City Council - Regular Meeting

14th regular meeting medford city council august 4th 2026 is called to order mr clerk please call the roll council kelly council lemming president councilman council scapelli council is saying president vice president lazaro and president pierce present seven present none none absent the meeting is called to order please rise to salute the flag Announcements accolades remembrances reports and records to 6135 offered by Council Vice President Lazaro. Resolution and remembrance of john westwater whereas john westwater lived on usher road steps from the West Medford train station. He taught middle school at St joseph's in Medford for many years, whereas his affectionate nickname was Mr sister his favorite hobbies were camping and going for walks he loved nature his home in his neighborhood and. Whereas on July 20th, an Amtrak train was passing through West Medford train station just down the street from where John lived. He was crossing the tracks and was hit. John died from his injuries. He was 77 years old. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we share our deepest condolences with Mr. Westwater's family and loved ones and express our hope that this senseless tragedy will not be in vain and will not be repeated. Be it further resolved that we will work with the MBTA and Amtrak A quasi-governmental corporation created by Congress in 1970 to preserve inner-city passenger rail to make sorely needed safety improvements to the West Medford Commuter and Amtrak stations so this will never happen again. Council Vice President Lazaro.

Thank you. A year and a half ago, I wrote a very similar condolence resolution to this about Dan Dill, who lived very close to where I live now. And he was walking his dog across Mystic Valley Parkway. And then I wrote a very similar resolution to this a couple months after that about Arthur Weber, who was crossing a street on a morning walk. And now I wrote about John Westwater. He lived in Medford for a very long time, and he taught Marilungo Kern at St. Joe's. And I spoke with his sister this week, last week, and she told me that he used to volunteer every week at St. Francis House, which is a shelter in Boston, which is actually where I work now. And she is donating his clothes to the clothing room at the shelter where I'm there all the time. John lived right at usher road which had for a long time before they made some changes to the station what's called a desire path from the end of usher road up to the train station and across the tracks, there was a hole in the fence and there was a dirt path up the sort of hill. And people would just walk across the tracks. So I take the train actually every day from West Medford, that train station, to Boston to go to St. Francis House. When I come home, everybody who gets off the train just walks straight across the tracks, not on a concrete path, not at the crossing where the cars stop. And I did it today. You walk on the train tracks because West Medford has an at-grade train station. And when John Westwater was crossing, he was going to get, he was going to Magnificent Muffin, according to his sister. And Amtrak trains come through. They don't stop at the station. So they're still investigating exactly what happened. But he was hit by the Amtrak train. He died from his injuries. And John was in the early stages of dementia and was a very vulnerable person because of that. There are a lot of vulnerable people in that neighborhood, older people and children and people with disabilities. And I believe it is the obligation of people in government to make sure that infrastructure exists to prevent vulnerable people from experiencing an accident that is avoidable. So even if he crossed the train tracks where he shouldn't have, that should not have been easy. And we should make it our business to prevent that from happening. so um i've been in conversation with our state rep who represents that part of medford uh sean garbally and he told me he was speaking with the mbta about having a meeting and they offered him a date to have a meeting that was months away and he said that wasn't acceptable and he still hasn't they haven't gotten back to him as far as i know about a sooner date but um This will now be the only thing that I think about until we have a meeting and we make the changes that we need to make to make this train station safe for everybody who lives in Medford and everybody who passes through Medford and everybody who needs to cross the street and everybody who wants to cross the street slightly earlier. Maybe they're running late. I am running late. all day every day all the time so if there's any shortcut i could take i will take it and please prevent me from getting hit by a train and dying this is what we're here to do something as simple as a fence between the two train tracks a fence that doesn't have any holes in it on the sides would be baseline but i think what we should really have is pedestrian bridge and it will take a long time and it will be really expensive but somebody died and that's horrible and this was just a matter of time so um it uh appalls me that this happened to anybody but especially somebody who was engaging in an activity that he loved um His sister Meg said specifically he loved his neighborhood, he loved his home, he loved walking, he loved going to the muffin shop. Like these are not things that should be dangerous. And evidently it took a long time to convince the MBTA to do the ADA upgrades that they did. I know it took a very long time to have them fix the ADA upgrade so it wasn't disturbing the neighborhood. All of this Shouldn't be this hard, but I know that we will work as hard as we need to to make sure that we keep our residents safe. But we failed in this case. And if we can loop in Amtrak, I don't think that they are absolved of wrongdoing here either. If they use the tracks, they should be responsible. And I'm very sorry that somebody who seems like a very good person, but really anybody, this shouldn't happen to anybody, but I'm very sorry for John Westwater. I'm very sorry for his sister. I'm very sorry for all his friends and family. And I'm just sorry to have to do this again.

Thank you, Vice President Lazaro. Any further comments by members of the council? Councilor Singh.

I'll be extra brief. Just ditto to everything that's been said. It's incumbent upon everyone from the MBTA to the Amtrak to our city government and the state government to make sure that our streets or neighborhoods are safe. It's a tragedy that's happened in our city, and we can and we should and we will demand better.

Thank you, Councillor Singh. Seeing no other comments from members of the council, I'll just say thank you for putting this resolution on. And I also think, in general, that the investment by the MBTA and the West Medford station has been sorely underinvested. We see what the Winchester Center station looks like. We see what other stations look like. And it's a safety issue. It's an economic development issue. you know, a fairness issue in all of these ways. And more important than anything, it's a safety issue. So I don't think that the MBTA should be making piecemeal improvements, maybe some for safety in the short term, but this is a station and an area that has been long overdue for a significant improvement. And it's going to keep people safer and be of benefit to the neighborhood. So I really hope that we can come up with a longer term plan and vision as well. Vice President Lazzaro, and then we do have one person in public.

Thank you. Sorry, I did forget to mention that I found a report from the State Auditor's Office about the most dangerous at-grade crossings on the commuter line. And West Medford is cited as one of the most highly dangerous at-grade crossings. And this was a report from 2023. It was given to the MBTA. There was a plan to improve safety at that time, 2023, and nothing has been done. So you'll be hearing more from me in the form of something that is not condolences, but just looking for the MBTA to implement its own safety recommendations.

Thank you, I will go to public participation for anyone wants to speak on this resolution, I will go to Eunice brown on zoom units name and neighborhood for the record, you have three minutes.

hi can you hear me.

Yes.

hi thanks very much i'm just want to talk a little bit about Mr wastewater as a teacher I went to St joe's and I had Mr wastewater for science. in the late 70s for seventh and eighth grade. And apparently, by the time I had him, he'd been at St. Joe's maybe a couple of years. And I found out just recently that he was a fairly new teacher at that time, probably in his second, third year of teaching. So he was probably about 15 years older than a bunch of 13-year-olds. He was a terrific teacher. He was well loved by the students. As I said, he was a science teacher and he lit the fire for science into an awful lot of his legion of students that he had over the years. If you go over to the Medford Dearly Departed site, there are close to 100 comments. on his obituary. And most of them expressed just that, that they love science in large part because of him. He also started the St. Joe's boys basketball team and a lot of the guys spoke very highly of him in that regard as well. But the thing that struck me and struck an awful lot of other people who commented, he instituted an annual end of year camping trip, I believe for the seventh graders. And that trip is etched in my memory and the memory of many of his other students. Of course, there was plenty of science involved in the camping trip. I think we went out to Otter River State Park in Winchendon at that time and It was just it was an incredible experience in so many regards, of course, the science, but getting out into nature, not being around our parents, of course, we had chaperones as well. And the usual, you know, junior high school, you know, shenanigans, although we were a bunch of Catholic school kids. So maybe the shenanigans were not that bad. But of the 100 comments on Medford Dearly Departed and another dozen or so on the St. Joe's alumni group, you'll see that he was very well loved, very well regarded, even from students that he had 50 plus years ago still consider him to be one of the best teachers ever. that they ever had. I'm glad Councilor Lozaro spoke to his sister. I wonder if she speaks to her again, if maybe you could point, I think her name is Meg, to the Medford Dearly Departed site or print out the comments for her and email them to her or something so that she can see just how highly regarded her brother was. Mr. Westwater was one of a kind and I'm so, so sad that he met such a tragic and untimely passing. So thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your comment. Excuse me. Thank you so much for your comment and for your memories of Mr. Westwater. On the motion of Vice President Lazzaro, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Singh. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Callahan? Yes. Councilor Lemming? Yes. Council Malik? Yes. Councilor Schiapelli? Yes. Councilor Singh? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. And President Pierce?

Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. Please rise for a moment of silence if you're able. thank you records and reports of committees um is there a motion to join and approve the records and reports of committees by councillor saying seconded by seconded by councillor mullane records the records of the meeting of june 23rd were passed to vice president lazaro vice president lazaro how did you find those records found them in order and motion to approve great uh the records of the meeting of july 14th were passed to councillor lemming council lemming how did you find those records i found them in order Reports of committees, 19-070, by President Behr's Committee of the Whole, July 14th, 2026. This was a meeting on the tree ordinance, and we advanced the public tree ordinance part of that forward for final consideration after review by, further minor review by DPW and legal, I believe. And Vice President Lozaro, Public Health and Community Safety Subcommittee, or Committee, sorry.

Yes, this was a meeting where we discussed a resolution by Councillor Callahan about enforcing regulations in Medford around the Fourth Amendment and ICE officers.

Great, thank you. On the motion of Councillor Seng, seconded by Councillor Mullane, I think it was, to join and approve the records and reports of committees. Mr. Carter, please call the roll.

Council of Callahan? Yes. Council of Lemming? Yes. Council of Mullane?

Yes.

Council of Scapelli? Yes. Council of Singh? Yes. Vice President Lozaro? Yes. President Beers?

Yes. Seventy-four would have done the negative. The motion passes. Refer to committee for further discussion. 26138 offered by Councilor Mullane and Councilor Seng. Resolution to update the noise ordinance to be referred to the Resident Services Committee. Whereas the city's noise ordinance was last updated in 1974 and is lacking any recent updates to types of noise that can impact residents. And whereas residents of Medford have shared a variety of ways in which different noise levels have been impacting their daily lives. And whereas noise levels can also be considered a health hazard and is left to the Community to help regulate and advise on noise restrictions. And whereas the American public health association is here that loud noise causes hearing loss tinnitus and can contribute to non auditory health problems chronic noise can cause annoyance sleep disruption and stress that contribute to disease. Whereas the a pha policy statements below relate to this update by advocating for the following reducing environmental stressors rectifying the disproportionate burden of. hazards borne by disadvantaged populations, and encouraging actions to mitigate adverse effects. Be resolved by the City Council that the Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee review the current noise ordinance to update its language, function, type, and current usage. I'll recognize Councillor Mullane, then Councillor Seng, then Councillor Scarpelli. This is referred to Committee for further discussion, so please try to keep it a little brief. Councillor Mullane.

Um, thank you. Yes, you know, what was really interesting was the number of emails that I've been receiving. I'm sure others have received about different types of noise complaints in different ways that they've been impacting residents and especially one particular resident got very in depth about the health hazards and the things that we should really be looking at. So after looking at our own noise ordinance, which really just list two different types, operation of plant or machinery and performance of certain work, and then singing and music, sound devices or machines. They just really lacked a lot of different things that are happening right now that residents have reached out and had comments and wanted to make sure that we were looking to address. So, some of the things that we're hoping to go through and I think part of the reason why getting it moved to the committee is that we do want to have public input. We do want to have different residents reach out and be able to suggest other things that we might not be able to or may have missed as we go through this process. I personally have been researching different noise ordinances from Cambridge and Somerville just right off the bat there was just all different types of definitions that are lacking from what we currently have in Medford not only between that between residential and commercial and things that are measurable versus non measurable when it comes to noise impact so given that and given a lot of the information I was reading about the health impact felt like it was necessary to take a real look at this, really review some of the comments that have come in from residents. Hoping that more will join us and have this conversation just to make sure that we're addressing kind of what some of the bigger complaints are people are seeing and be able to get something put in place that is also working with the city in terms of being enforceable as well. So more to come. We just want to start having the conversation, get it out to people to recognize that we want to start working on this and really welcome any other types of collaboration as well.

Great. Councillor Seng. Our current ordinance is just something that is out of date. It's something that's really difficult to enforce. A main mission of many of us here on the City Council is to modernize our code of ordinances to bring into the 21st century and to be something that we can actually enforce to improve the quality of life for our residents. Thank you, Councillor Seng.

