's something that the bond rating agencies, Moody's, S&P, they examine for a city like Lowell in determining our credit. So it's very important for us to keep an eye on and work towards.

OK, thank you. Clearly, I was completely off then. And the only other question was in section, the last section, in section seven. The second bullet talked about modeling the financial fiscal impact of adjusted contribution structure for retirees like 70s, is 7.5 or an 80 you know but um and again maybe i'm misunderstanding but i thought currently the structure is 75 25 so i didn't understand how increasing the city's percentage would work but again maybe i don't know how much of that we're paying today thank you

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So what I was trying to get at in the report would be potentially modeling an increase in benefit to the active employees and a reduction to the retirees. But just as an example, so there are other contribution rate splits that could be considered. aware that this is a bit of a third rail type of issue for municipal employees and retirees. It is something we would have to bargain with the PEC. They are the exclusive agent for health insurance for all of the unions together. But by making some changes to the ratio split, and whether it's moving everybody to a lesser contribution by the city, or some combination thereof, there could be savings there. So it may not have been as straightforward as I intended, but that was the purpose of that note in the bullet.

Thank you. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Duran, seconded by Councilor Liang. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 6.1, motion response D, line painting. Mayor Kitcher, I just want to thank the manager and Superintendent Hudon and your staff. I was told today that they're all done around the schools and they're now working their way out. So thank you. Mr. Mayor. Councilor Robinson.

Councilor Nguyen. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If I may add, Mr. Mayor, in your motion, you asked not only for school painting, crosswalk painting, but also Main Street.

Yeah, I was told today that they're... Yeah, yeah, they work on it.

I know, Mr. Mayor.

And now they're working their way out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So through you, Mr. Mayor, through the manager and his team, please also look at the Stephen and Chelmsford Street. There's no crosswalk there. I mean, you do a great job in the sidewalk there, really. But the sidewalk without crosswalk, it's not that great.

Thank you, Councilor Noon. Councilor Robinson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I've seen them out in Centerville, I have to say. They were out the other night on West 6th Street area. And if we could, through you to the manager, maybe, I don't know who's the sign department or whatever, would it be possible to send a blast out as to the sections that they're working for that area, just to update the public? you know caution we're going to be out painting in in your neck of the woods today I think that that helps people because I've had questions and then the next day they were painting that area and so I think if we can put that out especially to the neighborhood groups it's better more transparency with information thank you

Thank you, Councilor Robinson. Motion to accept and place on, oh, Manager Golden.

I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, and thank you very much through you to the members. For the edification of the folks at home, we also have, you'll see a lot of work. We have approximately 20 miles of long lines, weather permitting, that I'm hoping by the end of September. So this is all, this always happens at the same time every year. It's always weather permitting, and there's one or two contractors that actually do this. So we should be hitting that 20 mile of long lines, which is the main center of roadways. And per the council's instruction three years ago, I think we're actually on our third year. of epoxy which basically means instead of using the paint which wears every year we're using an epoxy that lasts a little bit longer so council robinson point well taken maybe we'll get more word out there to let people know that we will have some of the larger vehicles out there painting those long lines in the fog the i think it's called the side fog lines so thank you

Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Mercier, seconded by Councilor McDonough. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. 6.1, motion response E, Stevens Street. Councilor Chow.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank the chief for the report and all the officers working the detail. A lot of work done. There's a lot of citations, 67 citations. And the Stevens Street is one of the main neighborhood corridors. And when the details were there, it caught a lot of public attention. And many of the streets throughout the neighborhood that cut through Stevens Street They were very, very appreciative. And, you know, I just want to thank the police officers really for taking the time, spending extra time to make those, the area, the neighborhood a little bit more safe. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Chau, Council Dakota.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Echoing Councillor Chow's comments, I'd like to also kudos to Captain Damaris and his crew over there. Like Councillor Chow just mentioned, since Baltimore, Wellesley and Walton have gotten repaved, it's really been a cut through over there and they put some cruisers over there and I know citations have been issued over there. So once again, thank you to the Lowell Police Department. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor DeCotto. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Scott, seconded by Councilor DeCotto. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 6.1, motion response G, cultural funding process. Councilor Liang?

Skip one, Mayor.

Oh, I'm sorry, F. We'll do G first. I'll go back to F. Councilor Liang? I'm in a rush. I don't know why. I don't know why. Councilor Liang?

Thank you. Thank you to the superintendent. I did. Thank you. It was a really good report on the grant. My only question is that with all the different processes, How did we get to ask the sustainability of each program? I know that sometimes we don't have a lot of money to sustain it, but how did the grantee sort of explain to the city beyond the grant funding? How do they do that?

Manager Golden.

Thank you very much, Mr. May, through to the council. I'd like to have Erin Duffy, that works for Astana Case, explain about how we're trying to coach people into making sure that they're sustainable through the years to come.

Absolutely. So, Councillor, when anyone applies for a cultural council grant, they lay out a plan for that specific grant that they are applying for. So there's an understanding with these grants and this process that this is not funding that is guaranteed to them year over year. So it's an opportunity for that specific fiscal year.

Have they, I mean, has there been any kind of grantees that actually come back to you and say, you know what, after the grant ended, we did get something to continue our program?

YES, DEFINITELY. I WOULD BE ABLE TO PROVIDE A FULL REPORT OF THAT IF YOU WOULD LIKE.

Thank you. Council and Council Robinson.

Thank you. Thank you for this report. I think it clarified half of what was asked. I think the initial motion asked for an explanation of the process and the funded projects. I think you guys nailed the way the funded projects go. this motion kind of stemmed from and and i don't know if this is something we need to carve out as far as like the process involved and it stems from the north common this was a situation where it was almost like we were illiterate to the to the wants the concerns the needs and the vision of the community and just looked and installed something that we did an open art call we opened it up for whatever that looked like and I'M NOT SAYING WE PUT ARTISTS IN A BOX. I THINK THAT'S THE MAGIC OF CULTURAL INSTALLATIONS, IS ALLOWING THE INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS TO HAVE THAT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. BUT I THINK IN SOME INSTANCES, THE CITY NEEDS TO HAVE THAT VISION, AND THAT VISION HAS TO COME FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD. SO WHEN WE'RE LOOKING TO DO AN ART INSTALLATION, SAY, IN THE NORTH COMMON, CARNEY FIELD, I MEAN, basically when we put out a call to art we should include must include if the city thinks imagery of a member of the carney family image imagery of roberto clemente imagery relevant to that location and and then let the artist run with it let you know everybody decide on hey i love this rendition i think this encapsulates everything that we were looking for in the core of this project i don't see that carved into this policy i see the funding is very well detailed and and laid out very well i thank you for that but I think we need to take it a step further and really look at how do we ensure that when we're looking to do cultural installations, they're going to be culturally relevant to that specific location. And that's the piece that I think is missing. So, Mr. Major?

Manager Golden.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayer, through to the council. Council, you're correct. We did have these discussions earlier, and we have talked with CASE, talking about the artists' opportunities, but I do think a little bit of guidance might go a long way in the future. So we have discussed this. That is something that we could... The next time we do this, I mean, you know, to your point, points well taken when Middlesex Community College, they asked them what they kind of wanted and you see what they got. Right. And that happens in other art installations throughout. And I think that from a from a small community area, because we're only talking about one particular park. But I think maybe in the future, park to park, we can talk to the users of the park, the neighborhood, the community, to make sure that, as you pointed out, Roberto Clemente is somehow depicted or something to that effect. So we've spoke about that. And if that's not clear in this report, that it will be happening in the future.

I greatly appreciate it. I mean, I just hope that we can carve something out and start doing it because it's just, it shows kind of insensitivity on our behalf. Not that it was intentional or anything. It was basically, I think, everyone in the administration, everyone in CASE, everyone involved absolutely loves cultural installations. And it's pretty relevant. You can see it out there. but i do think if we we need to dial it in and do a little bit better on that part of it and i think uh with everything else in place i think we'll be right where we need to be thank you very much thank you council robinson council duran

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. So the new upfront funding model says that if a project is not completed and communication lapses, then the Mass Cultural Council writes off the funds and the city has no responsibility to collect or claw back funds. And that's great for the city. But I think it would be good to monitor which projects are completed so that even though it's not sort of you know, in a sense, city money. I mean, it's coming from the state. We still want it to be used and not wasted. And, you know, although there might be reasons why an organization can't use it, you know, I think it would be good to understand how much gets, you know, actually gets used versus not so that we, you know, understand if maybe the criteria for choice is appropriate or not. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you.

CFO Bowen.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If I may, I just wanted to add a sort of additional point. The change that's referenced in the report, this will be our first year under the new program, which is allowed under the statute. However, previous Previous to just this past year, there was a conflict with the ordinance, so we weren't able to offer this sort of upfront funding. I think the Cultural Council has communicated to us that they will be monitoring, but this will be our first year doing it. I just wanted to also mention that because this money comes from the state, it flows through the Cultural Council. It's one of our major sources of direct uh funding to the arts and because of how important the cultural economy is to lowell and the administration uh we look forward to the good that it will do in the community but just wanted to offer you know it's just a recent change and we will be monitoring it closely thank you mr mayor i'll say council trend yes i'm all set thank you motion accepting place on file by council robinson seconded by council scott all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 6.1 motion response f dirt bikes council yang

Sorry about that. Well, thank you. And also thank you to the superintendent for this report. I went there Friday, last Friday, and there was a few bikers there, but at the same time the residents WELL, A LITTLE BIT SAFER JUST BECAUSE THE REPORT WAS GIVEN AND I DID PROVIDE THE REPORT FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT AND I TEXTED TO THEM. I KNOW THAT SOME OF THEM STILL NOT, I GUESS, ABLE TO MEET THE OFFICER THAT, YOU KNOW, DOING THE ROUND THERE. BUT I MAKE SURE THAT IF THERE'S ANY PROBLEM TO LET US KNOW SOME MORE. BUT THANK YOU. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. THANK YOU.