Councillor Scarpelli.

Thank you for my colleagues to bring this forward. I think it's very important. The residents across the street from the Ru Hall plotted this, so I just wanted to share that as I received some emails. And again, it's a great business, but at the same time, we're still having the same concerns. So my addition to this would be, if we can, as part of this or as a second meeting, talking with the building, the code enforcement officers, what we're seeing right now is in all of our ordinances where there's some sort of penalty, We are really not holding our citizens to task when it comes to fees and fines because we don't have anything with teeth. So as much as we're putting into demanding or pushing our code enforcement officers to follow through with fees and fines, whether it's snow removal, it's different than snow removal, I talked to Council Beers about that, but with with the noise ordinance with other ordinances with uh the the um we had a resident call just to share some information that um they had an illegal business in a residential area they went out code enforcement find them a few times um from what i gather on friday the resident was so upset that the neighbors called that he decided to blow his gutters out with leaf blowers and had his crew set up the ladders along the building. So, uh, residential neighbor with a family really had an issue. So code enforcement, um, shared, uh, an interesting fact that I think that we should take upon this meeting. If, uh, my counselors allow the general loss, see, uh, chapter 40, you, um, really adds to our ordinances and gives it teeth where any of the fines and fees that aren't being paid or held, they're not held accountable to pay, then it is then pushed onto the lien process. So then they do have to be held accountable. So this is something we should talk with the city treasurer and our code enforcement officer and our legal team, if we have one, to try to figure out what we can do to put teeth to what we've been asking for for many of our audiences. So I'm already too winded. I know Council Bears is burning a hole through his screen, but if my colleagues would permit that we try to make that as an addition to the noise audits. So not only when we move forward to some solid movement, but at the same time also add the teeth that's needed when we do want to follow through with it. So thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Councillor Scarpelli. Um, on the refer to committee, we don't do public participation, but there will be a committee meeting for public participation. Um, any further discussion by members of the council, seeing none on the motion of councilor Mullane to refer this paper to the resident services and public engagement committee, seconded by councilor saying the proponents of this, um, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Council. Council Lemming. Yes. Council Mullane. Councilor Schiapelli? Yes. Councilor Singh? Yes. Vice President Lozaro? Yes. And President Peirce?

Yes, having the affirmative and none of the negative, the motion passes and the paper is referred. Councilor Callahan?

I'd like to take certain papers out of order.

I'd like to take the elections papers 26 143 26 144 and 26 145 out of order on the motion of Councilor Callahan to suspend the rules to take papers 26 143 26 144 and 26 145. Seconded by seconded by Vice President Lazaro. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Callahan. Council Lemming. Yes. Council Malay. Yes. Council Scarpelli. Yes. Council Essing. Yes. Vice President Lazaro. Yes. And President Beers.

Yes, and the affirmative and the negative, the motion passes. We have the Director of Elections, Jim Blatchford, here on behalf of the Medford Election Commission. I know the first item is relocation of a polling place, so 26143, relocation of a polling place for Ward 4, Precinct 2, due to construction impacts, and I will turn it over to you.

Thank you, Mr. President. James Blatchford, 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Room 102. Through you, Mr. President, unfortunately the timing of this is not great, but I don't have any influence on construction in the city, so we're in the situation we're in. Ward 4, Precinct 2 is, the current voting location is Walkman Court. and it'll be changing to Tufts, the Gansher Center, which currently houses Ward 4, Precinct 1. So there's enough room. We've had discussions with Tufts about housing both polling locations at that location. They are completely agreeable, and we haven't had any problems when it comes to the logistics aspect of it. We'll be doing signage at the previous location, both electronic signs but physical signs. We are speaking with the Council on Aging potentially on having the van available for transportation for residents who don't have transportation in that area but are already at that location. Additional signage will be placed at Tufts Ganter Center as well, directing people to the back of the building where the entrance is, which is the handicap accessible entrance. Additionally, we'll have parking there available in that lot just adjacent to that entrance as well.

All right. Great. Do we have any questions regarding this? And this is temporary due to the construction at Walkland Court.

Yeah. Unfortunately, the construction will take Mayor Mrakas, A year, potentially more so it could be this cycle and the next so 2028 is the hope, but unfortunately I can't predict that.

Mayor Mrakas, All right. Mayor Mrakas, And so we will. Mayor Mrakas, Go to counselor scarpelli.

Councillor John Scarpelli, I think that this happened before and the team has done a great job, but I think that. Just to reassure everybody, there'll be a communication plan in place that would really educate everybody in enough time. I know that we have, what, a primary in a couple of weeks. So are there plans in place to make sure that?

So as long as you guys approve this this evening, tomorrow morning, the mail will be dropped. That will be going out to every resident of, every voter, rather, of Ward 4, Precinct 2. with a postcard saying, hey, this is where the new location is going to be, as well as an option of vote by mail for those who aren't able to get to the new polling location for whatever reason. They can scan the QR code. They can get onto the website, submit a vote by mail application that would go to me directly, and then we would produce the vote by mail to them. So they have several weeks to get that done. But additionally, the mayor's office and I discussed using the reverse 911 system. TO BE ABLE TO CONTACT ALL THE VOTERS IN THAT SPECIFIC DISTRICT. WE'LL BE DOING POSTINGS ON THE WEBSITE AS WELL AS INFORMATION GOING OUT IN THE MAYOR'S KIND OF NEWSLETTER.

THANK YOU. THAT'S PERFECT.

ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS, MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL ON THE RELOCATION? SEEING NONE, IS THERE A MOTION? on the motion to approve the requested order by Councillor Scarpelli, seconded by Councillor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Callahan. Yes. Councillor Lenning.

Yes.

Councillor Mullaney. Yes. Councillor Scarpelli. Yes. Councillor Seng. Yes. Vice President Lozaro. Yes. And President Peters.

Yes, 70 affirmative, none of the negative. The motion passes and in a minute I'll have you come around and have us sign everything once we have the other two items done. Paper 26144, this is Medford's call for election September 1st, 2026. This is the 2026 state primary. Tuesday, September 1st, be it ordered that the elections commission be and is hereby authorized and directed to notify and warn such of the inhabitants of the city of Medford as we're qualified by law to vote for candidates at our state primary election. on Tuesday, September 1st, 2026, to assemble at the polling places in their respective wards and precincts and to give their votes for Senator in Congress, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, State Auditor, Representative in Congress, Governor's Counselor, Senator in General Court, that's State Senator, Representative in General Court, that's State Representative, District Attorney, and Register of Probate. And that the polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on September 1, 2026. And then all the voting places except for Ward 4 Precinct 2 remain the same. Ward 4 Precinct 2 we just changed to the Gantner Center. And there's in-person early voting August 22nd through 28th. And is that here at City Hall? Correct. Here at City Hall. Do we have any further questions? Vice President Lozada.

Motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Vice President Lazzaro, seconded by, seconded by Councillor Singh. I have one question for you, Jim. I have been getting some questions about the changes for polling workers and bringing them on as employees, and I know a number of poll workers are frustrated by that process, and also I did hear from one poll worker that the city council was ordering you to do this, and I don't think we've ever talked about it. So I just wanted to ask what this change is, where it's coming from, and also,

say that it's not coming from the city council yeah it's a policy change by the city it was a legal opinion stated to the city as a good practice that many cities and towns are doing it covers financial mainly when it comes to if something were to happen to that employee if they sought further employment somewhere else you qualify for time served, and part of that is that's why the Voya system is in there as well. So you could pull from that instead of having, you don't pay into a pension, being an employee or an election worker, you pay into the VOIA because it's a part-time position for all intents and purposes.

Okay. Has this impacted getting poll workers this year? Yes, it has. All right. And when you say other cities are using this, are a lot of cities using this? Yes. Most are?

I would say a large majority are. All right. One of the changing times things, I mean, we used to be able to just do something the way we always did it. It's impacted it in the sense of potentially we could lose very good people who volunteered for the city for a long time, but we're working to make sure that we don't lose any steps when it comes to having people work at the locations. We've already posted something online under human resources for anyone who is interested at home, who's listening. If you'd like to be a poll worker, please fill out an application. I'll be happy to get back to you. We can get you in trained and we can get things forward for that way.

And how are we looking recruitment wise?

I would say about 85% right now, but I'm not concerned at all about being fully staffed by September 1st.

All right. Great. Thank you. Any further questions, members of the council? Seeing none on the motion, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Kelley. Councillor Leving. Yes. Councillor Mullaney. Yes. Councillor Schiapelli. Yes. Councillor Singh.

Yes.

Vice President Lazaro.

Yes.

And President Beers.

Yes, having the affirmative, none of the negative, the motion passes. Finally, 26145, the Medford election warrant. This is largely the same document. I'm not going to read it again. There's an election Tuesday, September 1st for the state primary for a number of offices. Anything else you'd like to add?

I would just like to point out again, early voting starts the week prior to that. So starting on August 22nd through August 28th, we have early voting here in the chamber. Other than regular city hall hours. We have the Saturday and Sunday prior to as well for the 22nd and 23rd from 830 am to 2 30pm and it's We're at this point we sent out over 7000 belts, which is, I believe, the second highest in the state amount. So we were very ahead of the game. But we are Getting ballots in every single day. It's always a fun race to the finish, as it were. But it's going very well.

And what's the deadline for someone to request a mail ballot or return a mail ballot?

To request a mail ballot is the Tuesday prior to the election. So that's August 25th. We need to have that request in our office by that date to be able to send out a vote by mail ballot to get to you in time. If you do request a vote by mail ballot that late, I do suggest walking it back into city hall offices as opposed to mailing it because unless I get it by election day on September 1st at 8 p.m., it does not count.

All right. Thank you, Jim. Any further questions or motions? Councillor Singh.

Do you know how many ballots have been received so far?

No. Off the top of my head, I would say under 2,000 at this point. But my initial run of how many we sent out was about 4,500, and that was about a week and a half ago. So pretty good response so far. Thank you.

All right. Is there a motion? Please, is there a motion? On the motion to approve by Vice President Lazaro, seconded by Councillor Callahan. Thank you, Jim, and send our best to the Elections Commission. Thank you. We missed them tonight. Ms. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Callahan. Councillor Lemming.

Councilor Lemming?

Yes, sorry.

Council Mulling? Yes. Council Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Singh? Yes. Vice President Lozaro? Yes. President Beers?

Yes, 70 affirmative, then the negative, the motion passes. Thank you, Jim, and if you want to come around and have us sign the thing. All right, regular order of business, motions, orders, and, oh, we have one here. all right i already signed that in any case motions orders and resolutions um resolution to schedule neighborhood ward meetings hosted by the city council uh this says it has my name on it but liz has been doing all the work so i'm going to turn the floor over to counselor malayne to share the update on the neighborhood ward meetings hosted by the city council um

Great So what I wanted to do is just get this out in front of people as soon as possible, and this is the first of three scheduled ward meetings through the fall of 2026 i'm trying to get them. Obviously, through this fall and then I will try to get the rest of them scheduled shortly, so we have the full run of it um but, essentially, this is an opportunity was something that was brought up. Um, you know, a while ago to try to get out and go to each of the different wards to have conversations with residents, obviously to hear, um, you know, things that are pressing for them in their ward. But obviously if there are other things in general, they want to speak to us about, um, we want to be able to have an open conversation. We definitely wanted to make sure that it was as accessible as possible to people. So I did also speak to make sure that it's going to be hybrid. So we will have AV availability there for each of the different meetings for people to join via Zoom or in person. We scheduled the first one for Wednesday, September 23rd. And again, I tried to look and make sure that there wasn't anything at the time currently scheduled on the events calendar, so we weren't trying to come up against any other different meetings that are happening. But the first one, Wednesday, September 23rd, 7 to 8, the Andrews Cafeteria, that's Ward 1. It'll be hybrid. We're going to have two counselors that will be hosting the meeting, and those counselors will also be in charge of really pushing on the communication side. So that first one is Counselor Singh and myself. Then on Tuesday, October 20th, again from 7 to 8 at the Missatuck, it's Ward 5, and that will be hosted by Counselor Callahan and Singh. And then Wednesday, December 2nd at the Roberts will be Ward 2, and that will be with myself and Councilor Scarpelli. Again, really hoping people will come out and join us, want to continue having these conversations. I've reached out to the city's communications team as well to see other ways that we can push this information out. Certainly going to do everything that we can to get this in front of people, which is why I wanted to at least start it now to have that conversation. It's on the events calendar. We will have our next committee meeting tomorrow at 6 p.m. via Zoom. So if you'd like to join, if you have any suggestions, any thoughts, any other ways that we can put out communication as much as we can, please feel free to do that or to shoot me an email. I know some people have already given me some nice suggestions, so we'll continuously try to keep pushing this out to get as many people there as possible. So that's it through the fall, and then I will come back to you all within the next month for the rest of the ward meetings through the next year. And that is it.

Thank you, Councillor Mullane. Thank you as the chair of resident services and public engagement for all of your work. Is there any further questions by members of the council on this paper? Seeing none, any discussion by members of the public on this paper? Seeing none. Oh, seeing one. There's one on Zoom. Rob Carney, name and address for the record. Name and neighborhood for the record, please. You have three minutes.

Sure. Rob Carney, South Medford, 50 Hicks Ave. Just a couple thoughts for getting the word out. especially in Ward 5, where there's a lot of pedestrian traffic. I think a little bit of old fashioned flyers at strategic intersections could be a nice way to get the word out. So just wanted to suggest that too. And then finally, they suggested these meetings be recorded for those who can't attend and want to watch the replay after. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to Eileen Lerner on Zoom. Eileen, name and address for the record. Name and neighborhood for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

My name is Eileen Lerner, and I live at 3920 Mystic Valley Parkway. And I just wanted to say that I think this is a great initiative. And I'm so happy that this is being initiated by the city council. It really is a great idea. And it's just what is necessary. And yeah. I haven't got any brilliant ideas right now. But if I do get them, I'll be sure to communicate. But in the meantime, thank you so much for your work. I think this is a great initiative.

Thank you, Eileen. Seeing no further discussion, Councilor Mullane.

Um, I thank you and thanks everyone for the suggestions as well. Um, I did when I spoke with Kevin Harrington from the Medford Community Media. I do believe it will be recorded as well. So thank you for that question. Um, I just wanted to make sure he and I spoke already, so I think we should be all set with that too. But thank you for that.

Thank you, Councilor Mullane. On the motion by Councilor Mullane to Keep the refer the paper back to committee, seconded by seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Mr Kirk, please call the roll.

Councilor Callahan, Councilor Leving.

Yes.

Council Malay. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Singh. Yes. Vice President Lazaro. Yes. And President Beers.

Yes, seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. Vice President Lazaro, could you take the chair for the next two resolutions? They're my resolutions.

Item 26136, resolution to demand Tufts reinstate graduate worker facing retaliation and retribution, offered by President Behrs. Whereas a Tufts University international graduate worker recently faced retaliation by her advisor for reporting that they required her to work a significant amount of hours as an unpaid teaching assistant, which violated her union contract. Later, the graduate worker was removed from her doctoral program and Whereas the worker and her union identified that there were multiple contract violations over the course of the year and the worker has experienced retaliation for protected union activity about her working conditions. And whereas after experiencing this retaliation, Tufts University informed the worker on June 24th that she was disenrolled from her doctoral program and transferred to the Masters of Science program, forcing her out of the university in August. And whereas after being forced out of the doctoral program that she intended to complete, her student visa is expected to expire in September 2026. This worker was not even given the opportunity to find a different advisor at Tufts, and she is not being given sufficient time to apply to other doctoral programs or conduct a proper job search. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we call on Tufts to immediately re-enroll the student in her doctoral program. Be it further resolved that we call on Tufts to award this worker compensation for losing her summer stipend and losing her doctoral program enrollment after reporting bargaining contract violations, provide transitional support to move to a new lab to remain in the program, and cease any future tolerance of retribution for protected union activity, especially at a university that claims to be committed to advancing equity and justice. President Peirce.

Thank you, Vice President Lazzaro, and I want to thank SEIU Local 509 and the Tufts Graduate Workers Union for their advocacy for their comrade and their fellow graduate worker at Tufts. There are, you know, a number of really egregious violations of this person's rights that have been brought up. And most importantly, that there is a threat to this person's legal status here in the country because of the actions of the management at Tufts. I have been in communication with folks from the grad workers union at Tufts for about a month about this now. I know that because of the sensitivity of this, this is really someone's colleagues and friends standing up for them when they can't be public about this themselves. And I think that really speaks to the importance of labor unions and also just the power of community and the community at Tufts. I know a number of people who are colleagues with the person who's being impacted by these contract violations and being put in danger by the actions of the Tufts administration. And I'm just really frustrated you know there are so many instances where we see tufts not being a good neighbor and not showing up for our community the way we need them to and i think it's important for us to work to hold tufts accountable on all fronts not just when they don't pay us enough in pilot not just when they you know aren't showing up the way we need in terms of their institutional planning and development but also when they're not treating their workers uh fairly um or you know or their students fairly and we've shown up on all of those fronts as a city council over the last five years it's important for us to join together with with the folks on campus to advocate for justice and fairness and for Tufts to be a good neighbor. And this is part of that. So I think this is squarely within our charge as a city council. And really what we need more of from the city of Medford is bringing folks together who are pushing Tufts management to do the right thing, be a good neighbor, treat people fairly, because they're a huge institution with a budget much bigger than the city of Medford, with an endowment much bigger than the city of Medford. with state laws and loopholes that give them much more power than us as well. And we're only going to be able to effectively push back if we join together and do that together. So I really want to see Tufts do the right thing here, just like I want to see them do the right thing with all of the other actions that they take here in our city. And I did receive an email response from Tufts that I will read. Now, President Behrs, I noticed that resolution 26136 is on tonight's city council agenda relating to Tufts University. Below, please find a statement from the university. I respectfully ask the statement be added to the public record and read at tonight's council meeting. Statement follows, graduate student workers are an important part of our workforce. We appreciate their contribution to our community. The university respects our union agreements and the processes to address workplace concerns. We also take great care to respect our students' and employees' privacy, consistent with best practices based on the applicable state and federal laws, such as the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, FERPA. In fact, because student educational records, including information about students' academic progress standing fall squarely within FERPA protections, we will not comment on this matter specifically. However, please know we engage directly with SEIU Local 509 on matters that are raised through the applicable grievance processes. And you will not be surprised to know that we do not always agree with the union's allegations in certain matters. This said, the grievance processes available to our employees were negotiated with the union and offer a robust, fair, and transparent process which facilitates resolution of the matters for the parties involved. We've asked Ahsan Ali, our director of labor relations, to check in with the union about the concerns you have raised to ensure that the university has addressed these issues through the appropriate process. Sincerely, Rocco Dorico, associate vice president of government and community relations, Tufts University. And I appreciate that statement, and I do know that we have some folks here tonight, colleagues of the person who is facing this unjust treatment who might want to speak. But I really encourage the Director of Labor Relations to check in with the union, because when I went to the rally that they held and when I checked in with them tonight, I do not think that the university has addressed these issues through the appropriate process, as the email has been quoted. So I hope the university will do that now. Thank you.

Thank you, President bears. I will go to councilor comments before public comment and then we will hear from everybody. Thank you so much. Councillor Scarpelli.

Thank you. Thank you for bringing this forward. This is a serious situation and I did contact Mr. Dorico and he said he wanted to make sure he reiterated that Tufts is listening to this council and that he asked Mr. Ali to REACH OUT TOMORROW TO THE PRESIDENT'S OFFICE BECAUSE THEY ARE TRULY TRYING TO WORK THROUGH A RESOLUTION. SO WHETHER WHAT WAS SAID BUT NOW IT'S OUT THERE, I THINK THAT WE HAVE A PLATFORM THAT HOPEFULLY THAT you have an audience tomorrow and that we could support this member in making sure that they're safe and unharmed. So to me, that's a good sign. I appreciate the council to bring this forward. I think that we're seeing that when we do get involved, people are listening. And Mr. DiRico never turns away. He did listen. We did talk, and he did give some guidance for Mr. Ali to reach out and let's see what happens. So again, we meet again in September. Um, you know, I, I, I welcome the interaction and hopefully we get to a resolution to, to, uh, protect, uh, a valuable member of the Tufts community. So thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to, uh, counselor Lemming on zoom.

Yes, thank you. And thank you so much to SDIU for bringing this forward. I'd just like to say that something that a lot of folks may not realize about doctoral programs, and this is especially true of folks that are from out of country working on a visa, is that you are very much at the mercy of the institution and especially of the advisor that you're working with. When I was in grad school, I saw a number of my friends just have their PhD programs implode, have to be left in very precarious financial situations just because of a soured relationship with their advisor, they're expected to do unfair amounts of work, things just didn't work out. And when that happens, you really need to have institutions willing to back up the student in order to get any kind of fairness in resolving these disputes. I mean, that's why I'm very glad to see any sort of any sort of organizing among graduate workers. I think it adds an extra level of protection to graduate students, which clearly we're seeing tonight. And I'm just really, really glad to see the work of my colleagues as well as SCIU and stepping up for the students. So thank you so much for bringing us forward.

Thank you.

Thank you. Well, since Tufts is listening, let us pass this unanimously. Let's support the unions. Let's support the workers. Um, it's the, what, uh, vice president Lazaro read out is unthinkable in this day and age, especially when we see, and I know there are folks in the audience here who are going to, who are planning on speaking on this later, but especially in an age where we see international students, when we see immigrants, who formed the lifeblood of our community being ripped away. And to have a source of stability being pulled under the table, out from under the table, is, again, unthinkable. Like it or not, and this goes for everyone in this relationship, Tufts is a part of our community, like President Barry said. And that means that when someone at Tufts is facing such an egregious violation, we have to stand up for them. It means that in this relationship between a powerful institution and normal folks, normal workers on the ground, we got to stand for the many and not the few. This is, I mean, I'm sure folks who are here to speak can articulate this case way better than I can. But I feel particularly connected to this in that over the last many, many weeks and months, a lot of the work I've been doing outside of the council has been focused on workers' rights. And you start to realize I guess realize this wrong word, I think you really fathom that in this relationship between powerful institutions and employers and. folks who work for them who are just trying to make a living, who are trying to live a life. There are. There exists such a imbalance of power that folks can't live a normal life. They can't make money to cover their cost of living. That some of these violations are so egregious that what we hear about is only the tip of the iceberg, and that many, many cases exist beneath that tip of the iceberg. And it trickles down not only to that person, but to the lives of those around that person as well. And again, going back to the theme of community, to the community around them. And that's why it's so important for the community to stand up and band together and say that enough is enough, that we can't let something like this happen. I'll leave it there, or else I'll keep going on.

Thank you. Seeing no further comments from city councilors, I will go to public comment. If you would like to make a comment in the room, you can come line up at the podium or raise your hand on Zoom. Everybody can have three minutes to speak, and you can state your name and location for the record. One moment.