Thank you, Councilor Liang. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Rourke, seconded by Councilor Chau. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. 6.1, motion response H, business district pricing. Councilor Robinson.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, MR. MAYOR. I THINK THIS REPORT, THANK YOU FOR THE REPORT. I THINK THIS KIND OF HIGHLIGHTS SOMETHING THAT WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT ON THE COUNCIL FLOOR FOR QUITE SOME TIME. WE DID PASS THE SCOFFLAW PROPERTY, AND I THINK THIS REPORT TO ME SHOUTS WE NEED TO REALLY DIG IN AND ENFORCE WITH THAT ORDINANCE. as you can see here we're nearly what two dollars and fifty cents give or take a square foot more than Lawrence and and look at the difference of their downtown compared to us it's pretty significant and we keep seeing vacant empty floor level storefront ground level commercial space And once we knock on the door and notify them, they swing a hammer for a week or two and go back to leaving it vacant. And I bet if we check their tax records, they're using that benefit pretty handsomely. WE WONDER WHY WE CANNOT GET YOU KNOW OUR DOWNTOWN THRIVING AND AND HERE'S ANOTHER PIECE OF DATA TO REALLY POINT TO LAWRENCE 1617 AVERAGE LEASE ASKING PER SQUARE FOOT MATHUAN 1846 HAVERHILL 1850 LOW 1872. we're the highest but yet all those other three that we're comparing to are thriving and and i've heard myself from people that are dying to get their hands into a brick and mortar location in our downtown to open a small business that the cost is just prohibitive I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE CAN DO AS A TEAM TO KIND OF SHIFT THAT BUT I THINK THIS HIGHLIGHTS SOME OF THE CHALLENGES THAT WE'RE ALL WELL AWARE OF HOW DO WE START TO REALLY ENFORCE THAT SCARFLAW PROPERTY TO THE POINT WHERE I MEAN IF YOU'RE GOING TO LEAVE IT VACANT AND EMPTY OR DEMAND OUTRAGEOUS PRICES THAT COULD KIND OF BE TREATED AS THE SAME THING WHETHER OR NOT YOU YOU DON'T MEET WITH SOMEONE AND OFFER A LEASE OR YOU PRICE IT UNREALISTICALLY IT'S STILL A TAX BENEFIT FOR THAT PERSON SO I I'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM THE ADMINISTRATION WHAT CAN WE DO AS A COUNCIL AND AS AN ADMINISTRATION TO KIND OF PUT OUR FOOT DOWN AND SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH FOR THIS VACANT PROPERTY THERE'S PLENTY OF IT DOWNTOWN LOW AND AGAIN WE'RE ASKING TWO DOLLARS IN WHATEVER 50 CENTS A SQUARE FOOT MORE I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE ANSWER IS, BUT I'LL TELL YOU WHAT, HIVE SEEMS TO BE DOING WELL ON THEIR NEW RELOCATION. SMALLER COMMERCIAL STOREFRONT POP UP. ALL THE SMALLER LOCATIONS, IT'S THE LARGER HABITUAL OFFENDERS THAT I THINK WE NEED TO ADDRESS. SO I'M ALL EARS TO HEAR WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE NOW THAT THIS DATA IS SUPPORTING WHAT WE'VE BEEN THINKING RIGHT ALONG. THANK YOU.

MAYOR GAUCIER. THANK YOU, VICE MAYOR NOON. I based my numbers off of just 4,000 square feet. And when you just look at the 4,000 square foot shop and you look, you see that you're paying almost $850 more a month than Lawrence. And when you look at that a year, that's $10,200 a year. When you look at it at square footage pricing, it doesn't look so bad. But then when you start thinking about it out of your wallet and what you have to do to get there, that's the challenge we're having. And I would agree with Council Robinson on the scofflaw. When you look at that, we need to push people into rentals and not extreme pricing, because that's what they're doing when you look at other areas. Trying to compare them to Haverhill, as we asked for, is kind of tough. But again, you're looking at $100 a month more, and when you break it all down, it just doesn't seem feasible for someone who's trying to start a business to try to create something. when you look at the lar and we look at walgreens on middlesex street you just go down there and it's all overgrown the place is a complete disaster and no one's taking care of it have they been fined or not i don't know but i think we have to do better in certain areas if we want people to respect their properties then all of these businesses owners that own these properties should respect us but they're not in a lot of cases and there are many that do but when you look Some of them are just dumping properties on us and just letting it sit because of a tax write-off. And the only way we're going to get to the place we all want is people to have housing. We have to have businesses to pay for it. And we have to be a marketable place where we can actually afford to give people a fair wage to actually work and pay for it. So if you could just go through, you, Mr. Vice Mayor, and Andrew Golden.

Go ahead.

Uh, thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, through to the council, uh, council is this is a perplex us as well. Um, when you're talking about the open market, we've, uh, been as aggressive as I think we can always be more aggressive on. what I always refer to as legacy properties, people that were not taking care of their properties. And I think that we have collected quite a few fines, and that has kind of corrected the situation in some aspects. But I mean, the positive side is we've also worked with Project Pop-Up, which we have a number of stores along the Market Street corridor that at one point in time were closed. The folks that are vacant are paying a fine, and they're choosing to pay that fine. Should we increase the fine? Sure. I'd be more than happy to do that. It's purview of the council. But we've been working on some special legislation right now. And let me try to explain. Under the sale of city property, when that comes into the city. So if we're going to sell a piece of land, it comes into the, under the Mass General Law, it comes into the city. And at that point, it is... It is put towards city buildings, city infrastructure, things of that nature. So if we were to sell something, say, on Heard Street that we have an interest in, that money would then come to the city of Lowell. What we're going to propose to the council in the coming weeks is that we're going to take that money. We're going to ask the council their consideration to take that money, file special legislation, have that legislation go to a small business incubator idea. And that's not just for the downtown, but it would be for throughout the city. In regards to, we don't have much city land that we sell. Some of the city land, all the council is no. We have these swaths of land that just for some strange reason we've adopted over the years. Somebody's abandoned and it's probably worth $2,000 or $3,000. That's not really going to move the needle. But when we're looking at something on Heard Street that the city has a real interest in, that we're moving towards housing in that area, that could be a real shot in the arm for this project. this type of program if the council deems it proficient when we bring it forward in the next, I'm going to say, three to four weeks. So we would probably have to file this. This is not a tomorrow thing. We would have to file this because of the point where we are in the biennium for the legislature. This will probably be a January file, have the discussion happen, and hopefully that money, once again, if the council thinks We could move that. We've done a lot of project pop up with our ARPA money, and I think we were pretty, pretty darn successful. If we want to think of once again that Market Street corridor, once we started focusing in on it, we've had quite a few bits of success there. So with the council's leadership, I'm sure we can get there. This will take a little bit more time unless we can find another way to fund this small business incubator similar to Lowell Pop-Up.

Through you, Mr. Vice Mayor, to the manager, just for the listening public, what is the fine and is it progressive?

Mr. Vice Mayor, through you to the council, the first fine is $5,000. And I want to be clear, what we have done, and I've personally met with some of these folks, we've sat with them. tried to coach as best we could, show what we have available, show to try to help. And we've had some business folks that are having internal problems, and they just pay the fine of $5,000. If it is continued, I want to say it does go higher. It goes to 10. But that's the following year. So that's something that if this council wants us to revisit, we possibly can. I want to make sure that I was correct in that.

uh mr vice mayor if it's okay the cfo to clarify on the fines this is incidental cfo o'connor thank you thank you mr chairman uh it's a five thousand dollar registration fee for ground floor there's an additional one thousand dollars so six thousand for an upper floor and then if there's non-compliance there's a hundred dollar per day fine that gets attached And after a certain amount of time, that's something we could lean to their tax bill and pursue further remedies that may be available.

thank you mr vice mayor but once again to the folks living at home we want to be pro-business we want to try to push um we have plenty of opportunity through dpd to try to get this done i encourage everybody as a matter of fact uh it was dealing with uh ms de rogers today and actually ms burgess of a campaign we're going to be putting out two different pers uh different restaurants different areas to see if they're looking to open up a second one we have a lot of activity going in that manner um which is uh it it's in the it's in the making actually as we speak so if anybody has any of those ideas we have things we're going to be handing out to businesses uh not just in lowell but throughout and i'll give you an example the north end just just as an example we would be hitting something in the north end to say if you're looking for a second opportunity um We could make this happen. I happen to be at Hampton Beach, as you guys all know. I went for a vacation down there, or up there, I should say. And I spoke to an Italian restaurant. The gentleman that I spoke to, as a matter of fact, with the superintendent, was excited. that somebody was looking to say, hey, do you want a second opportunity? Do you want a second? And that's another person. So if the council or if anybody has any ideas about who could be, and we're looking for that mom and pop type situation, we're going to start that targeting. I know Ms. DeRoges, Ms. Burgess, and the team has been starting to look at finalizing. You know, I have 11 folks here that have, you know, go out to eat other places. We want to try to get them here as well. So there's a lot going on on this. Uh, but financially, I think, uh, changing the MGL, the mass general law is an idea that, uh, I would hope that the council will consider in the weeks to come. Mr. Mayor.

Through you to the manager, how many times can they be fined in one year? If they respond, do you work with them? If they don't respond, can you continually find them or do most people respond?

So per the language of the motion if somebody registers their building and pays that full $5,000 they have met their obligation for the year. so we wouldn't fine them after that for that initial, assuming they responded in time and paid their full registration. If people ignore us and aren't responsive or have not paid the registration fee, that's where we can continue going after them. But per the existing language, once somebody pays for the year, by the terms of the language for that year.

Mr. Mayor.

So it's like, I'm going to just break it down to layman's terms for all of us that don't have money. When you say $5,000, it sounds like a lot of money, but it's only 400 pennies over that a month. So through you, Mr. Vice Mayor to Manager Golden, can you look at these fines and see if we can get an increase or come back with a recommendation for what you think that can be an adjustment to this policy that we can work better at this. Because $400 a month to someone who has a property like that isn't really much. Because if you go down to Walgreens on Middlesex Street, it's awful. It's overgrown. It looks really bad. You're going to put a new bridge in, but you've got this whole property over there that's really bad. And then you go downtown. And I'm sure Councilor McDonough is going to have a comment on this one. The Dunkin' Donuts down there, that whole property on the corner central in Merrimack, it looks bad. And how do we get people to try to come forward? And I'll leave it at that.