Hello, I'm Genesis Perez. You said address as well? Your location. Yeah, so 229 Main Street. Say hello, everyone. My name is Genesis. I'm a Tufts graduate student and worker as well as a Medford resident. Like many people here, I'm relatively new to the city. I've only been here like four years. But Medford has welcomed me and many other students like me who are just trying to make the most of our studies. Unfortunately, Tufts University has been less welcoming of late. Tufts is trying to unfairly dismiss one of our international union siblings from our PhD program in retaliation for reporting wage theft. International grad workers' legal status in this country is contingent upon their student status, which means that the student will be forced to leave the country in this wonderful city that we call home. Tufts is weaponizing the precarity of international workers and the culture of fear that is being fomented by this current federal administration to force international grad workers to accept unfair and unsafe labor conditions and that we find unacceptable. We did speak a little bit about this earlier, but to summarize again, this grad worker was given additional TA or a teaching assistant work on top of her normal RA research assistant workload. She was not paid for this additional work, violating our contract. After struggling to keep up due to this additional labor, her advisor told her that her performance was inadequate and that her summer appointment had been canceled despite her 12-month contract. He instead proposed an alternative summer workload, which would ask her from the union. After this grad worker reached out to the union about this concerning proposal, Dean Karen Panetta outed her by name to her entire department via email. In response, her advisor retroactively changed her fall and spring grades for her RA appointment to unsatisfactory grades in violation of Tufts' own grading policies. Dean Panetta is now attempting to use these grades that were retroactively assigned as an excuse to dismiss the student from her PhD program, ending her student visa as well. We have supported our union sibling through the formal grievance process, but Tufts has denied any accountability and has issued contradictory statements. They have been consistently late to respond to our arguments, even missing yesterday's deadline for step two of the grievance progress, despite their claims that they are attempting to be reasonable we can see that we can only assume that they are counting on all of this to go away once the students visa status expires later this month and they're trying to run out the clock Tufts actions show that they do not actually care about international students at all and that they are willing to do anything to get away with exploiting grad workers Our demands of Tufts are as follows. Reinstate the grad worker summer RA funding, reinstate the grad worker's position in the PhD program, provide retroactive payment to all grad workers who have been forced to do unpaid TA work, and provide the grad worker with transitional support to a new lab. We believe these are reasonable demands and we have been surprised by Tufts' obstinate refusal to meet them. The mechanism Tufts is using to dismiss the grad worker, retroactively changing grades, is arbitrary and violates all of the university's academic standards. If Tufts gets away with this unjust dismissal, they will see no reason to uphold their part of the contract when international workers are involved, leaving them particularly vulnerable to abuse and witch theft. Additionally, Tufts has allowed dangerous work conditions in the past, which have only improved due to our union's vigilance and strict enforcement of our contract. Any contract violations leave all Tufts workers at risk of further exploitation and put all of us in more danger. You are one minute over. Oh, sorry. The Tufts community is a major part of Medford. Exploitation of workers anywhere lowers not only their standard of living, but also their disposable income, which could be invested into local businesses. But most importantly, international students should not feel unsafe in our city after witnessing ICE's unjust and terrifying abduction of Rumaisa Ozturk last year. How can we stand aside and watch as Tufts robs another international student and Medford community member of the chance to pursue her studies with security and dignity? Please stand in solidarity with us. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Seeing no hands on Zoom, I will go back to the podium. Please state your name for the record.

Yes, Simon Alcindor, 44 Tainter Street. And I just wanted to say that I really do thank the council for taking this up because as somebody who is currently an undergraduate student who is looking to get into organizing, not even necessarily with the union, things like this are freaking terrifying. The fact that at any university we've seen over the past few years, they are willing to just basically strip away any rights you think that you may have while on a campus in order to go after people who dare speak out against the shitty things that universities do constantly. I think that is something that we need to continue pressing on because when it goes unchecked, as we are seeing across many universities in Boston, universities will basically just do whatever they want. whether it's not really protecting international students when it comes to ICE, whether it comes to punishing students for speaking out about Palestine. These universities will really do whatever they want when they are not checked with the power that they have. I, again, yeah, just really want to commend the council for taking up this matter and really want to push you all to keep on doing this in the future, and especially keep your ear to the ground when it comes to things that are not inside a union, because there are a lot of students who are really threatened by this type of stuff who don't have the support of a union, especially undergraduate students almost certainly don't in most cases. So, yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Please state your name for the record. Go ahead.

Michael Kesselman, 499 Main Street. I just wanted to say I'm not affiliated with Tufts. I'm not a student. I'm not a labor advocate or activist. I am just a resident in South Medford, which is one of the neighborhoods that actually hosts Tufts campus. And I just want everyone at Tufts to know, especially the impacted students and union members, that the neighborhood is in support of them. I don't know anyone in my neighborhood worth a damn who doesn't find everything about Tufts' conduct here both abhorrent and absolutely enraging. So this is not how our neighborhood treats our neighbors or our guests. And it sure as hell isn't how Tufts should be doing it either. So that's it.

Thank you. Seeing no further comment, is there a motion? Second. Oh, sorry. On the motion of President Behrs to approve, seconded by Councillor Seng, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Kellyanne. Yes. Councillor Leving.

Yes.

Councillor Mullaney. Yes. Councillor Schiapelli. Yes. Councillor Seng. Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. And President Beers?

Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. The next paper is 26-137, resolution to support Tufts facilities workers bargaining for a fair contract offered by President Behrs. Whereas the city of Medford and its residents share a strong interest in seeing through a good quality union contract between Tufts and its facilities workers who belong to SEIU, 32BJ and whereas these essential workers are employed as utility workers, as maintenance mechanics in the grounds department and in a variety of trades positions such as carpenters, locksmiths, HVAC mechanics, plumbers, electricians and more. And whereas as the largest private employer in Medford and Somerville and a major Boston area employer, Tufts University has a vitally important role in setting standards for all working people, particularly those to whom the university owes its buildings, condition functioning, and its outstanding grounds. And whereas these proud 32 BJSCIU members' demands for a fair contract are reasonable, fair family sustaining wage increases, lower health care monthly Lower monthly health care premiums. He's trying to get me. Protections for immigrant workers, union benefits, and other richly deserved improvements. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we call on Tufts University to support the contract demands of Tufts facilities workers and just an example of fair treatment and good labor relations for other area employers. President Behrs.

Thank you, Vice President Lazaro. Similarly to what I was saying in the last resolution, Tufts needs to be a good neighbor. It needs to treat its workers fairly. It needs to treat the city of Medford fairly. It needs to treat its students fairly. The facilities workers at Tufts who are members of 32BJSCIU deserve a fair contract. They're in a contract campaign right now. They are fighting for, I think, completely reasonable conditions in their contract, conditions around affordability, about fair wages, about addressing the cost of healthcare, about protecting immigrant workers, just like we were just hearing about the international graduate workers. And this is something that also the city council takes very seriously when it comes to the city of Medford and making sure that we're not part of the problem when it comes to a race to the bottom or not treating workers fairly. And I think that's just something that's really important for Tufts to show as a value to represent here in our city. And at the end of the day, right? what the city of Medford does, what Tufts University does impacts our community and sets standards and examples for what other folks in the community are going to do. And I think it's really important for us to show solidarity with our union siblings, whether they're international grad workers or facilities workers or educators or anyone else who's working to make our communities thrive and be better. So I'm really thankful to the folks at 32BJICIU and the facilities workers at Tufts and we're proud to stand in solidarity with you. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any comments from councillors? Councilor Callahan.

Thanks. Supportive of both of these resolutions. I figured I'd speak on this one. You know what I have to say really strikes me in this is the request that they set good labor relations for other area employers. They are such a large employer here in our city. And I'm just going to repeat that I think that the The biggest issue that we are currently having in American politics is the issue of inequality, is causing a breakdown of our democracy, is causing so many problems, including just general suffering of people who cannot make ends meet, homelessness. Really, it is a problem. And it's a problem in Medford. And I think efforts like this to do everything that we can to ensure that large employers are raising the wages of their lowest paid employers, that is incredibly important. And I'm so grateful to President Behrs for bringing this forward. So grateful to SEIU 32BJ and to the unions in the area And I'm fully, fully supportive of this. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Briefly, I would also agree that it's important that large employers in a city pay their lowest paid employees well and not hold anybody's salary back for any reason, especially not the lowest paid people. Okay. Seeing no further comments from councilors, I will go to public comment and just activate your mic. You can just state your name for the record.

Patrick Keith, 64 Magoon Ave. Good evening members of the city council. I was raised here in Medford. I still live here and I'm a proud Tufts alum. Go Jumbos. I also work as an electrician at Tufts, and I'm here tonight as a member of 32BJ SEIU. We are currently in contract negotiations with Tufts. We started bargaining in April, and after seven meetings, we remain miles apart on issues that matter most to our members and their families. Our primary focus in these talks is securing a true living wage and reducing the growing burden of healthcare costs. Right now, Tufts employees pay the highest healthcare premiums of any university in the area by a wide margin, paying roughly 34% of our premiums compared to the area average of about 25%. Tufts' initial offer was a 1.5% wage increase per year over the next three years. And in subsequent negotiations, they've only offered an additional 0.25% in year two. In today's economy, with the rising cost of living, that offer is insultingly low. It falls well short of keeping pace with inflation and fails to reflect the hard work and dedication that our members put in every day to keep the university running safely, efficiently, and looking its best. Public support from our local community and leadership makes a tremendous difference in these campaigns. Passing this resolution sends a clear message that Medford stands with working families of values fair compensation and expects institutions in our city to treat their workforce with dignity and respect and to pay their fair share. We urge the council to support this resolution tonight Thank you for your time and for standing with Tufts workers. I'd also like to add that 32BJ stands in solidarity with Local 509 and support their resolution to reinstate the grad worker. Thank you.

Thank you. You can state your name for the record.

All righty, Simon Alcindor, 44 Tanner Street. So I'm somebody who just started service work at the beginning of the summer as a restaurant worker. And I'm just going to say, folks who do service work deserve any penny that they can get, really. It's hard to describe, really, to folks who don't do it, what it's like being in that sort of field. Because it really is something where you do like so much to ensure that other folks are able to live the life that they do and you don't really see any of the thankfulness from that um and I think that yeah really just like as somebody with the experience I really urge you to support these folks tonight and to continue supporting these folks when they come up again thank you thank you

I'm going to go to Eileen Lerner on Zoom. Just one. Eileen, state your name for the record.

My name is Eileen Lerner and I live at 3920 Mystic Valley Parkway. And I just want to say I'm 83 years old and I am so, so happy to see this city council meeting and to have the city backing the workers, backing the union workers, backing our neighbors. And I just, I'm like thrilled. I'm just absolutely thrilled that we're coming together to support all of these causes that were mentioned. And I just want to thank everybody because I'm so glad that I live to see this. Thank you.

Thank you, Eileen. You can state your name for the record.

Hi, my name is Gianna. I just recently moved out of Medford. I lived at 50 Chester Avenue for four years, and I love Medford. I just want to say real quickly that 32 BJ workers, you'll see them working constantly throughout Tufts. They are some of the hardest workers at Tufts, hands down, charged with the beautification of a campus that Tufts, mind you, cares a lot about. Without them, Tuftswood absolutely ceased to function. They are the beating heart of this university. They're constantly working. And they are very underrepresented in these sorts of meetings and in these sorts of forums. And so for them to bring such an important resolution to your floor, I think, is quite important. Now, more than ever, I think it's more important, as all of you have already stated, to support workers' rights, especially the rights of a group of workers who are so frequently undiscussed at Tufts, and undeservingly so. Thank you.

Thank you. Micah, state your name for the record.

Micah Kesselman, 499 Main Street. South Medford resident, our neighborhood is one of the immediate hosts of Tufts campus and all the facilities. And same exact thing that I said before for the local 509 applies to this as well. The neighborhood, the people who live in the neighborhood, many of whom make up the members of these unions and employees and students who are under duress at this point, are fully in support, I think, of Tufts treating their employees and the people that they have a responsibility to fairly and justly. And for years, we've had issues with Tufts for various reasons. So it really is on them to start showing that they can be a good neighbor and do what's right. So I encourage them to really take the comments here tonight to heart.

Thank you. Seeing no further public comment on the motion of President Behrs to approve, do we have a second? Seconded by Councilor Mullane. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Kelly. Yes. Councilor Leving. Yes. Council Mullane. Councilor Scappelli?

Yes.

Councilor Singh? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro?

Yes.

President Beers? Yes.

Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. The board's in commission? Oh, we're still doing, which, where are we? Did we skip something? One, two, three? It's not in the packet.

Oh, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it.

One more for me. Next is. Ah, OK. Communications from the mayor 26133 submitted by Mayor Brianna Longo Kern Capital and General Stabilization Fund appropriation requests. Oh, you want me to do it, because you're going to go, I get it, I get it, I get it. I get it, I get it, I get it. Thank you. Got it. Got it. Three for me. Yes, OK, great. Capital and general stabilization fund appropriation requests. OK, I have to sit down. I wasn't prepared for this one. Dear President Behrs and city councilors, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body approve appropriations from the Capital Stabilization Fund in the amount of $571,550.00 on the following items. A, Robert's, what? It's just E? It's just two? Sorry. It said one E and two. Conceptual building study. Yeah, we did do that. Conceptual building study and construction cost estimate for Oak Grove building for $24,550. Didn't we do that? The agenda is wrong about one E because we did pass that. But number two, thank you. Again, I was not prepared to do this item. Number two is general stabilization fund in the amount of $35,000 and 0 cents for an executive search and recruitment company to hire a new police chief. That's why the police chief is here. The balance of the general stabilization fund before this vote is $6 million. As the council knows, free cash is not available this time of year, and where this is not a capital item, the only remaining source that would be acceptable would be general stabilization fund. Small amounts out of this fund will not impact the city's bond rating. Okay. Human Resources Director Lisa Crowley and Police Chief Jack Buckley will be in attendance for item two. One F. It said one E, but I think it's one F. Admin server replacement for $17,000. One E, we already did that. Conceptual building study and construction cost estimate for Oak Grove building. Yeah, okay, we already talked about that, okay. We've discussed that now, thrice. All right, great.

um okay uh counselor scarpelli um again this is uh 35 000 for the request for i i again i'm going to table this mr president for the fact that uh madam vice chair i think that We haven't heard or get any information from our state delegates whether it's been approved at the state level. Until that that's passed, I'll gladly move it forward. I know that there was a question that after we held it off last time that I received some phone calls, says, why are you holding it up? We want it. And I said, I understand that you want it. But again, I think right now, until it goes through the full process, I don't think we should we should secure any money or put any money anywhere until it follows the proper channels that's all i'm saying i think that that would be the prudent thing to do there's no rush um in the sense that um you know in this process so i would motion to table so thank you on the motion of counselor scarpelli to table president bears is there well first is there a second

It's undebatable, but I would just request a temporary leave from the motion.

Sure, for one, we could do that. So I was embarrassed. I would I would. All right.

Holding on the table. Thank you, President.

Thank you. I just did want to hear from the chief about the request. If there's additional information, I know that he was not able to be present at our last meeting. So I do want to allow the chief to kind of present on this change. And also, if you have any update on when when we expect the law to be approved to allow the process to move forward.

Chief Buckley. Can you lift that up on the higher pedestal part? Thank you.

You're good. You're good. Thank you, Vice President Lazaro, President Beers. So as the council's question, I spoke with Representative Donato today, and it has passed its second reading. It's up for a third reading tomorrow. They're going to attach an emergency preamble, send it right over to the Senate. So we expect this in the very near immediate future. next couple of days. So it's just up to a Senate vote at this point in time after tomorrow. So that's in response to that. It's not going to be held up in the House or Senate. It's almost an automatic. I mean, this is something where the mayor's office and the unions talked about in depth and voted and negotiated to come about or bring about this process. And they all want it. We just sort of run out of time. I have announced that I will be leaving by the end of the year, and this is a process that needs to get started. And I can, I mean, I've seen some of these bills go through in the past. I've never seen anything be turned away at this point in time at the state legislature, but I don't necessarily think I understand what the holdup would be in appropriating X amount of dollars, and if it doesn't happen, It's your money, right? You get it back. It's just to kind of push this process forward.

Thank you. Councilor Scarpelli.

So again, I think that it sounds pretty easy. Unfortunately, if the administration had that guidance and a phone call from Representative Donato, Because I talked to him on a regular basis, and he shared that with me. Maybe I can understand, but we're in a situation where we're asking time after time with the administration for financial documentation, financial concerns, questions we have with our community and our responsibilities. to respond to that. So unfortunately that I just, to me, whether it's done tomorrow, if it's done tomorrow, then we'll vote on it the next meeting, we move forward. But as of today, it's not voted in. I didn't hear anything from the administration. I didn't hear anything from Representative Donato or the state delegates telling me that this is the process. I haven't heard anything. And again, I was pretty, I was pretty clear at our last meeting why I didn't want to support it. So again, this is this is the process. This is how I feel. Again, this is a voting. This is a voting. We can move forward with a vote in the table and and move move that way. But I think that right now Let's go through the process. I don't want to tie up $35,000 until it is approved and everything's in motion. I understand that the union supported it. I understand that it was part of the negotiation. But again, until we have all of the answers, I don't feel that we should vote through any money paper. We've seen what we've gone through throughout the budget and what we're seeing in this process, and I have voted against any money paper until we have the documentation to support it. And right now, we're missing a documentation, and that's the final approval at the state level. So I'm going to reinstate my motion to table unless anybody else wants to speak, and I move forward with that. Thank you.

I have raised hand from President Behrs. I'm just going to take that and then I'll go right back to Councilor Scarpa. President Behrs.

I was just going to say, if you could let us know when the final readings on both bodies are done, we can work to schedule a special meeting by Zoom to consider this paper specifically. I personally don't have an overarching objection to the paper, but I do want to respect my colleague's opinion on the matter. And we have massive feedback. I don't know. One of the mics needs to get shut off. But it might be yours, Chief.

I got it. President Behrs, that's...

It's the little face, the guy with the little face on it. There you go. I got it. That was me. It's because the speaker, the microphone's out past the speaker. It's a total mess.

President Behrs, that's provided the table vote passes. I mean... Oh, sure.

I'm just saying that I'll probably vote for table and we'll, you know, when the legislation's done in a week... get us the documentation we'll do a zoom meeting it'll be quick and sounds like there's support maybe it doesn't get tabled tonight and something happens but as the president i'm just saying that's an approach that i would be happy to take thank you i can assure you that we will get you whatever information you need and i'll be available to provide that information but i talked to representative donato today it's pretty much a done deal i just want to

There are a lot of big decisions that cities have to make, but replacing your chief of police is something that you should take some time and effort and put into it. And hiring a legitimate company to start an executive search and recruitment is just the beginning of that, right? And so all of our participation in that process, but it has to start. And I'm not going to get into The reasons that that this might be delayed again, but I think it's. I think it's only going to hurt the city. I do. I mean, we're just looking for $35,000 to start funding so we can move the process forward and. Like I mean, you have to replace chief of police.

Thank you, Chief. If I may, from the chair as a public safety matter. And I will be saying more of this more about this from my seat later, but. I think a lot of our conflict here has gone on for long enough, and I'm eagerly anticipating a time when we can. Move forward with matters like this and. In this case, I think it being a public safety issue, it's important for that reason. So on the motion to table by Councillor Scarpelli, do we have a second? Seconded by Councillor Mullane. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll?

Councillor Callahan. No. Councillor Lemming.

No.

Councillor Mullane. Council of Scarpelli?

Yes.

Council of Singh? No. Vice President Lazaro?

No.

And President Beers? Yes.

That is three in the affirmative, four in the negative. The motion fails. Do we have another motion? Councillor Seng.

This is more, I just wanted to put this out before we took another vote. I talked with the mayor very briefly today about this. I repeated the question that I had at the last meeting about this paper about council involvement in the search for the new police chief, given that we hear so much as councillors about public safety. I mean, we hear a lot about the big hot topic issues, but we also hear a lot about simple everyday things that could help our community improve quality of life, improve safety standards in the city. And so I posed a question to the mayor about what what role we'll have in that process. And I don't want to jump the gun on any announcements that might be made, but I've been personally given some assurances that we'll have a real role. Now, whether or not it's satisfactory, I think is another question. But I think there's progress on that front. And I'll leave it to the mayor's office to make a real announcement about that issue. I hope it's what was conveyed to me today because I think that would be really helpful. But given that, I'll vote yes tonight.

Thank you. President Peirce.

I would just say get it in writing. Well, I would love to have seen it. I would love for it to have been sent to us, because I don't have any questions that Chief Buckley is going to, is leaving, and we need a police chief, and those are facts. And, you know, if this appropriate, I mean, would we start the executive search process before the law is completed? Is that something that we would do?

No, I've got... You can't do it yourself. He got...

Well, that's not necessarily true. I mean, first you have to engage the company, right, and go into contract. And then there's going to be several meetings on sort of ironing out what it is that you're looking for. And several of these executive search committees and recruitments, who I'm familiar with and I have talked to in the past, we'll kind of game plan the whole process, right? So what are the qualifications of the chief of police, right, that you're looking for? Who are the stakeholders in the city, right? What sort of leader do you want? They're going to interview the stakeholders, and I would imagine you could make a list of any stakeholders that you want, right? They could be interest groups in the city, the city council itself, members of the police department, members of the mayor's office. They'll gather information as a professional company as to say, this is what the city is looking for in their next chief of police. So there'll be plenty of input on first deciding or identifying what sort of chief you're looking for, and then the process would be to go out and start brochures, advertising, the recruitment part of the process. Would we like it to move quickly? Sure. Uh, I'm just going to base myself based some of the, uh, my timeframe on without really knowing on what, uh, representative Donato told me that this should move along really quickly though. Uh, but there's a lot of work that would go into place before, you know, that you, we, we truly engaged the beginning of the process, just kind of thoughts and brainstorming everything out president bears.

yeah I think i'm more the question i'm asking chief is you know. If they pass it in the next seven days, and then we voted in 10 days or 14 days to approve an appropriation is there work that's happening in the next 14 days or. Would you need to wait anyway to start the work until you know that this is the law, this is the process that we're going to use to hire the chief.

If you pass it tonight and appropriate it, we will begin the process immediately.

Okay.

That would be my hope. I'm not running this. I am not in charge of this search. I'm just the chief of police you're replacing. Sure. But there's a crunch here for time.

I guess my hypothetical question is, let's say it dies and the Senate doesn't get passed by December 31st, what are we going to do?

you're going to revert back to the regular process of civil service hired within the community. Just that you can have very limited choices because of changes in civil service law and how young our police department is.

And I guess I'm just saying if that happens and we spend all this money to start the process of the search, then we can't use it. I understand the concern.

Again, when I say we're going to start the process, I don't think it's going to be the expenditure necessarily of all your funds.

Could you start it now or without the approval of the appropriation?

The additional conversation, sure.

Okay. I don't see the harm in waiting 14 days personally. I guess my last question is counselor saying, what did the mayor promise us? Is it in writing? And is it that like the council will get to appoint a person or is the mayor going to pick one of us, depending on how nice we are her this week?

Wait.

Yeah.

Counselor saying this I have in writing, I can ask her to distribute to the council. We could I could see a reasonable being reasonable of the council to I know it's not ideal for you table until that email is distributed to the rest of you guys. Basically, what I've been told is a council member on the search committee and meetings in committee of the wholes with the company that we are to develop that kind of criteria for the search.

Councillor Mullane. No? Who's six? Oh, Councillor Callaghan.

Thank you. Sorry. So I actually was told the exact same thing by the Mayor. And I also, through this discussion, thank you very much, both of you folks, actually, and Councillor Scarpelli as well. It does seem clear to me now that there really It seems like it is not a big deal to wait. And perhaps it makes a little bit more sense for us to make some requests about how this process will unfold before we approve of the funds. And to get that in writing.

Councillor Seng.

Thank you. I'm glad to hear you heard the same thing. I was hoping it'd be true given that it was in writing. But since I brought up the idea of getting that piece of that information ready to all of us distributed to the clerk, I think I would second that motion to table. I know I said I was willing to vote for it. but it seems like the council is wanting a bit more here, which I think is reasonable. And to kind of keep us on the same page, I think it makes sense to second that.

Is there a motion? Was that a motion? President Behrs made the motion to table, seconded by Councillor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Council of Callahan.

Yes.

Council of Lemming. No. Council of Mulling.

Yes.

Council of Scapelli.

Yes.

Council of Singh.

Yes.

Vice President Lazzaro.

No.

And President Beers. Yes.

That is 5 in the affirmative, 2 in the negative. The motion passes and the paper is tabled.

You got a good one. Like I said.

PAPER 26139, BOARD AND COMMISSION APPOINTMENTS. WE HAVE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS, CHRISTA VEDA, REAPPLICATION TO THE ZBA FOR THREE YEARS, EXPIRING MARCH 31, 2029. WATER AND SEWER COMMISSION, LUCHIKA HILLER, THREE YEARS, EXPIRING 3-31-29. IRENE ROSS AND SWABHANA MUKHERJI, MEDFORD ARTS COUNCIL, MAC, THREE YEARS, EXPIRING DECEMBER 1, 2029. DO WE HAVE... Any questions or any motions? On the motion to approve by Councillor Seng, or Councillor Scarpelli, seconded by Councillor Seng. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Kelly. Yes. Councillor Lemming. Yes. Councillor Mullaney. Yes. Councillor Scarpelli. Yes. Councillor Seng. Yes. Vice President Lazaro. Yes. And President Beers.

yes 70 affirmative down the negative the motion passes 26140 submitted by mayor longo kern community preservation committee appropriation request playstead park digital scoreboard contingency and osgood house gutter and storm window restoration dear president bears and city councilors i respectfully request and recommend On behalf of the Community Preservation Committee, I respectfully request and recommend your honorable body approve the following fiscal 27 recommendations of the CPC, requesting the appropriation of $32,000 from the CPA Open Space Reserve to the Medford High School Athletics Division to provide additional contingency funds for the Playstead Park Digital Baseball Scoreboard and requesting the appropriation of 10,000 from the CPA Historic Preservation Reserve to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Medford to fund the Osgoode House gutter storm window restoration project. The project will be tracked in the Community Preservation Fund. CPA Manager Theresa DuPont will be in attendance to address the council. I'll recognize Theresa very quickly, and then I'll recognize Councillor Scarpelli. I think you're gonna get a motion to approve, but I'll give you, if you wanna do a little pitch anyway.