Thank you very much, Mr. Vice Mayor, through the council. Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for that. So if any of the council has a question about a particular spot, please reach out to Assistant City Management Shadow, because if there is a problem there, there could be a minimum maintenance charge. So that does happen here in the city of Lowell. It's once again called a minimum maintenance fine, I should say. And then in that situation, we send out building as well as health to ensure that the building itself is up to snuff. The ordinance that was adopted originally by the previous council was replicated from the town of Arlington where one of our workers actually came from, brought it here, and she has just decided to go back to school. Allie Carter. Everybody knows Allie. So that ordinance was something that we basically took from Arlington and adopted it. And if the council would like to reconsider the ordinance, we'll, we'll gladly give some ideas, thoughts as to how to, um, file a new ordinance with a new set of, um, uh, financial, uh, incentives, shall we say, to get things done.

Councilor McDonough. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I don't have anything to add to the conversation around the vacancy ordinance. Um, I, my question is, less related to bad landlords and more related maybe to bad government or government that thinks different than me, is I'm curious what the concentration of government and not, I'll leave the nonprofits out of it because they have a lot of office workers, but I'm thinking about Merrimack Street. I think there is a recruiter for every branch of the armed forces and two national guards. And I have no issue with people that want to enlist in the military. I just think that the government is able to pay a pretty consistent, dependable amount of money. And I'm trying to think of a few others. I'm happy to hear that we're moving the health department eventually off Merrimack Street to 40 Market. So this is not something that the recruiters are the example off the cuff, but the health department is there, the school department's on an upper floor, the workforce board is also on Merrimack Street. Not necessarily saying that all of that is wrong. I am curious what the impact of those kind of guaranteed tenants at a nice, presumably nice rental rate could be and how that compares with the comps that you included in the report in Haverham, Bethune, and Lawrence. So thank you.

thank you council mcdonough council robinson thank you mr mayor uh through you to the city manager so with this scarf law property i know we do have properties that are tied up in internal litigation or whatever it may be but one of the ones that comes to mind is center for social club that one is in in severe disrepair um especially with the new splash park and everything over there WE HAVE OVERGROWTH GOING AROUND THERE THERE'S COUCHES AND MATTRESSES THAT ARE BEING DUMPED ON THE SIDE OVER THERE I KNOW THAT IT'S WHOEVER OWNS IT WHATEVER IS GOING ON WITH IT BUT HOW CAN WE EXPEDITE THOSE KIND OF PROJECTS IN THE COMMUNITY THAT WE'RE ALL WELL AWARE OF THEIR FATE BUT NOW HOW DO WE GET THAT TO BE SOMETHING THAT YOU KNOW EITHER THEY SELL AND IT GETS REDEVELOPED OR AT LEAST CLEANED UP

Manager Goldman.

Thank you very much, Mr. May, through the council. With a number of years of experience in the real estate world, sometimes the ownership is probably the most difficult piece. We have a place on Hildreth Street that has been vacant for 25 years, maybe 30. And what happens is, and I'll probably lean more on Mr. Williams, the solicitor, about the challenges of going through court to find out who actually owns said property uh there are other properties that their value actually has um how do i want to say this the value of the property has um is lower than what is owed and we would be in the process of taking it by eminent domain or taking it in lieu if that's the correct way mr solicitor taking it in lieu of taxes that i owed so all of these pro projects or problems or issues if the council sees 123 abc street please let us know chances are uh mr machado it's on his list the list that they're looking at consistently and we try to get it over to the city solicitor's office to then um work with the courts, which is kind of a, that's a little bit of a challenge. And that's just making the assumption we can find out who owns the property. This happened very, there's a lot of damage done in 88 to 98 with properties like that. The city had a real issue at that point. It's gotten better. But there are still these problem properties, nuisance properties, that quite frankly, the city taxpayer ends up, what you're saying over at Centerville Social Club, I know we're going to end up taking care of that. And even if we were to fine it or put it onto the building, would we ever get it back is the question. But that doesn't mean we should stop doing it. There's just so many properties with so many different issues, different challenges, different problems, different ownerships. that I would have to go one by one on all of them. And that's pretty much what we have been doing with tax takings and a deed in lieu of foreclosure. That doesn't really answer your question, Counselor, but it's not just as AS SAYING, GIVE IT TO US. WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS PROCESS.

WITH THE CENTER FOR SOCIAL, ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE CURRENT STATUS OF THAT PROPERTY OR ARE WE STILL TRYING TO TRACK DOWN OWNERSHIP OR, I MEAN, BECAUSE WE JUST, WE'VE HAD PEOPLE come to the council express interest in a private membership club we've had people come to the council express a need for additional housing we have that park that's been completely redeveloped could that be parking or green space or an extension to that park I mean there's a million opportunities with a parcel like that now how do we get to move on that

Mr. Mayor, through you to the council, intimately familiar with we've been talking about this particular piece for quite some time that is owned in multiple ownerships. Multiple people own it. So it is something that I would hope in time, and I mean... soon i don't mean years from now similar the hilda street property that we've talked about so many times i don't know how we're ever going to get that property i really don't to be quite frank with you um we can't find the people that own it item number one i think that something like the property that you're mentioning is something more on the lines that we've been working with We have made votes on this council to demolish buildings, demolish properties, and it just takes such a long time to get through the court process to actually gain ownership. But in your situation, I think I don't want to put a time frame on it, but at least I know who owns it now, which is better than what we knew six months ago.

Thank you very much and fingers crossed that we can move on some of these as soon as the law allows us and the process allows. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Robinson. Council Rourke. I think, Mr. Mayor, the mayor and I, we've been after this property forever. And it speaks of the situation that you just mentioned, Mr. Manager, about 551 Pawtucket Boulevard, where it was a rundown, abandoned property for years. We couldn't find out who the owners were of the property. I think maybe on our third motion file, we finally figured it out, went through the court system. It's all cleaned up now. And that took, what, five years?

right you know so it's just just it's i hear where you're coming from i know it's a pain uh but just you know sometimes just is what it is but at least that property the mayor and i are very happy thank you thank you council of rook motion to accept in place on file by council duran seconded by council yang all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 6.1 motion response aye data centers council of marcia

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm very grateful for the detail and the informative report. Very interesting. I think that we are working diligently to put a zoning for the data center to be a guideline. I especially like the Loudoun County, Virginia. Regulations, they establish regulations addressing potential impacts, minimum separation distances from residents, visual buffers, noise standards, and other site and building requirements. And they stressed about how companies can allow data centers while implementing measures intended to mitigate their impacts. There was so much to deal with here. It says that there'll be a timeline milestone in late October to early November, a data center ordinance specific meeting with the city council zoning subcommittee. That'd be interesting too to put something together that we have guidelines that we can look at instead of not having anything and going by what we call storage facilities or other type of issues here but i like to see it all put together and i did appreciate the impact and the important information that we got thank you so much thank you council mercy council scott thank you let me put my hand up

You were on the motion. Oh, sorry. So I do appreciate all of this report. I would just point out, I guess, for residents out there that they did compile the data from the data center forum. All of the feedback is on the website. It's not on the main page. I don't know if we can include maybe like a news release or something. It's on the main planning and development page, but you do have to look through it a little bit. It's very informative. Every comment that was submitted is right there on the website for the public to see. And I do appreciate that there is additional input sessions included in the future plans as well. I would highlight a few of the things. I did see Holyoke was used as one of the examples. Since then, they have permanently banned new data centers. And Loudoun, Virginia is actually moving towards another additional moratorium for 18 months at this point in time. So it is kind of a moving target, but all input has been listened to by residents, and it's going to be included in the future. So thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Scott. Councilor Duran.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to understand better, and I appreciate all the reports and really the best practices that DPD is using or looking at to decide how to move forward with the data centers in particular. Understanding this in the context of the zoning rewrite, I wanted to understand better how the steering committee was selected, whether people had an opportunity to apply, and has there been public input to date? Because people have asked me about when they can get involved, and it sounds like the train has left the station quite a while ago.

Assistant City Manager Baez-Roz?

Yeah, so the steering committee was pulled together sort of internally from folks either on staff plus our consultants plus folks that represent people that deal with zoning a lot. So members of our boards, zoning enforcement. So that was like a working group just to sort of help put guardrails around what we were doing. I think we've approached the zoning rewrite as like a zoning cleanup. So it's not a wholesale rewrite of a significant portion of the zoning, which I think would have looked differently if that was the path we were taking. Instead, what we're trying to focus on are like the common denominators that we're seeing a lot in front of the boards, and it's helpful from our perspective to have the folks that are dealing with that on a much more consistent basis. IT WAS PULLED TOGETHER BY ASKING FOLKS THAT REPRESENT DIFFERENT PARTIES WHO DEAL WITH THE ZONING A LOT TO PARTICIPATE. IT WAS NEVER ENVISIONED AS A because we know people have opinions and are interested in what's happening, we've structured it so that the steering committee is sort of offering advice and opinions, but they're not decision makers. They're not making the determination about what is voted on. frankly, the council's decision. And so the idea is that we have people to sort of bounce some ideas off of, clean things up a bit, help us organize the best approach and sort of troubleshoot, you know, make sure we're explaining things to people in advance of trying to go to public meetings. Zoning can be kind of archaic and complicated, so it's nice to be able to sort of run through some of that stuff with a group that's familiar with it. And then really focus on the public meetings, which are scheduled, where people can kind of weigh in and have their feedback included in the plan and the discussion.

And so when will those public meetings with respect to the zoning rewrite generally occur?

So it was included in the timeline of milestones in the motion response. But we imagine, so there's a steering committee meeting actually tomorrow where a draft of both the data center and like larger zoning recommendations are going to be presented. And the steering committee will kind of rough draft through that. And almost immediately after that, barring anything pretty significant, we'll have that information available online so people can start the process of seeing that. And then we'll sort of take the show on the road. And so there will be hopefully public meetings happening in the fall and early into the fall. And then, well, actually, hold on. That information will be available online. We hope the council will organize a zoning subcommittee so there can be more in-depth discussion at the zoning subcommittee. And then there's also plans to sort of attend neighborhood group meetings or have, like, further public meetings that will be coming in the next several months.

So I think it sounds like it would be helpful to maybe have the council focus on this report that's going to, or recommendations, whatever they'll be called, that are about to be made public like very shortly. That maybe at our next meeting there might be an overview of them so that both the public can be aware, you know meeting organizers can be aware because I know I had concerns about some of the proposed changes in the December 2025 zoning rewrite the zoning audit about changes to single family or suburban single-family zoning requirements and you know I think people in various neighborhoods will have reactions if things are still going down that path so I think it would be important to get that out to people soon, and if that needs to be a motion, I'm happy to make a motion.