I'll try to keep it brief. Teresa DuPont, Community Preservation Act Manager for the City of Medford, here tonight to ask for your support of these two projects. Just really briefly, the Playstead Digital Scoreboard is a project that should seem familiar. You guys helped fund $100,000 for that project earlier this year, went out to bid, and here we are. We need a little bit of extra funds to be able to move forward with our lowest bid. I'm happy to take any questions. I'll pause a few seconds and then...

All right, and then the next one has a question on that one. Sorry, thank you, Mr. Poncho. You know my question. I asked I ask it every year and again residents that question the the. The funding for a church is part of our community to historical site and again it falls in the purview of our CPA process, correct?

I was all ready for this, so thank you very much for bringing it up. Just to build off of that, the recipient is indeed a religious institution in a historically significant building, so that makes them eligible to receive CPA funding for preservation projects or projects that retrofit historic buildings to meet modern code and ADA compliance. So particularly the Unitarian Universalist Church just want to toot their horn really quickly that they host many public events and organizations, local support groups, the weekly food pantry, community classes. And personally, I've been very pleased with their work with past CPA Awards. They've done exemplary work and are just wonderful stewards of a really iconic building to Medford Square. But yes, to address that, Councillor Scarpelli, again, thank you for bringing that up. They're eligible. They're great stewards to an old building.

And for the scoreboard, just to share with everybody, we are probably the last high school baseball field that doesn't have a scoreboard. So to move this forward, I think it's well-deserved and it's about time. So we appreciate that. So I move approval, Mr. President.

Thank you. Councillor Lemming.

I had a question about the Osgood House project. Just wanted to know if the improvements there were going to disrupt, have any effect on the family currently living there.

To my knowledge that there will be no disruptions to the current use of the building. So the gutter work is pretty non-invasive. I don't believe it will really need any true interior access to do the work, but it is just replacing the gutters and replacing a couple of storm windows. So it shouldn't be disruptive to the use of the building. Thank you.

Thank you. On the motion of Councillor Scarpelli to approve, seconded by? Seconded by Councillor Mullaney. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Callahan. Yes. Councilor Lemming.

Yes.

Councilor Mullane. Yes. Councilor Scott-Pelly. Yes. Councilor Singh. Yes. Vice President Lazzaro. Yes. And President Beers.

Yes. Having the affirmative and the negative, the motion passes. 26141 submitted by Mayor Brianna Lingo-Kern. Unpaid bill for previous fiscal year. Dear President Beers and City Councilors, I respect the request and recommend that your honorable body approve the expenditure of fiscal year 2027 building departmental appropriations in the amount of one thousand five hundred dollars and zero cents for the payment of a prior fiscal year's bill to citizens serve the city's permitting platform in accordance with master law chapter 44 section 64 as detailed in the enclosed invoice finance director and auditor bob dickinson will be in attendance respectfully submitted brianna lungo kern mayor director dickinson all right um unpaid bills um

This is a bill that's surfaced, and it's from fiscal 2025. This is how we're supposed to handle these in the future. We'll be doing more of these when departments come forward with bills that, for whatever reason, have not been paid from previous fiscal years, either because the bills were received very late or the budgets weren't available, they become unpaid bills. It goes before the council to improve them. They're usually for not a heck of a lot of money, like that's $1,500, you know, $300 here, $400 there. But in our efforts to sort of make the year end process more rigorous. We'll be looking at budgets much earlier next year, getting before the city council for year end transfers before that, making sure we have the POs in and hopefully closing the year sooner, at which point if more bills come in or something happens so some it didn't get paid then the people responsible will be brought before the city council and they'll have to ask you to approve a funding mechanism to pay an uphill an unpaid bill in this case it's a fiscal 2025 expense so we can't even charge it to fiscal 2026 and we can pay it through the building department budget that's the funding source the building department budget in fiscal 2027 with your approval. So that's what this is about.

Councillor Lazaro.

I'm not going to yell at you again. Motion to approve.

On the motion approved by Vice President Lazaro, seconded by Councillor Callahan, Director Dickinson, just when you're saying this might happen more frequently, is that, what's that a consequence of?

Closing the books sooner, obviously much tighter budgets if the budget is not available to put in a PO. We've been trying to close off fiscal 2026 POs in an effort to be able to, we can't, in admins you can't actually close the prior fiscal year unless all the POs are rolled. So they are rolled into the next fiscal year. If somebody didn't have a big enough PO, if the PO wasn't rolled, it was canceled. When we close the year, we close the year. I always harp back to my previous experience on Nantucket, which was obviously a town with a town meeting. And that was always fun because I would have the fiscal year closed there in early August. If somebody came up with a bill, once the system was closed, we couldn't pay it. So we'd tell them they have to tell their vendor that they can't pay the bill until the town votes on it, which is that town meeting in May. So it kind of gets people to make sure they have all their bills in and they're paid. So we're going to be doing this more, as I said, in an effort to make sure that our year-end processes are more in accordance with how they should be.

And in this process, the city council is the stick compared to the getting your bill in time proverbial carrot, or?

I'm sorry?

You just said you're gonna bring, you phrased it as, I'm trying to make a joke, you said you're gonna bring them before, the person responsible shall be brought before the city council, and I just wanted to.

And then you can talk to them. If I have an unpaid bill, I'm gonna have to come up here and explain why I didn't pay it, and how we're going to pay it this year, and seek your approval.

Sure, okay. Well, we'll try to be nice to them when they come here.

Okay. Hopefully it won't for me, but anyway.

All right. On the motion, any further discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Callahan.

Yes.

Councillor Lemming.

Yes.

Councillor Mullaney.

Yes.

Councillor Scott-Pelly. Yes. Councillor Singh. Yes. Vice President Lazaro. Yes. And President Beers.

Yes, 70 affirmative, none of the negative, the motion passes. 26142, submitted by Mayor Brianna Longo Kern. Supplemental appropriation for the fiscal year 2027. Dear President Behrs and members of the city council, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body approves the following supplemental appropriation for fiscal year 2027 to restore the law department budget, which was originally proposed in a June 4th, 2026 submission to the city council. Mayor proposed total 529,566. City council cut 425,076. To meet this appropriation, the sum of $425,076.33 be raised and appropriated from the fiscal year 2026 tax levy. Over the past several weeks, we've made a thoughtful effort to engage with the council on this appropriation, as well as the provisions of legal documents responsive to your records requests. On May 13th, we responded to the council's request, noting that item A would, take an estimated 395 hours to review. On June 16th, we supplied the city council with 130 pages of settlements between 2020 and the council's request. On June 23rd, we provided the spending detail of the fire department professional services line and that line of other legal expenditures incurred in fiscal 2026, as you recall. i wrote to the council on june 3rd offering to discuss the most effective process for providing those materials my chief of staff also requested it both june 9th and june 23rd meetings for the council to designate a member to work with our office we have unfortunately i've got to receive a response most recently on july 23rd we supplied an updated breakdown of the fiscal 26 legal spending compared to other communities i emailed the council president asking how we can reach an understanding so that my office could begin working a grant agreement to help fund medford family network began the recruitment process for a new arts liaison position and other budget priorities. I have not heard back on this request. My administration has consistently sought to engage with the council in a collaborative and transparent manner, and we remain committed to doing so. However, our repeated requests for coordination and communication have gone unanswered. It's important that we receive direction and feedback from the council collectively. or at least from a majority of its members so that we can be confident we are proceeding in accordance with the council's expectations and are not expending city staff time resources, pursuing work that may ultimately prove unnecessary or incomplete. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter. Sincerely, Brianna Lungokern, Mayor." I just want to say that I have drafted a response that I will read momentarily for all of you, but there are a number of inaccuracies In what the mayor has said, namely on July 23 they presided for supply to break down. Of the legal spending compared to other communities that was not something that this Council ever requested and on numerous occasions, we said that it was not. A document that we found particularly helpful to understanding the total scope of legal costs, we also stated, I think unanimously and clearly on June 23 that the mayor could. begin working on the grant agreement for the medford family network recruiting the arts liaison paying the librarians the raise she promised them funding the council assistant because we did approve her supplemental appropriation the only reason those things are not happening is because she's choosing not to do them for no reason and Beyond the rest of that, this request that we received direction and feedback from the council collectively on like five occasions, we have passed unanimous resolutions and submitted them to the mayor. I don't understand what more direction we can provide, but given the, communication, I have attempted to provide direction. And I did have the clerk forward draft council B paper response to this paper earlier this evening. I'll be happy to read it out after I hear from my colleagues, Councillor Scarpelli and then Councillor Callahan.

Thank you, Mr. President.

And I hope my councils and I hope the residents don't think that This is something that's petty. I think that this is something that is so important right now, and there are a lot of eyes on us because of our duties and responsibilities, and that's being the fiscal stewards of this community. We've identified a concern when it comes to legal finances and especially when it comes to lawsuits and the processes thereof. We put forth a very detailed request that fell on deaf ears. Then we had to go through the FOIA request. The Chief of Staff stood in front of us we explained to her this is what we need this is what we require this isn't something new this isn't something confusing this is something pretty straightforward whether it takes a team months to do it I don't believe but what we get back was a breakdown of what other communities pay legally that's not what we asked for so you've already wasted time and something we don't we didn't ask for so we received something today not not last week so we can review it today and it had the breakdown of what kp law was paid over the last i believe five years and i believe the number was close to 2.4 million dollars Just that alone, I said to myself, geez, this is the administration that stood in front of us time after time saying, we are falling in the guidelines of our legal lines in the budget. Do we all remember that? I'm sure we do. But what we see with what we received is The report shows three-fourths of the outside counsel is being paid outside of the law department, which is a major concern. And it's another highlight of what are we doing? And then the process of that we're not giving clear direction. I don't know how clear you have to be in what we've put forward. I'm sure that other counselors have talked to the administration and shared to say, give us this, and that might have worked, but for this counselor, if we don't see what we're asking for, and to make it easier, is understanding what we're paying in legal fees, not just KP law, because we're not paying just KP law anymore. From what I gather, we have three or four law firms now that are fighting lawsuits against our own employees. We asked for the settlements and how much those settlements cost us. We asked for any of the settlement processes that we had to pay out to the opposing legal team. We talked about asking for the breakdown of what it costs us in arbitration hearings and what that cost us on both sides, what it costs to run the arbitration, what it costs to pay our attorney, and then what it costs to pay their attorney when we postpone or move forward. Then we ask for a description of other legal fees that are being charged through these legal entities. For instance, private investigators, because we've seen time at the top and from our hearing, it's still happening today that they're following DPW employees, they're following employees, and we're paying private investigators. The mayor put a post out. Her post was a video that explained that it's about accountability and transparency. Where? We can't be any clearer what we're asking for, Mr. President. So to sit back and say that presenting this and asking us to go forward is disingenuine. We have not gotten any answers. We still haven't moved forward with anything. We still have our employees in flux. I was given word today that there is a big lawsuit in federal court that would happen in the beginning of October. That'll be another big one, and that's frightening. We saw another settlement through the school department for an administration situation that was in black and white, but they still fought it through the courts, and they lost. So it's still happening. What I'm begging the mayor to do is stop now with everything. Stop until we figure this out. Because all you're doing is saying, here is nothing, and I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and spending the money of our community in something that she feels, in her mind, is correcting the good old boys network. And I'm tired of hearing it. So Mr. President, I know this morning I was very upset when I saw it because again, we're getting something pretty serious and when the Chief of Staff sent out the last document that showed us the breakdown of what other communities pay, my answer was very simple. That's not what we asked for. Period. And I didn't respond to this email because I'm tired of saying This is not what we asked for. At minimal, give us the breakdown. This is what bothers me. The mayor didn't mention in her dissertation that our chief of staff stood here, looked us all in the eye, and said what? We don't have the bandwidth or the software to give you what they gave us today. So I know it sounds petty, but it's not, because you know what? If we move forward with this and we don't get to a resolution and an understanding with the administration that this council isn't going to back down when we ask for information that the residents and the voters are asking us to provide, then what are we doing here? Again, I'm just, the frustration, this isn't new for me. This is something that we can go back to 2022. We can go further back from the beginning when we've asked for the documentation, when we asked for the, remember the month-to-months? Remember we used to get those? Who was here when we got those? We used to get the month-to-month, right? And you used to break it down. And if you looked at the month, and then you went down, you went down to the right column, and it said KP Law, KP Law, KP Law, KP Law. But it wasn't in the line item, in the law line. It was in the school department. It was in the police department. It was in... But time after time, the administration would come up and say, I don't know what you're talking about, Counselor Scott Pelley. We are falling into exactly the financial guidelines that are given to us in the budget, in the law line. Do we forget that or not? Because I can bring up the old YouTube videos. But all I'm asking is please to the administration, you're dragging your feet and now it's starting to look bad for many different reasons now. Now, why is it so important For me, the people that I've talked to, when you talk about hundreds of thousands of dollars being used for this, and this is the energy we're moving toward for lawsuits against our own employees, and then we find out what? Make sure it's said. Every lawsuit that has been projected and been shown and pushed out and everybody sees now, they're all lawsuits that the city administration lost. So they're not unfounded. They're not made up. So you can't keep going on with the same dialogue of accountability. You can't. It's not working. It's only costing us thousands of dollars. We're talking about huge plans coming down the line. Big money. And for one counselor, I need to make sure that we know this finally, whether it's correct or whether it's not, so we can move forward with no confusion, with no debate, that we understand where we are so we can move forward in the projects and the plans that we have for our community moving forward so i again i know i'm winded and but it's just frustrated i'm i'm i'm i i appreciate some of my colleagues not picking up my phone call this morning because um i would have taken your ears off but um council president i appreciate you picking up but i will i will tell you my ears are gone But I will tell you, we need some sort of resolution with this. We need to see the numbers. And it's not difficult. It's work, maybe, but it's not difficult. We spelt it out. Give us the numbers for every law firm that we're working with. Give us the invoices of every law firm. Give us the amount of money that we paid out in settlements. Give us the amount of money that we used in arbitration hearings and fees and fines. Give us what other entities we had to pay through legal lines like private investigators. So that's pretty simple. I mean, honestly, even if we just got that, it would help, but we're not getting anything. All we're getting is stacks of 150-page emails saying how they can't do something, and then emails stating things like how much money Arlington spends on legal fees, which we don't care about. So thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Councillor Scarpelli. Councillor Callahan.