I will defer to you if you would like to make a motion, but I also think we can easily submit that as an informational. So once it's available online, make sure we include links for that so people know where to find it. And to Councillor Scott's point, we will work on trying to make sure that people can find it a little easier on the main page. You kind of do have to search, like, zoning audit update, so try to limit having to click so far in. But DPD would be happy to submit it as an informational and make sure it's available online and share the links so folks can at least start some initial sort of review and thinking about it. And we included the email in the motion response as well. Certainly, at any point, the public is welcome to make that review and send comments. We know it's hard for people to attend meetings and take that time, but if people have the ability to just send comments, we are receiving those, and they are being taken into consideration for the discussion.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Durant and Councilor McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was just on the data center piece. I just wanted to thank DPD and all the city employees and the public and pretty much everyone that engaged in good faith and trying to work towards some kind of solution here that would have worked for both businesses and residents in the city. And I guess it's one of those things where it's nice to see the community and the city staff come together. I hope that all stakeholders, I guess, I hope all stakeholders engaged in this in good faith, and it would be a shame to see all this work go to waste. So, thank you.

Thank you, Councilor McDonough. Councilor Noon.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for the report. I appreciate it that, you know, that we picked, in this case, Assistant City Manager Giovanni, by Rose's pick. the community skill as a consultant, looking at not only what they know how to clean up zoning, or zoning cleanup, but also this company also, this individual group has the knowledge and experience with the data center. And I appreciated that going forward, we're gonna look at two, regulatory option for the council to decide with regard to data center. I'm looking forward to that. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor New. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Liang, seconded by Councilor Chau. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. Motion by Councilor Rourke to suspend the rules to take 6.3 out of order, seconded by Councilor Scott. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. 6.3, communication. City Manager requests approval of one out-of-state travel wastewater Motion to adopt by Councillor Rourke, seconded by Councillor Scott. Any questions? Roll call.

Councillor Leang. Yes. Councillor McDonough. Yes. Councillor Marcia. Yes. Councillor Noon. Yes. Councillor Robinson. Yes. Councillor Rourke. Yes. Councillor Scott. Yes. Councillor Chau. Yes. Councillor Locoto. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Councillor Duran. Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Going back to the motion portion of the City Council Agenda 5.1, Council Yang requests City Manager and relevant departments assess the feasibility of transforming and revitalizing North Carman Park by integrating the Acre Walk of Immigrants theme to celebrate the neighborhood's immigration history, support economic development, boost tourism, and promote health and safety. Seconded by Councilor McDonough, Councilor Yang.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, I understand that each of our districts is very important and valuable to all of us. And tonight, I just want to highlight a little bit for folks at home about this motion. First, I want to say that I don't know much about history, but I ask you, Mr. Managers, and your team to work with other knowledgeable people, such as Professor Ferran, Dick Howe, and folks at the Park and Rec Department, or whoever you think that can support this important request. The Acre is the city's oldest neighborhood within 170 years of immigrant history and diverse culture. It tells the inspiring stories of those who are seeking the brighter future. Just to highlight a little bit is that from the early 1800s to the 60s, the Irish immigrant were among the first to settle in the Acre, working in the mills, building churches, creating warm community that transformed the Acre into a new home. Then from 1870 to 1920s, The French-Canadian families from Quebec moved to the Acre, attracted by the work in the mills. They carried their languages, tasty food, and beloved tradition, turning the Acre into a genuine home for the children. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, over time, immigrants from Greece, Syria, Lebanon, Portugal, and the Jewish community enriched the neighborhood and called the Acre home. They brought the variety of languages and culture, making the street more lively. In the 1950s to the 80s, in the mid of the 20th century, families from Puerto Rico, and Latin America brought in lively music, delicious food, and important tradition, helping to create a vibrant community in the Acre. And of course, from the 1970 to the present, we have the Southeast Asian families, refugees from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, came to start over. They brought their art, culture, tradition, religion, and they work hard to build lives and become an important part of the Acre neighborhood. For generations, people came to the Acre looking for work, safe home, and a chance to build a better life. Immigrants brought their languages, traditions, faith, food, cultures, helping shape the neighborhood's unique characters. The Acre is more than just a place to live. It's a neighborhood where newcomers find hope, support, and opportunity to connect and start their new life. North Common Park, with this walk of immigrants, should showcase the stories and honor those who shape the neighborhoods and welcome future generations with similar journey. Whether through display of country's flags, granite marker, or story panels around the park, IT MUST TELL THE STORY OF THE ACRE NEIGHBORHOODS FORM SPIRITS AND DIVERSE CULTURE. THE ACRE IS NOT JUST A TEMPORARY UMBRELLA THAT NEEDS DURING THE RAIN STORM THEN TOSSED AWAY ONCE THE SUN RISES. um this request mr managers is about preserving the history and legacy of the neighborhood about all is about the heart of the acres people and how they keep welcoming newcomers from all over the world to start a new life and i hope it can come into fruition one day thank you

thank you council liang all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 5.2 council mcdonough request the city manager determine the feasibility of and it's his discretion take legal action including the right of to appeal under mass general law chapter 40 section 81 bb to enforce ordinance ordinance policy and other regulations of the city of law pertaining to permitting subdivision of land and any other matter subject to approval by local land use boards seconded by council yang council mcdonough there is a registered speaker mr man megan spencer hi good evening um my name is megan spencer i'm a lowell community member um and i'm here to megan we have to state our address for the record we know you're a low community member but we have to state our address for the record

27 Jackson Street. Thank you. So I'm here to speak on the new zoning laws. We as a community have come together time and time again to speak about the oppressive and overbearing corporate entities trying to take over our city. We've presented our petition's demands directly to you, to no response or resolution. No action has been taken by the city council majority, which is frankly disgraceful. We do not want tax-exempt data centers and military contractors that create no real jobs in our city. We do not want mitigation. We do not want any alternative lesser evils. We want affordable housing in maintained buildings with water that doesn't run brown and integrity that isn't crumbling. We want community centers. We want better care for our unhoused communities. We want more money and support for our public schools. We want support for small businesses and restaurants to open, not large tax exempt entities that do nothing for us. I can promise you that no one is hoping that a 300,000 square foot facility will pop up in their backyard. As a reminder, you are all here to fulfill the will of your constituents. To fail on that front means that you will not continue to be in your seat. Rampant industrial zoning is how Lowell came to experience the struggles that we have today. We know and deserve better than to be susceptible to the same conditions they were in the 1800s. We demand that data centers are zoned out and no expansion of the existing data center, and that the council prioritize people over profit.

Mr. Mayor, does this have anything to do with the motion that was filed?

If we can just please stick to what the motion is, Megan.

It's applicable, I believe, to 5-2 and 5-3.

It's not.

It's not. It's about permitting land sub-use of the entire city. It's not designated to one specific group, as you're doing with data.

It's applicable to all large corporate entities that are, no. How is it not applicable?

It's a subdivision. We can ask the city solicitor, Williams.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Right. So the motion itself is it's more about procedure and whether or not the city manager at his discretion could appeal a decision of a city board. For instance, you know, planning board, zoning board of appeals of any board. So the discussion should be around that process. Any questions about how the process works? or on the city manager's discretion. Anything along those lines would be germane to the topic.

So the data center zoning won't be handled by the data center board? For the third time, no. That's fine. We've presented our petition plenty of times, and there has still been no response, no official recourse. So, City Council, you all have a duty to follow your constituents' will, and we will keep coming back. We will keep speaking on this, regardless of whatever you think. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council McDonough. Council McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to try and put my comments back together and try and make them about the motion. Basically, sorry, I look scrambled eggs now. What this comes down to is that not a lawyer, MGL 4081 does pretty explicitly grant municipal officers the right to appeal decisions of a planning board. This motion, to be very clear, does not call for any action. It does not direct anything to be filed tomorrow or the next day. The statute does create a very, very limited window during which any aggrieved party could act. It's 20 days. The motion is simply asking the manager to determine and at the feasibility of and at his discretion, right, something that is already very much within his purview. It's just us kind of formally saying that that's what the law says. Part of the motivating reason for this motion is about seven months ago the city council passed 10-0 a data center moratorium that that vote passed with no vote against it was it was a 10-0 vote reading from massachusetts general law chapter 40 section 6 is i think mr solicitor what you may have called a loophole the size of a semi-truck which states in part if a definitive plan or a preliminary plan followed within seven months by a definitive plan is submitted to a planning board for approval under the subdivision control law and written notice of such submission of such submission has been given to the city or town clerk before the effective date of the ordinance or bylaw the land shown on such plan shall be governed by the applicable provisions of the zoning ordinance or bylaw if any in effect at the time of the first such submission while such plan or plans are being processed. And then basically, Mr. Mayor, through you to the solicitor, if my understanding is correct, and then it's an eight-year exemption after, if my understanding is correct, this is the one instance where you can apply for something during the public notice period that says this council is going to take a vote that may or may not change zoning. If you apply for a subdivision, you get an eight-year exemption from any zoning change.

Solicitor Williams Thank You mr. Mayor Sort of so yeah, I think at least up to this point my understanding of You know the different court filings that I've read through What it really comes down to is under the subdivision control law, which is chapter 41 section 81 P among others There's under the definition section, it defines what a subdivision actually is or is not. And there's a carve out that for the division of attractive land, if when it's divided, it has frontage on a public way. on both sections of the tract that was divided or subdivided, it actually isn't a subdivision per the definition of the statute. And that is what pulls it away from that 48 Section 6, and that is what puts it into a different section of the subdivision control law, which basically says it becomes by right. The planning board had reached out to us on this. We made it very clear to them that this is a reading of the statute. This is how it works. There wasn't discretion involved in terms of what the planning board would do in that situation after we had discussions about how the statute actually reads. And under chapter 41, section 81 BB, that I think is at the crux of your motion, It's a very high legal standard to meet. It's arbitrary and capricious, meaning that if someone on the city administration side or someone in the city were to bring action against, say, a planning board in this scenario, it would have to be shown that the board exceeded their authority or they acted arbitrarily or capriciously. And I do not believe that is what happened. That would be the advice I would give to the manager if he asked me. So hopefully that's helpful.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, and Mr. City Solicitor, we've talked about this, and I said I am still going to put it in, and we can say that in a meeting, because this is, I think the analogy I said earlier in your office was kind of like watching the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl, and you still get a challenge left, and it might look clear as day, but By God, I'm going to use the challenge and just see because what do I have to lose at this point because this does more or less render all of the work that we just talked about with city staff and the zoning update and what can we do on data centers is largely moot. It doesn't. Maybe it doesn't. I hope it doesn't. I'm hoping that maybe there is some mistake somewhere and there can be an appeal. I think the planning board did everything that they could. I think they acted the way they thought they had to. I don't envy the position they were in. I heard a lot of frustration in the room that night. I think someone said it was the first time in 20 years they asked for a site visit and couldn't get a couple more days to go look. I think they were treated incredibly unfavorably, not neighborly. That doesn't necessarily mean anyone broke a rule. It doesn't necessarily mean that we have any grounds to appeal, but I just thought it was worth looking. And yeah, I guess it's, and if not, just that it is too bad that perhaps this zoning route, I guess I don't know where we go from here, so thank you.

Council Scott. Thank you through to the manager to the city solicitor. My question, I guess, is just around. Well, I guess I'm trying to figure out the motion as far as what basis we have to basically sue. We'd be suing our own planning board. I mean, is that what we'd be doing with the motion? And I guess my question on that, my only question is around the data. I'm still having trouble with the data center applicability for the subdivision plan as far as whether or not it's date of advertisement, as was stated to me, or whether or not it was, as the planning board said during the meeting, they said that it was the date that we voted on it. So there does seem to be a little bit of a disconnect there, what I heard at the meeting and the conversation. So I did want to ask about that.

solicitor williams mr mack can i just add yes council we're getting into specific examples which i don't think are in the motion like i don't know if we should be talking about it on at that point in time but you know it's just there's nothing in here about a pacific meeting or a data center or anything like that and i'm taking the motion as is i mean i appreciate the honesty of council mcdonough saying why he filed it you know but you know i you should be careful thank you

I do think that every motion has a background that's not spelled out in it and it could be said. So I would let City Solicitor answer Council Scott's question.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Councillor Scott, you are correct. When the discussions around the moratorium first came up, as we were working through with 48 CHOP Section 6, it would be at the time of advertisement. Anything after that? the the moratorium would be in place and it would be fine what we learned after the fact which ultimately we learned in land court is that um under the subdivision control law if you go into the definition section what it is that was submitted in this particular you know situation Per the definition, it was not a subdivision. So because it wasn't a subdivision, that then triggers you back to the actual Chapter 4181 of the subdivision control law. And under that, approval is not required for what they were doing there. What wasn't decided and what wasn't litigated at this point was whether or not the zoning was, in fact, frozen for purposes of the moratorium and for purposes of a data center. So that issue itself still has not been resolved. That is still up in the air. If something were to happen in the future to go in that direction, ultimately we would be back at that point. But for now, that hasn't happened and the issue has not been decided.

All set, Council Scott? I'm all set, thank you. Council McDonough?

Thank you. I just one more time want to reiterate that this is first asking for the manager to determine the feasibility and his discretion. So I am still not asking necessarily for anyone to sue the planning board. And I would say, just because we've already spoken about this, think open government is good and it was important that we had the conversation in public as well, is just to the city solicitor, if we could, whether it has to be here or somewhere else, I guess, if we could get some kind of update on where we think we are legally with this moratorium or not, or if that's even still the best tool to be using if we're trying to solve, working towards that original problem that I think was laid out almost seven months ago, and just making sure that we are legally, I guess, not just spinning our wheels on a treadmill, but that we're actually moving in a direction that will result in something meaningful. So that's all. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor McDonough. Councilor Rourke. I'll say it again. I expect a motion as it's filed, and I appreciate the honesty of why it was filed. But this opens up, I think, a whole can of worms. If I'm serving on a land use board, and this passes, and every decision that I make is to be subject to a lawsuit from the city or from I think it defeats the purpose of why they're in place. So I'm not going to vote for this motion. I think it sends a bad message to those who volunteer their time and energy, resources, weekends, evenings to serve our city. If there's a motion that wants to be filed on a specific action that was taken, then file that. But this here, I really think, leads to not the best reputation for the city. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, I'm happy to amend the motion if it would appease Councillor O'Rourke and we can make it about a specific action.

I think that would be up to you whether you want to make a substitute motion but not appease somebody, I think.

No, no, no. I'm saying I think that the context of the motion was fairly targeted. So if it would, you know, the will of the body here, I'm happy to offer an amendment to say request the city manager determine the feasibility of and at his discretion take legal action including the right to appeal basically as written of the decisions at the last planning board meeting however we want to make this is very clearly about the most recent subdivision approval um also not as part of the text of the motion i think based on what the city solicitor just said finding out if it was a subdivision or not it matters right because an anr is three years the subdivision is eight years so

We're getting close to executive session.

Right, Mr. Mayor, so how will we vote in the motion? And then if you want to file a new motion for the next meeting, go right ahead. Yeah, correct. Roll call, please.

Councilor Rook is asking for a roll call. Seconded by Councilor DeCoto. Roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Councilor Lea.

Yes.

Councilor McDonough.

Yes.

Councilor Mercier? No. Councilor Noon? No. Councilor Robinson? No. Councilor Ward?

No.

Councilor Scott? No. Councilor Chau? No. Councilor Decoto? No. Mayor Gitche? No. Councilor Duran? No. Councilor Liang?

Oops, sorry about that.

Motion fails.

Motion fails. Motion to suspend the rules by Councilor Mercier. Seconded by Councilor Noon. Take 9.7 out of order. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 9.7 miscellaneous. David Traynor requests to address the City Council regarding use of AI flock cameras throughout the city.

There's the petitioners here.

Can you state your name and address for the record, please?

Hi, David Traynor, 1189 Bridge Street in Lowell. So, hi, I'm David Traynor. I'm here to discuss the flock cameras that have popped up all over Lowell. For those of you who might not know, since early 2026, Lowell has installed about 50 cameras all across Lowell. Well, mostly across Lowell. I'll get to that in a minute. Since these flock cameras are a hot topic across the country, I won't really get into the privacy issues, surveillance, and allowing a billion-dollar AI company to keep tabs and information about the Lowell citizens. Instead, I'll address another question, which is, do these cameras actually solve the issue that they were installed for, which is crime? I believe the goal is to reduce crime, and we need to address these conditions that produce crime, not simply give the police another tool that may as well be very dangerous to investigate crime instead of preventing crime from happening. So just a quick backstory on my history. My great-grandmother came from Canada in the 1920s. She worked all her working life at the Lowell Mills. And when she passed away in the 1980s, Lowell was pretty in a rough spot. All the mills had picked up and moved overseas, leaving behind fewer job opportunities, more crime and less opportunity, and drugs. Today, Lowell is very different. And that didn't happen because we put cameras on every single street corner. That happened because Lowell invested in itself. Institutes like UMass Lowell have brought major investments and opportunity to the city. Leaders like Paul Saugus and Marty Behan have also stepped up Lowell's economic development. And we're still seeing investment today. Like I just read in the Lowell Sun that Draper is investing $105 million into their Lowell laboratory. That's excellent. That kind of investment matters. When people have jobs and financial stabilities to build towards a legitimate path in life, they're less likely to do crime. We can see this with the rich neighborhood of Belvedere, where you'll see on the DFLOC map online that there's not a single camera in Belvedere. There's one on Andover Street, and it's pointing outwards, away from the city. So that's the only camera in that area. But there's plenty of them in Centerville and downtown Lowell, where there's poor people. So when someone feels like they have no legitimate path in life, they don't really seem to care. And that's why they commit crime. And no camera on a street corner is going to produce a path for them to make a better life. So I ask the council to think beyond surveillance when it comes to dealing with crime. Because Lowell has already shown that if you invest in the community, there's less crime and more uh economic development uh so invest in lowell uh not flock and i also ask that you guys take a vote and let this uh the citizens decide whether they want to be monitored by a private ai company that's my speech thank you council dakota thank you mr mayor i see that the superintendent's here i wonder if he could come to the lectern for a moment

Chief, if you could just give us basically an update of what's going on with the cameras. Was the speaker correct that we have 50 or more cameras? And just where we are right now with locked cameras.

So the Lowell Police Department has, we're under contract for, I believe, 25 cameras at this point. I believe DPW also had some cameras that were being monitored for illegal dumping locations. And I don't have the exact number on that.

How's it going with the cameras?

Fantastic. I would agree with the speaker on a lot of points. I love crime prevention. And until the point comes that we can eradicate crime, I absolutely love the flock cameras as a tool for solving crimes that may not otherwise be solved. And I can give you over a dozen examples in the city alone. And one very recently, we had a hit and run on the Pawtucket Boulevard, and but for the flock camera, that person's death may have gone unsolved. The license plate technology has been here for years. It has evolved. The current company we are using is called Flock. And I think with any technology, it's very important that as we become more aware and more familiar with these things, that we have proper guardrails in place to make sure that there are privacy concerns. I'd love to have the debate or have the conversation. We're very concerned about it. And that's why we're always updating and looking at our policies so that they're in the best practices with the technology that's coming. This is a very new technology. We're seeing it played out nationally and on the TV about some of the concerns and that's why we are internally discussing this and looking at our own policy to make any corrections for safeguards. I think one of the positive notes that you're seeing right now, why you're hearing about it is because of those safeguards and because people are being held accountable for misuse of any technology. We have a lot of databases that we use and we have to monitor and what we do is we call them audits. to make sure that they're being used appropriately. And this is another technology, and we do conduct audits to make sure it's being used appropriately in the city of Lowell.

Appreciate it, Chief. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Dakota. Council McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I believe, well, I don't believe, I know, I think I put in a motion asking for all of this information maybe two and a half, three months ago. And I know I just want to, through you, Mr. Mayor, thank the manager. talked about it a couple of times. Still, I guess, awaiting. Glad to hear tonight, Chief, that somewhere at 25 for the police department, somewhere north of 25, because DPW has some as well. I would still very much appreciate the information in a motion response. And then the only thing I would add is I think I understand that the automatic license plate readers are a tool. And I've seen some positive press about the way LPD has been able to use them. But I think in looking at other communities attempts to either update language or to get vendors that are a little bit more congruent with community values, that that would be a useful thing for us to do is to just try and get an understanding of what other products are out there, what other communities near us are doing, because this really does seem to be, this company in particular seems to be one that many communities around us are having a very similar issue with and are taking steps to address it, so thank you.