May I share my screen? I hope this is large enough for people to see. It's really just this one row. I know that we have been asking for information on our legal expenditures for many months now, and because the administration didn't answer our initial request in February, then we had to make a public records request, and now we're going to request other things. You know, even I have become a little confused as to like all the different things that we have asked for. So I went back to the very first ask. And I want people to understand that our first ask was really not complicated. So this is our first ask. I put it into a spreadsheet so it's a little bit easier to see. What we want to know is For each case that has that we have been in the city has been involved in what is the legal actions case name, what is the case number, what is the forum. What date was it filed, what is the nature of the claims that's probably the one that requires the most thought right the current status, we said pending settled dismissed or adjudicated. What was the outcome? Did we win? Did we lose? What have been the legal costs? What have been the settlements or other payments made? And what was the funding source for those? So if it came out of our operating budget, what line item? What department did it come out of? If it came from somewhere else, where did it come from? If you look at this, it would not be that hard to make this spreadsheet right here and fill it out. This is not that. I mean, I'm not saying it's not work. It would require a little bit of work. But to be honest, KP Law and whatever other legal entities we have used could pretty easily fill out this information. This is not difficult. The case name, the case number, the date it was filed, the status of the case. These are not difficult pieces of information to put together. And if they had simply answered this when we asked for it in February, we would not then have made public records across and you know I understand there may be you know, another formulation of this request like we keep retrying to restate they keep asking us, we don't know what you mean, and then we restate it in different words and and I wonder how much the different words are making it seem more complicated than it is like this is what we asked for like this is not. difficult. So I'm having trouble understanding the constant pushback of how this is hundreds of hours. Like, this is not hundreds of hours of work. It's not. And hopefully, you know, you ask for this simple set of information, and it really should not Be be a lot for the law firms that we are paying to give us this information, this is their job, they need to be able to do this so that's that's my opinion i'm disappointed. I don't know if this is helpful to the administration to be able to see this, but this is basically what we asked for in the very first motion that we did in February, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Callahan. Any further comments from members of the council? I'll just add two or three things and then I can read the proposed B paper response. At this point, like the chief of staff got up here six weeks ago and said, we don't have a spreadsheet of all the cases. They could make one. I really just wanna know how much does this whole mess cost? How much has the legal odyssey of the mayor cost the city over the last six years? We got a piece of paper today that says we paid KP law $2.4 million in the last six years. Dave Rodriguez got up here six years ago and said it'd be $150,000 a year. That's 900,000 and it's at 2.4 million. There's a bunch of settlements, it's unclear in what state of appeal or payment or does our insurance cover some of the settlement or not? I just wanna know how much has all of this cost and where did we pay for it out of? And if there's stuff that we're still waiting on How much might that cost us over the next year? I've written that in seven, eight, nine paragraphs, but like, I just wanna know how much it costs. And I don't understand why it feels like we're getting a flood the zone strategy of we're gonna send you 130 pages of documents you didn't ask for. We're gonna make a spreadsheet you didn't ask for. We're gonna say that you're ruining Janice Spencer's life and I love Janice and I'm sorry that Janice has had to photocopy a bunch of like $700 checks that we never asked for. I don't want Janice to do that either. I just wanna know how much it's all cost. I don't think it's that hard of a question. I agree with Councilor Callahan that maybe we've said it so many times in so many different ways that it's confusing. I'm honestly confused. There's my guidance. I feel like I'm being responsive when in 15 public meetings, I keep saying the same thing over and over again and never getting a response. But as I said on the previous item, I don't feel comfortable. I don't feel trust here in this relationship. I would like the mayor to put things in writing. The mayor has basically called me a liar and said that things that we've said in one-on-one meetings never happened. Like, I don't wanna meet with the person who's gonna do that to me alone. The Boston Globe said that there were, Like 50 horrible things that have happened and we all knew about them, but it was really interesting to see them all put into one story and then the mayor said, well, that's just an attack on me and I'm just trying to hold people accountable. I don't think we're being open and transparent. If we can't say this is how much this all cost. That's really, that's my question. So I'll read And I agree with Vice President Lozaro, I want this to be done. Like, this is such a waste of everybody's time to spend six months arguing over this. Like, I agree with that. I just think if they could answer how much has this all cost, then we'd have our answer. And we could say, well, we think that you shouldn't have spent $6 million on this venture. But you're the mayor, so you get to make that decision. And we control a part of the budget and we maybe don't want to keep funding that. So, and that's how the process should work in any case. Um, I brought you up vice president. So if you want to go before I read this response, go ahead.

Yeah, I just, um, we have a lot of work we have to do in the city. There are a lot of real things we need to work on. There are a lot of issues that would really benefit the city to have the mayor's partnership on and the longer. the administration spends telling us why they can't do anything or why it's hard to carry out the tasks that we've voted for. and then not doing them completely, the less productive, meaningful work we do and the less faith our residents have in the administration and in our ability to work together. And it's a bad look for everybody. I would love for this to end. I would love for it to end in a way that makes sense. I would love for that spreadsheet To be part of it seems great. I'm happy to have more conversations with the mayor and the administration and see how I can help I I told President bears, you know, I'll take a day off my day job if I need to, to come sit down and talk it through. But we have a lot of work to get done. And we can't keep doing this. We can't keep holding hostage it's not legal to hold hostage the salaries of city employees.

And by we you mean the mayor because we're not doing that.

Well, we are not in charge of paying the salaries of city employees on the city council. So we on the city council cannot hold anybody's salary hostage. I also was told that, guys, we can talk about this stuff all night. The mayor does not watch these meetings. So it doesn't matter whatever we think that we're saying She told me that just this week that she doesn't watch the meeting. So she doesn't know what we're saying It's not afterwards not during so it's it doesn't matter We're gonna It doesn't matter you can let the mayor know this is how I will communicate with her if she wants to understand what I believe she can watch the meeting and It's always available. But what we need to do is move on from this and hopefully do it in an amicable way and get on with the business of governing the city and taking care of our residents.

I'll read the response, even though apparently it doesn't matter. Again, maybe that's why the mayor thinks there hasn't been communication because we've been communicating very loudly and clearly in these meetings and she doesn't watch them. So I mean, that will continue until she responds to a written response, like gives a written response or watches a meeting or comes to a meeting and has a conversation with us. So I do not think there will be an amicable resolution to the situation if one party refuses to communicate with another party. And the only way that we can give collective feedback is in a public meeting, per the open meeting law. So if the mayor refuses to watch the meetings of this body and engage with us as a body of seven people who are required by law to conduct our business in the public view, then there will never be communication between the two of us because that's the only way that we can act collectively. So if that is the mayor's request, I really encourage her to, Watch anything we've said for like 20 meetings this year or read the numerous written documents that we've sent and voted for unanimously, so I will just read now. what I drafted, which is a draft response to paper 26142, whereas the city council unanimously approved resolution 26043 on February 24th, 2026, requesting a comprehensive litigation report from the administration regarding the significant increase in legal claims against the city since January 2020 and the financial cost of the administration's decisions regarding litigation strategy and employee relations to the city and its residents. And whereas the city council unanimously approved resolution 26077 on April 28th to file a public records request pursuant to state law due to the city administration's lack of response to the prior request. And whereas the council took numerous votes and counselors provided clarity and guidance to the city administration at dozens of public city council meetings since February requesting regarding information requests in the above resolutions, which apparently nobody's watching. And whereas the city council has only received partial and significantly delayed responses from the city administration, including information never requested by the council. and whereas the city council was forced to reduce the law department budget due to the lack of information about past legal expenses and planned legal expenses in order to exercise basic oversight and transparency and whereas the city administration has made repeated statements that they are not capable of meeting these requests even after repeated clarification by the council and whereas the medford city council received a document today august 4th 2026 summarizing kp law expenditures since january 2020 with a total sum of 2.4 million dollars And whereas the chief of staff informed the city council by email that she is not able to attend tonight's meeting due to a prior commitment and requested that this council refer any additional questions to the mayor and chief of staff, now therefore be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we request the following from the city administration. One, a written response to resolution 26043 with the status of each requested item, including an explanation of what efforts have been made to respond to each request and why the city administration cannot provide the information if necessary. This explanation may also include any efforts to respond to the public records request authorized by the council in resolution 26077. Our written response to the original resolution's request for an independent review of the city's litigation costs, practices, and risk management procedures. We never received a response as to whether the administration would do that. A categorization of the KP law expenditures we received today into the following categories. What was for collective bargaining negotiations? What was for employee litigation, arbitration, grievances, or other settlement expenses? What was for legal review of ordinances or board and commission proceedings? What were non-employee claims and litigation? For example, a vehicle accident or a sewer damage claim. Provision of legal guidance to city staff regarding their actions and other legal work. The same report for any other firms other than KP law that the city has used since 2020. A summary of all the settlements or judgments over $10,000 since 2020, including simply just the amount paid by the city and the source of the funds and a list and estimated cost of all of the budgeted expenses for fiscal 27. And then it concludes, be it further resolved that the city council hopes that this further written clarification of its numerous and repeated requests for information since February will provide the city administration with the appropriate guidance to meet these requests and provide a transparent and full accounting of the city's legal expenses since 2020 to the residents of Medford. We have further resolved that this resolution be submitted to the city administration immediately and the text be placed on the September 15th, 2026 council meeting agenda as paper 26142B, along with any written responses received from the administration by September 10th, which would be about six months since we started this process. So that's my proposal. If anyone wants to take that up, I would appreciate it. And I'll go to Councilor Singh.

I know Councillor Schiaparelli seconded it. I'll take it up. I think this is a very reasonable V paper. It really just reiterates everything we've said over and over again and things that would really help us explain this to constituents. I mean, really, this is democracy. It's accountability. It's a little disappointing that the work hasn't been done already by those receiving our requests To just read through what we asked for and to create this list, but if I guess to move this along if the administration can't do it, then this be be paper helps do it so i'll happily support it, I do have a question. For President bears.

um.