You already had your chance to speak. So, Council Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do have a question for the Chief. I thought we did receive a response on the flock cameras, but we had a report on them a while back, but I don't know if it was before the motion that Council McDonough made, but my question is around so i know when when a background check is done if an officer pulls a background check there's data you know a system to kind of make sure that data is being accessed that should be accessed um does that same type of system work with flock like that they're you know a report that's you know showing who's being tagged and who's being whose data is being pulled because we're seeing this issue obviously you know with misuse and abuse of the system

and i just want to know what lowell's doing to make sure that we're auditing a flock camera so as part of our policy we which we're again flock is changing some of their their um their usage uh they're going to require they're going to go from a records retention of 30 days to seven days they're also going to change a few other things which is why we're going to revisit our policy in january to make sure that we're doing as much as we can to catch any misuse And this is very, very similar to what you just referenced. Like, you mentioned background investigations. We use what's called NCIC, which is a national database. Again, that's a database that has to be monitored. We've had several instances in the city in the past where it's been misused, and that goes to the... You know, if there's a public complaint that's filed, we'll investigate it. And when it's determined that a product or a technology is being misused and not for a legitimate law enforcement purpose, then we'll take appropriate action. Whether it's NCIC or FLOC, that's what happens. And we will be looking at our policy with FLOC.

And I'm sorry, one more comment. So, and with that policy, I mean, if someone is caught accessing information that they shouldn't be accessing, I mean, how is that handled right now? Is that like an immediate termination? Is that, because it should be, in my opinion, if you're pulling data that you should.

I, I think the city solicitor would agree that I wouldn't, I wouldn't, um, speculate in, in, uh, an immediate punishment. I would have to look at the.

The case and the facts of every, but do we have policies written around accessing this data? I guess is my question.

I could say if it's NCIC counselor that, um, they would probably revoke the access of, of a police officer. If they can't access information or hear Corey information, I would say that, yeah, they, they can't really do their job as a police officer. So that would probably lead to a termination.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Scott. Councillor Yang.

Thank you. My question is, I guess around auditing as well, is that does all the officers have access to the camera and how is the chain of command work? Would they have to go through you or their supervisor first before they have access to it or they just can do that at any time?

All of my officers have access to the flock system. They all have unique identification within that system. So we're able to tell who's accessed what. And let me just say, we're not tracking any, we're not even accessing this data unless there's a crime a legitimate law enforcement purpose such as a missing person, a stolen vehicle, any type of legitimate law enforcement purpose. We're not putting in Greg Hudon's license plate and just seeing where it hits. That's not how this system's used in the city. And I forget, did I answer the right, yes, so everybody has access to the system, police officers, and yes, we have a supervisor who is an administrator who will go in and do an audit And right now it's once a year. We're talking about maybe doing it biannually or maybe quarterly. And then referencing and checking those searches to make sure they are for legitimate law enforcement purposes. And that's where people are getting jammed up is they're putting in ex-spouses or ex-girlfriends and not legitimate purposes. And that's what we want to make sure we're using them for. Okay.

I'm assuming that there's evaluation done and there's so far so good?

Yes, we haven't had any issues.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Leeann. Council Duran.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think one of the concerns about these cameras in particular is the aggregation of the data across the country. So just monitoring what a Lowell police officer does is only the tip of the iceberg. If there is a police officer anywhere in the country who can access information about a Lowell resident,

we have no way of auditing that so that's the concern and i don't know how we can address that internally superintendent mr mayor so we have the ability to restrict sharing within that program within that technology which we have done We share with our local community members, Tewksbury, Dracut, Champs, locally, but we don't necessarily have to share nationally. It's one of the options that we can select or deselect. The other thing I'd just like to point out is that when... I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this. So the information that is searched isn't PII, personal identifiable information. It's a picture of a plate or a vehicle or an identifying characteristic of a car that's being searched. So the flock isn't necessarily tied to the CGIS database. In other words, if I'm doing a search, I find a vehicle of interest, I then have to go and do more investigative work to find out who the person is. I have to submit it to NCIC to get that PII information of who the vehicle is registered to and where.

I mean, I think from everything I've read, it sounds like Flock is using AI to actually identify individuals. And it may be doing that on its own, but that data exists, and Lowell data is feeding into that system. So I think, first of all, it sounds like we have the ability to restrict what information is sent to is basically aggregated as part of the national database and i i think we either need to make that happen or understand why the we are not making it happen we need to make the public aware of what those guide rail guard rails are that we are implementing and where we aren't implementing them. Because I appreciate that there is value at times in having these tools, but having the tools able to be misused by other users that we and you don't control is, I think, the concern of many people in the public.

Should this be something that you want to send to the public safety subcommittee?

I think, yes. I would make a motion that the public safety subcommittee talk about this in more depth and understand the parameters and uses and the value, too, because I think that's an important part of this discussion.

Chief, I guess my only question to that is, should this be done in executive session so that certain things that are going to be said should be contained to privacy?

I would recommend that just because I don't know what questions you're going to ask and there's certain operational security things that I would be concerned about. And then you can, as a body, decide to release whatever you want.

So if the public safety subcommittee could meet in executive session, then that would be a...

is that permitted under the executive session rules though i just don't know no i don't think so i worried that solicitor williams thank you mr mayor uh i think it would be more appropriate for the entire body to meet uh an executive session and then from there we can kind of game plan something that maybe is a little more appropriate for public and what shouldn't be

OK, so I'll amend the motion so that we have the entire council rather than just the public safety subcommittee discuss this.

Chief, how long before we could have information that we could go into an executive session to discuss this stuff? Would it be two weeks from today would be OK? So would that be suffice?

I think, well, two weeks from today is, I think, a challenge.

Okay, so the meeting after. Before the end of September. Would that work?

I mean, fine with me.

So a motion by Councilor Duran to go into executive session to talk about flock canvas before the end of September.

Yeah, so I guess the September 22nd meeting would be our next meeting thereafter. Yep. If that works.

Seconded by Councilor Ducoteau. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Going back to the Council motions. 5.3, Councilor McDonough requests the City Manager to work with the appropriate departments to provide the Council with a report on all available options, including those granted to the Board of Health by MGL 111S31C regarding regulations of industry within the City of Lowell. Said report should include local options for water use, fuel storage, and electrical infrastructure, as well as air, noise, light, and water pollution, and potential public health impacts. Seconded by Council Scott. Council McDonald.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This motion actually comes out of a good amount of work. I want to give them a plug that a bunch of kids at Project Learn had done as part of their externship program. They put together a whole presentation of lots of potentially creative non-zoning kind of what can a municipality do? I thought it was an interesting question to get them to spend a week on, and they did a decent amount of work. I'm curious to see what from their work actually translates to the real world um but but through that uh and talked to the law office about this there was a highlighting of mass general law 111 31c which gives boards of health a lot more power than i ever realized they may or may not have um and i think especially in light of the the possibility of that the zoning moratorium and any zoning changes at all, never mind just data centers, any industrial use changes that come out of this zoning audit are at this point kind of up in the air on any of the industrial parcels that have been subdivided or ANR'd for any reason. And so I think just kind of taking a holistic view beyond zoning and seeing what else the city can do is a good idea. So thank you.

favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 5.1 council mcdonough request a city manager work with the appropriate department to provide the city council with a summary of mass general law chapter 268a as it pertains to any former city councils appearing before the city council on behalf of a client said report should consider a hypothetical situation in which the client had business before the city city council when the former counselor was a member seconded by Council Yang Council McDonald

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do want to just start. I'm going to immediately offer a substitute motion. I wrote it twice, and I submitted one that was far too specific. The substitute motion reads exactly the same as the current. It just strikes city council and city councilor and replaces with a public body member. So that way, the report can pertain to any of the city's boards, commissions, city council, school committee. I'm sure any number of people, I've heard some people are upset. Not in any way targeted. I've been to a few License Commission meetings recently and started doing some Googling and there's a surprising amount of attorneys who used to be on the License Commission who now occasionally represent clients in front of the License Commission. The same thing is true at the Zoning Board of Appeals, the same thing can be true for the City Council. I know that the Law Department is currently going through, and the Rules Subcommittee has reviewed once now, a little handbook outlining kind of all of the rules for public body members in the City of Lowell. I think that 268 is someone who had to call the lawyer of the day every week for quite a few weeks before I left Lowell High School. It's not always the easiest thing to understand. I understand that it is between an individual and the Ethics Board, but I think a short summary kind of piece would help both members of public bodies and also the general public in understanding who's allowed to say what and when, and that's all. So, thank you.

Thank you, Council McDermott and Council Scott.

Thank you, Mister mayor. Um, I just have a question around this. So I believe this is handled by the ethics board. Um, and my question is when we, when a board or a commission or anything gets appointed, are they given like the rules of, you know, like the, are they doing the ethics training, I guess, and everything like that. And this would pertain to the ethics training that is required. Is that solicitor Williams?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, with any board member, the same requirements as they relate to 268A are going to apply. I think it's every two years that you have to re-up that training, and everyone is subject to that.

It talks about the forever ban and the time limits, and I guess it's the training. And I've done the training. I just can't remember if it's that thorough that it goes through all of this and

so i think too um i'm not sure who mentioned at this point but um as a part of uh reworking all the boards and commissions um you know there will be a handout for everyone and there will be a section in there specifically on 268a that we will uh sort of cut and paste and put together with the Instead of just giving a blanket copy of the statute, try and break off the sections and be a little more detail-oriented as to scenarios that, you know, whether it's a city councilor or a public board member will run into, because typically you find yourself running into the same, the problems or issues that come up tend to be reoccurring. So I think if we can focus on that as a part of this sort of reworking of the boards and commissions, I think that'll be helpful.

So in this motion, I guess it's really just asking for a summary of what the law is. So if we could receive in conjunction with this, you know, what we're providing to boards and commissions to inform them as far as their responsibilities under the ethics law and how we're keeping that up to date, like the requirements, how we're keeping track of the employees taking the testing and everything like that, that would be something I'd appreciate. Thank you. Sure.

All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 5.5, Councilor Scott, request the city manager have the appropriate department provide midpoint updates on low forward short term goals years one to five, seconded by Councilor Noon. Councilor Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So we voted for our master the low forward plan, May 6 2024. In the plan, there were quite a few items that were near term goals that said zero to five years. And we're coming up to the midpoint period of that time right now. So I'm really just looking to see if we can get you know, an update of what's been accomplished, what's you're working on what you think is going to maybe bump out a little further out. So just to get an update for the council that we're on track. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Scott. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 5.6, Council Scott, I request the City Manager have the appropriate department provide status of culvert safety inspections and cleaning citywide, seconded by Council O'Rourke. Council Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So a few years back, we had the culvert that was blocked on Circuit Ave that caused a lot of issues for a lot of residents, and it cost a lot of people a lot of money due to that culvert backing up. So I really just wanted to see where we are with doing inspections across the city on the culverts. And then now we've also had, we had the Borica Street culvert fail, closed down through traffic on the road. And now we've had the Woobin Street culvert fail, which now, you know, we're not having buses and trucks go down Woobin Street, a major major route in the city. So I feel like we really need to get ahead of this. And I just want to know what we're doing across the city to make sure that we're on track and we're looking for funding as well through the state, I would imagine. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Scott. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 5.7, Councilor Chau. Councilor Scott requests the City Manager direct the appropriate department to inspect and repair the lighting at the tennis pickleball courts at the Butler Middle School. No seconder needed. Councilor Chau.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. A group of pickleball athletes were concerned about the lights not working. They were looking for the councillor. The councillor was in Ireland for a couple of days, so I decided to put this motion on her behalf. The motion really speaks for itself. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Chow. Councillor Scott?

Motion speaks for itself.

Wow, you guys are great. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so we're on a roll now. 5.9, may I get your request as city manager, provide a report to the city council as soon as possible. All calls to the police department for 189 East Merrimack Street. The dates of the calls and the reports on file over the last year, seconded by Councilor Duran. motion speaks for itself unless manager did you want to wait till next to the report later okay thank you all right all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 6.2 informational reports information report low 2026 bond rating mr manager

thank you very much mr mayor three to the council um i'm gonna let our cfo discuss that 6.2 bond rating that's okay apologize we're just a little uh shifting gears here bouncing around that's what happens when we jump around this kind of forgot where we're from we've been jumping mr cfo

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, and I'll be brief, but I wanted to provide the council with information relative to a successful bond sale we had just recently. So the information included in the packet provides information about the purposes that were part of the bond. Issued on August 11, our rating, the underlying rating was AA minus, but we received a AA plus rating by using the state's Qualified Bond Act and using the state's credit rating as the primary rating. A lot of really important capital projects were financed by this. The credit rating that was a part of the bond sale highlighted some of the strengths in the city's financial management. We wanted to put that forward as a report of progress. There are some other words of wisdom that always come as part of the credit rating reports and things that Standard, Moody's, Fitch look for in terms of how to improve credit, maintain credit, one being by building and maintaining and trying to build reserves, as well as Things that are not as much in the city's control, like the economy, etc. We do benefit as being part of the Boston metro and the Nashua statistical area. But overall, the rating, I'm sorry, excuse me, the interest rate on the bond was very competitive. We had a lot of bids on the bond, which is good news. These The rate was around 4%, although it varies by purpose. We did use $2 million of the premium to reduce the PAR value with the risk of getting in the weeds a little bit. That does reduce the debt service that comes on the city's books, so it is a benefit to the taxpayers by doing that. You know, we are coming towards the tail end of issuing debt for the high school, but there was $25 million worth of high school debt as part of the overall bond. And so that will start to come on the city's books over the next few years. I'd be happy to answer any questions that the council may have, but this is a report of progress. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, CFO Baldwin. Councilor Decoto.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Kudos to you, Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Ball. Outstanding job keeping our credit up there. Plus, we have a $12.3 million of unused levy capacity, and I believe we're right around $17 million in cash reserves. Would that be approximately right?

CFO Baldwin.

Thank you. That is correct. So the cash reserves are in the neighborhood of 17 million. The credit rating agencies do look at our excess levy capacity as a form of reserve. That's the difference between the tax levy and the levy limit. So that amount that's essentially left on the table, so to speak. They do see as a reserve in our ability to maintain and to make payments on debt service in the future that may be increased from our current level. So they look at it as a reserve. Over time, as we build more debt in from the high school, that will be reduced. But we do have a comfortable amount there. So that's correct, Counselor. Well done. Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Ducoteau. Mr. Manager, you also, you did a great job. I know you take the hits. You might as well get the praise, too. Motion to accept him. He already said it. He said it. He said it already. Councilor DeCoto said it. Yep. You take the hits too, Austin. I don't know how you stay standing. Motion to accept in place on file by Councilor Rook, seconded by Councilor DeCoto. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. Information report FY2026, Snow Ice Update Finance Plan. CFO Baldwin.

Thank you again, Mr. Mayor, and as another report for the Council to consider, this is more in-depth information that we've provided on the historical snow and ice spending. From where I sit, it was a Difficult year for snow. It may not have seemed as much but Financially speaking it does cost a lot of money to address the snow and ice during the season even if there isn't a lot of By measure of inches snowfall it costs a lot of money to put the salt down to keep the trucks running Etc. Some of the highlights from the report that I'll just mention is that there was special legislation passed by the state as part of the the budget chapter 101 of the acts of 2026 which does allow communities in Massachusetts to amortize the snow and ice deficit over a period of three years. That has happened a number of times in the past. It is an option available to us, but it is not a requirement. We're putting it forward. in this informational item for discussion or deliberation by the council, we did assume in the budget that we would absorb the entire $3 million of the deficit by raising it on the tax rate in FY2027. So amortizing it over three years would lessen the burden in FY27. However, we would This may be obvious, but it would add it to the tax bills in 2028 and 2029. There is also information in here about additional funding that was made available called the RAP program. This is something that the state has done to provide relief for communities in the past. It can be used for filling potholes. It can be used for road paving. It can also be used for reducing the deficit. It is the finance department's recommendation that we stick with what was planned in the budget, but we're happy to hear the thoughts and concerns of the council before. Just one final, the sort of decision point is that if the city is to amortize the debt, that does have to happen by a vote of the council, and that has to happen before we set the 2027 tax rate, which would be sometime in November. So I'm happy to answer any questions that the council may have about that.

Council Robinson.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for this report to one of the things that that it's wild is our expense from last year on contract services that that is that number is significant. ARE WE LOOKING AT ANY POTENTIAL WAYS IN THE FUTURE TO TRY TO LIMIT THAT THAT CONTRACTED SERVICES I MEAN YOU'RE TALKING A 1.4 MILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT JUST FROM LAST YEAR ON CONTRACTED OLD SERVICES IT'S IT'S THAT'S Have we sat down with the different labor groups and almost offered training and rework that went through Operation Call Enlist and see if you pick up additional bodies or man or woman power in that way because that's significantly cheaper than the 1.4 deficit. If we can open it up, I KNOW AT ONE POINT IN TIME WE WOULD GO THROUGH DIFFERENT PHASES OF CALLING WHERE, YOU KNOW, DPW, IT'S THEIR WORK. STEP TWO WOULD BE DPW'S ALL IN. WE GO OUTSIDE DPW WITH LICENSES. STEP THREE WOULD BE OUTSIDE DPW IN GENERAL. MAYBE YOU PUT IN SOMEONE THAT WORKS IN Treasurer's or clerk's office that may be interested in in a one-ton vehicle they have the regular the license I mean anything we can do to try to bring that that number down and increase the the man and woman power I think is is a wise move thank you Council Robinson manager Golden

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Through you to the council. Council, we are looking at this and all ideas will be gladly accepted. We've increased the emergency stipend. I think this council, the previous council, the council before has been extremely generous with getting our employees what I, you know, the pay that I think they deserve. And with the emergency stipend, we've increased that. And just for the edification of the folks at home, when someone's called in, and I'm just going to use a, for instance, a 10 p.m. at night, they would be receiving time and a half plus an additional emergency stipend, which at this point in time is an additional $6 an hour. We have almost every piece of equipment that we can. put out on the road at a time, not always, but most of the time. And I just don't know. This is something we have been looking at. I just don't know if the Bringing in the contractors, I'd prefer not to. But quite frankly, they've saved our bacon more than once, to be honest with you. And I don't know if we would have the ability to have the number of vehicles year round. Some of those heavy vehicles, two of them just came in. I can remember when I purchased them, or the council purchased them, I should say, when I first got here. They just got here. So it's taken, you know, some of these heavy vehicles that are going up and down some of our bigger hills, bigger streets. I believe the concept of six wheelers and some of them are eights. But those are big pieces of equipment that only specialists can really purchase. We have we do utilize them through the summer and the spring. on occasion but having that type of um that type of vehicle uh is extremely expensive so we find that it's a little bit i think you know to have them on call coming in but all ideas you know i don't think it's the financing i don't think it's the the money that we've we've given to the employees because i think we've been very generous with that You've done it. I've done it. I know there's other folks that have done plowing in their world. It is a difficult, difficult job. And I think there's a lot of folks that choose not to, to say the least. But if there's an employee listening tonight that said, hey, I want to be on that list, would gladly take them and deal with the the CBA and the unions, but the unions have been pretty flexible in and around this. It seems like we get nailed once in a while, but it's those small one, two inches, which we're putting a lot of product on the ground to try to melt it, and we do utilize some of our outside contractors for that stuff. I wish we could do it inside. I just don't know, to be quite frank, how to get that all with all of the equipment as well as all of the personnel we would need to fulfill that.

thank you and and again I'm not trying to get into upper daily operation or how you manage the storms I'm just saying that that's a significant number the 1.5 deficit uh total 2.1 on contracted services that I do understand contracted services are definitely necessary um I just think if we could take a look at that it'd be something worthwhile thank you

Thank you, Council Robinson, Council Dakota.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. In an attempt to minimize the impact on our taxpayer, I agree with the finance team that we should go with the option two rather than the option one, which is another close to $80 hit. I think going with the $25 for the next three years might help the taxpayers. I don't know if that needs a vote, Mr. Mayor.

Maybe we're going to have a great winter this winter and we don't need any of the money and it'll pay itself off.

But then again, if we do have a surplus in another area, we could repay that. Mr. CFO, can we do that? Yeah, that's what they do.

Okay, that's fine.

But do we have to vote on an option here tonight? Option one or option two or not?

It's informational. CFO Baldwin.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We would bring back a vote that we would put on the agenda to amortize the deficit if that were the wish of the council. We wouldn't have the council take a voice vote on the plan today. This is just informational to set the stage. Based on the discussion here, if the will of the council is to amortize the deficit, we would bring back a vote to lay that out in the wording of the vote.

Councilor Duran.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So we have already told residents that the tax rate will go up by about 4.6% this year. I thought I heard earlier that that assumes that we will cover the deficit this year. Is that correct, or am I misunderstanding that piece of it? CFO Baldwin.

To clarify, what you said is correct, but the amount raised would be in excess of 4.6% is the increase to the levy. The snow and ice deficit would be added on to that. So I suppose you could make the argument that the increase is more than 4.6% with the snow and ice deficit. The amount that was planned in the budget for the increase to the levy from taxes was 4.6%. We did show in the forecast and in the budget raising the additional amount on the tax rate, and that is in addition to the 4.6%.

And what would be the rate increase under each of the two proposals, doing it all in one year or doing it over the three years? Because I think the residents should know that.

We've estimated that the difference in the impact to the average single family home is about $52. So by raising it in full in 2027, that component would be somewhere in the neighborhood of approximately $77. And by amortizing it over three years, in each one of those years, it would be about $25 per year.

Understood. I was just trying to understand the percentage, though. Like is it going from 4.6% to 4.7% or to 5% or it's like minuscule?

It would be de minimis as a percentage, like compounded into a percentage. I'd want a second to do the math.

No, I understand. But that's helpful to get that context. Because I do think what has been conveyed to the public is important. Then I had sort of other questions, because you also, I think, proposed in here potentially increasing the snow and ice budget going forward based on the four-year average, which I think is independent of how we're going to deal with the deficit from this past winter. But you haven't talked about that, so I want to get into that a bit to understand the reasons for doing that. Thank you.

if obon thank you mr mayor so there there is in the report a recommendation uh to increase the snow and the base of the snow and ice budget and it does bear some explanation for the the counselor those uh who may be new to this but also to the public more importantly that the reason why communities in massachusetts can do this is mass general law chapter 44 section 31d it is a rule that you cannot spend more than you are appropriated. That is a general rule. It makes a lot of sense. The exception to that is for emergencies. That is what this statute speaks to. The one that comes up all the time is snow and ice. It also applies to hurricanes or natural disasters, et cetera. But snow and ice is what we deal with in Massachusetts. So in order to be eligible to deficit spend, you have to meet certain criteria under the statute. You have to spend it on the appropriate things, number one. And number two, you have to budget at least as much as you budgeted in the year before. If you meet those two criteria, you're eligible for deficit spending. So I offered, the finance department offered this recommendation because we've been at this budgeted amount for many, many years. As long as I've been doing this job, we've been budgeting $1.35 million. I think we got to that level sometime, I was working here but not in this job, 2012-ish, we went up to the 1.35. The danger there from a policy perspective is once you go up, you can never go back. So if we were to raise the budget to, say, $2 million, and it doesn't snow at all next year, then it was all for naught. So that is the risk. But based on the average and the amount of time that has elapsed, and there's a chart in the report that demonstrates the data historically, we need to raise the baseline. And so the proposal, and this is independent from what we're talking about of FY 2026, We are now in FY2027, so there's nothing we can do about the FY2027 budget. But it is worth considering and likely what will be proposed in future budgets is an increase to the DPW snow and ice budget in FY28, 29, et cetera, in incremental amounts, not to bite it all off in one chew, but over the next several years to increase that amount incrementally over those years. So that is a summary of that component of the report. I hope that's helpful.

No, that is helpful. The proposal seemed to be to base it on the last four-year average. And to me, that seems high in light of the fact that we had a very tough year this year, which has not been the case in past years. In fiscal year 25, we were only above that average by $75,000. This year, it was substantial. But if we use that average and we can't move that money elsewhere. Like once it's, you know, kind of committed to snow and ice, if it can't be used for anything else, then we I think we've over will have over budgeted. So I think maybe if I understand the reason for trying to project more appropriately going forward. But given that, you know, disadvantage, I would maybe not go or I would suggest that you think about some less steep curve for that. Thank you. Thank you, Council Duran.

Council Robinson.

thank you real quick mr mayor um with snow and ice again it's it's we see it's going to be after the rap kicked in you're looking at about 2.5 um a 77 increase on the family tax bill for the year i would advise against um i mean you know the running joke i'd love to be a weatherman because you can get it wrong and and still keep a job so if you try to carry over this deficit and for whatever reason you get hit with another severe winter and and people have to be aware as was briefly touched on it's not just about cumulative totals you could have 65 black ice situations where hills are completely iced out and you're going out dropping material that's still going to jack this price up especially where it's special equipment specialized equipment going on on the hills so to gamble play that game and and say okay let's kick this can down the road and spread it out over three years you get three consecutive years of a lot of call outs and now you find yourself in a tough situation and and again all the costs are going up between fuel salt you name it so i mean I think I would really caution my colleagues to really dissect this report again back at home, and I would reach out to the CFO and pick his brain about what this looks like, because I don't know how many seasons you've been doing this for through the winters, and you've seen all kind of variances. So I just wanted to highlight that. Thank you.

You can end up with the same bill as the health care if you keep pushing this off. Motion to accept and place on file by Councilor Noon, seconded by Councilor Mercy. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. 6.4, communication manager request for approval of one out of state travel.

Could we bundle those three communications?

Sure. Two, right? Two out of state. It'll only take us a minute to go through them quick.

6.4 communication measure request for approval of one out-of-state travel manager's department city council motion to adopt by council mercy is seconded by council noon any questions on it roll call council yeah yes council mcdonough yes council mercia yes council noon yes council robinson yes council rourke yes council scott yes council chow yes council dakota yes mayor gitche yes council durian

yes thank you mr clerk 6.5 communications city manager request one out of state travel management department motion adopt by council of rook seconded by council of dakota anything on it Roll call.

Council Leung. Yes. Council McDonough. Yes. Council Mercier. Yes. Council Noon. Yes. Council Robinson. Yes. Council Rourke. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chau. Yes. Council Decoto. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Council Duran.

Yes. 6.6 communication resignation of Malika Tang from the Council on Aging. Motion to accept by Councilor Noon, seconded by Councilor Chau. Motion to accept and place on file. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed, so ordered. Eight reports of subcommittee. Can we push this off till two weeks from today?

Yes, that'd be great.

Thank you. Motion to push 8.1 and 8.2 off until two weeks from today by Councilor Duran, seconded by Councilor Decoto. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 8.3, wire inspector reports. One, Boston Gas requests replacement of 180 feet of existing low pressure gas main on Florence Ave. Two, Boston Gas requests replacement of 270 feet of existing low-pressure gas main on Nottingham Street. And three, in Thompson Court. Three, Boston Gas requests replacement of 590 feet of existing low-pressure gas main on Marshall and McIntyre Streets. Four, National Grid requests installation of one jail pole at 93 Mammoth Road. five national grid request installation one jail pole at 117 to 125 perry street and six national grid request installation of conduit to energize new transform at 1365 middlesex street motion to accept and adopt orders by council mcdonough seconded by council yang all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered nine petitions 9.1 claims two property damage motion referred to law department report and recommendation by council of dakota seconded by council of robinson all in favor signify by saying aye 9.2 miscellaneous dan is very request installation of handicap parking sign at 15 watson street motion refer the transportation engineer for report and recommendation by council of rook seconded by council liang all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 9.3 miscellaneous luzz material request installation of a handicap parking sign at 9 bower street motion refer to transportation engineer for report and recommendation by council charles seconded by council dakota all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 9.4 miscellaneous Carolyn Burnett requests installation of a handicapped parking sign at 19 Washington Street. Motion to refer to transportation engineer for report and recommendation by Councilor Noon, seconded by Councilor McDonough. All in favor signify by saying aye. 9.5 miscellaneous Carolyn Burnett requests removal of handicapped parking sign located at 7 Arthur Street. Motion to refer to transportation engineer for recommendation and report by Councilor Robinson, seconded by Councilor Scott. All in favor, signify by saying aye. 9.6, miscellaneous. Andrea St. Orange requests installation of a no parking from here to corner sign at 156 Gershom Ave. Motion to refer to transportation engineer for report and recommendation by Councilor DeCotto, seconded by Councilor Liang. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? So ordered. 9.8 national grid request installation of new utility pole at 26 cattle have give first reading motion to refer to public hearing on september 8 2026 at 7 pm by councillor robinson seconded by council rook all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered 9.9 boston gas request to replace the old cast iron gas main with new plastic main on middlesex street from march street to sanders street give first reading motion to refer to a public hearing on september 8th 2026 at 7 pm by councillor scott seconded by councillor liang all in favor signify by saying aye any announcements wow that was quick both of you cfo baldwin CFO Baldwin, go ahead. Councilor Duran.

Okay, thank you. Well, maybe not an announcement, but wanted to thank the city for, I think, finishing the work on the construction right out here on Merrimack Street and the new parking on Cardinal O'Connell Parkway, the diagonal parking is really amazing. I think we did get more spots than before. I do want to just let the public know that if you are coming up Cardinal O'Connell Parkway from Market to Merrimack Street, you now can only make a right turn. It's painted on the street. There's not a sign, but it's painted on the street, so you can't make the left turn. So folks should be aware that that's a new, that's a change. Thank you.

And the other thing is we're parking the wrong way when we have to park facing towards City Hall on coming up. But yes. Anyway. Who else? CFO Baldwin.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, and I beg your indulgence. I'll be brief. I just wanted to point out and recognize and thank our local finance Commonwealth Fellowship fellow, Mr. Heat Shah, who's been sitting here with us for a number of weeks. This is his last meeting, and he's going off onto bigger and better things. It has been a great partnership between us and the Department of Revenue. He has been able to be embedded with a number of the finance departments, learned a lot, but we learned a lot from him. He's a whiz with AI, so he's taught us a lot about applications that may be useful in municipal government. So I just wanted to recognize and thank him for his time. So thank you.

Mr. Mayor, if I could, I also want to say thank you very much to Heat for everything that he's really brought into the office. Talk about an impressive young man that we hope to have back in years to come. He's somebody that has really learned every aspect of government and even learned a little bit today about Run DMC. So that was good. And we got Heat listening to Run DMC from the 80s and the 90s. So any of you folks that want to give him some good music choices, he'll pay attention. So great job, Heat. Thank you.

just just don't dance like the manager did just to me were you in the office when i was showing him how to cut a rug motion to adjourn by council of mercy a seconded by council rook all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered oh boy

Thank you.