What's your understanding of, well, I don't want to name employees, but Janice's salary, if we don't pass this tonight, or if we don't pass any modified version of this tonight?

I don't know. Again, no one's here to answer questions. They just said, here's a document with $2.4 million in expenses. That should be enough, please just approve a year's worth of funding, even after all of this debate. You know, again, like, I think we've been acting in good faith this whole time. I would support another month getting through the end of September if, you know, we have September 15th and a meeting September 29th, I believe. So there'd be two more meetings in September where the administration could respond to this. If they wanna set up a special meeting to meet with all of us publicly, if the mayor wants to ever come to a city council meeting and, or, or just provide the written response we requested here. I personally, I don't even really like it, but going to the end of September, there's more time to answer these questions and try to work something out.

Yeah. I mean, I'm of two minds about it. I see the case for going until the end of September. And the case for me goes as this, to be sure about, the salaries of those in the law department right now, just to secure that and make sure there's no uncertainty there, I think is fair to Ms. Spencer. I think there's an argument that despite the administration's lack of effort in terms of understanding our requests and listening to our meetings, the report we received this morning, moves us a little bit forward in terms of what we're asking for, despite it not really answering everything we're asking for. And a partial response could be, you know, a partial budget is proportional to a partial response. I can see that argument. On the no front, I see the argument for You know, we really, back when we passed the budget, we set out a clear instruction. And we set out clear conditions. And if this doesn't, if this paper doesn't pass at all, if no form of it passes, then it's a natural consequence of not, not working with us on this issue. So I just want to be upfront to the public that that's where my mind is. That's the debate that's happening in my mind right now.

Thank you, Councillor Singh. There's a motion by Councillor Singh to take up this B paper seconded by Councillor Scarpelli. So we have a B paper response, which is the resolution I just read. And then we could take a vote on that. And then if there's a vote on the A paper, either to approve, reduce, or not approve, reject, those are the options for the supplemental appropriation. At that this point I will open it up to public participation if there's no further comments or questions by counselors. name and neighborhood, for the record, please you'll have three minutes.

Thank you, Nick Julia 40 Robinson road I speak in opposition to this appropriations request. Medford's law department should not be funded until the city complies with its legal obligations. And this includes not only the public records law, but the city's obligation to hire a city solicitor. Medford is required by law to have a city solicitor. Look at our city's ordinances, Article IV, Sections 2-651 through 2-657 say so explicitly. One of those says, quote, there shall be a city solicitor, unquote. Another section says that the solicitor must be appointed annually by the mayor. Another section says that the solicitor has to be an attorney licensed to practice law in Massachusetts. Another section says, and I'll quote here again, quote, he only shall act as the chief legal advisor and solicitor of the city. Unquote. None of this is optional. And note that use of the word shall and the reference to the solicitor alone being the city's chief legal advisor. There's no mention that an outside law firm like KP Law can be a permissible substitute. And it doesn't matter one iota what other cities and towns might be doing. All that matters is what our own laws say and our laws are abundantly clear. If you go on the city's website right now, you'll see on the law department page that the position of city solicitor and public records access officer is listed as vacant. The mayor, however, has contradictorily said to the press recently that KP Law is the acting solicitor. Well, if KP Law were mayor's acting solicitor, why wouldn't KP Law be listed as acting solicitor on the city website or be acknowledged in any public way? I'll point out also that Medford has not even had a listing posted for the job since Kevin Foley left the position last November. We're approaching almost a year now without one. Now, as much as I don't like to compare Medford to Somerville, compare Medford's law department to Somerville's. Medford's law department is apparently being entirely run by an office manager who I don't believe is even an attorney. Somerville's law department, in contrast, is staffed by eight people, including not only a solicitor but a deputy solicitor, two assistant city solicitors, a special counsel, a law clerk, a paralegal, and a claims contact. Not having a solicitor has led to the city making a plethora of legal errors. The city was recently sued in federal court for failing to ensure its divestment ordinance complied with state law. The city's lost multiple union arbitrations for things as silly as disciplining a firefighter for not being clean-shaven. The city was recently sued in federal court for issuing a poorly worded notice to retailers pertaining to vape products. This very council recently gave itself a raise in direct violation of our charter, a lawsuit waiting to happen. The city is really in terrible shape right now due to all these legal problems, and one of the interesting commonalities is that many of these woes connect to the city not having a city solicitor. So I therefore call on the council to condition any restoration of law department funding to the city making a definite commitment to hire and keep a new city solicitor. We absolutely 100% need one and we need one now. I hope that if you pass this B paper, you'll add something about a status update on the process of hiring a new city solicitor to that. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go to Zoom next. We have Mr. Castanetti on Zoom. Mr. Castanetti, name and neighborhood, and you'll have three minutes.

Thank you, Councilor Beres. Andrew Castanetti, Christian Street, East Mecklenburg, Massachusetts. And at the risk of being crude, I want to repeat myself on this subject. Last June 23rd, We the people deserve a comprehensive accounting of all lawsuits versus the city for the last five years. After all, this is our money, the taxpayers' money. Period. Andrew said that. Dot com. Good night.

Thank you. We will go to the podium. Name a neighborhood for the record. You'll have three minutes.

All righty. Simon Alcindor, 44 Tanner Street. I'm going to try not to repeat myself too much from last meeting, but I mean, like, what's changed, really? It appears that the mayor just simply does not care to hear anything that the elected officials of this city nor any of her constituents have to say, so... What point is there to me even saying anything right now? I mean, like, genuinely, like, I don't know what, like, it is sort of difficult just to understand what the point is now, but there are things that we can do. As I mentioned last meeting, there are things that we can do to increase the pressure. We have access to groups which can mobilize and pressure the mayor on this subject. We have apply pressure on topics like these. My suggestion is at this point to use those groups and mobilize them to write to the mayor and make it unignorable that she is choosing to ignore her constituents. She's choosing to ignore fellow elected officials in the city and make it impossible for her to ignore the fact that she is currently failing to meet the moment and actually serve the city of Medford in the capacity in which she was elected to do. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll stay at the podium, name and neighborhood for the record, and you'll have three minutes.

Mike Kesselman, 499 Main Street. So tonight's a weird night. I agree with some folks that don't often agree with, for the most part. But I'm not going to restate the same things again and again and again. I would say, though, that we, one, I, yeah, this is absolutely, the only petty part of this is the administration. Like, otherwise this is like real basic, accountability and basic diligence in the city's job to understand the financial status of the legal department and the history of it. So no one should be accusing this really simple ask at the end of the day as being petty. That's crazy. Refusing to comply is beyond petty. It's incompetent. and ridiculous. The other thing I do want to point out, though, is that we really need more than an accounting of just sort of executive summary line item expenditures per case. Because the issue isn't, oh, we spent this much on this. I mean, that is one of the issues. We spent this much on this case, this much on that case, whatever, this much on this. But also, you need, like, why did you spend that much? Law firms report. Law firms bill you by the tenth of an hour. Like, they track very closely exactly what they're billing you for. They should be able to provide that to you. It's crazy that you can't get that information. And also, at a minimum, guys should be getting access to like the engagement letters with every single law firm that the city has had an engagement letter with and then you could even go on your own possibly and just tell the law firms to give you a report out of the matters that have they've done for the city like i it's it's very baffling and like has been said it's been months and months arguing back and forth wasting time, the mayor engaging in what is absolutely an illegal withholding of appropriated funds already. She cannot condition her budget on arbitrary conditions. That's not how that works. She said, I want this money to go somewhere, and then a bunch of dicta that means garbage and nothing. And you guys said, OK, you can send that money to there. She can't say it. She can't just withhold it. That's not legal. And hey, cool. That will be another item to put in the report, probably. So good job. Anyway, I really appreciate you guys really, really following up on this. So I think you're doing great work. Thank you.

Do we have any further discussion? Councilor Scarpa.

um i know that the constituent did come up i think that is something that if we could in the b paper as well i think it's something we all want anyway and at least to start the process of the city solicitor if we could add that to the b paper i think that would be hugely helpful i think that we've mentioned that every week but i just don't want to forget it again um because i think we we pounded it as much as we can but i think it is a good idea to just keep keep adding it um as part of the process because it is right that we talked about this at the budget season right and that was part of the negotiation if you do this we'll do this and This is the root of all the problems we're still waiting for a city solicitor because, again, the one of the breakdowns we had. Remember what we got from the chief of staff was a breakdown of department heads and what they were using legal for I sent that off to city solicitors that I know and they read them and they came back and they said that's what a city solicitor does. So it's frustrating to get that information and understand that that's the root of the issue. So again, thank you.

Chancellor Scarpelli. I'm very disappointed. I thought maybe I would be independent councillor Zach Beres tonight by saying I think we should include number seven in this list as an update on the hiring of the city solicitor.

Well, I take that back. You are now an independent council with me. It's official. I am your campaign manager and you are an independent. We've gone full circle.

I'd love an update. I think we've been requesting one in our budget meetings. You know, I think that makes sense, and I have no problem adding that in. But I will just send an updated version to the clerk that includes an update on the hiring of a city solicitor and when the job will be posted. Does that sound good? Thank you. All right. We have a vote first on the B paper as amended by Councillor Scarpelli, proposed by Councillor Seng, seconded by Councillor Scarpelli, amended by Councillor Scarpelli. On the B paper, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Kelly. Councillor Lemon. Yes. Councillor Mullaney. Council of Scott-Pelly? Yes. Council of Singh? Yes. Vice President Lazar and President Beers?

Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. That brings us to the A paper. This is the supplemental appropriation. Councilor Singh?

I think it'd be worth it to see as a council if there's appetite to go to one month. So I would motion to amend the the appropriation to $42,507.63. So just dividing that by 10, because that's supposed to be for 10 months. Give me one second. Dividing by 10 is tough.

Well, no, no, no. But I know it's more complicated than that. Because we didn't cut everything last time.

Yeah, we didn't cut everything, but...

It's close enough. It should be like 44,000. 44,000?

Do you have the actual number?

10 is actually fine. It's fine. Okay. Yeah. So that's a motion from Counselor Singh to cut the appropriation to $42,507.06. 63 cents. 63 cents, sorry.

Yeah. I'm just moving the decimal point over for simplicity.

Yeah.

Did you do the subtraction on that?

Sorry? We should say the amount that we're cutting. Oh, so not just the final figure. Yeah, I can do that real quick. Great.

Wasn't a math major. So I went to law school. OK, I got the number. All right, great. It's the number to cut by is $382,568.70. And $0.07? $0.07. Sorry, $0.07. $0.07. $0.07. Okay. So the motion is to cut the appropriation by $382,568.70 to a total of $42,000.

507 and 63 cents and approve as reduced. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Mullane in good faith, it sounded like. Yeah. Any further comments by members of the council on the motion? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Council of Callahan. Yes. Council of Lemming.

Yes.

Council Mullaney. Yes. Council Scapelli. Yes. Council Lesane. Yes. Vice President Lazaro. And President Pierce.

Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. We did have a public participation paper in the past from Andrew Dahl. Is Andrew here? Okay, seeing no Andrew, there are three unfinished business items. Councilor Lemming.

Yes, motion to take the proposed vacant building ordinance off the table.

Can we do all three so we only have to take one vote on taking them off the table? It would mean four votes instead of six votes.

So moved.

on the motion to take papers 25054, 26124, and 26063 off the table by Councillor Lemming. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Callahan. Councillor Lemming.

Yes.

Councillor Mullaney. Yes. Councillor Scapelli. Yes. Councillor Singh.

Yes.

Vice President Lazzaro. And President Beers.

Yes. I mean, the affirmative and the negative of the motion passes. 26054, the vacant building ordinance for third reading. It was approved for first reading May 12th, advertised June 25th. And Councillor Seng or Lemming first. I believe that Councillor Lemming. Councillor Lemming.

Uh, yes, thank you. Uh, counselor saying, and I discussed, uh, discuss the order. Um, that we present this in beforehand, uh, first. would just like to say, would just like to comment a little bit about some of the papers received and sort of where we're at with this. So we passed it for a first reading. We passed this for a first reading several months ago, and I believe it was the day that we passed it for the first reading was when we received legal edits back from KP Law. And KP Law informed me that though that there was a confidentiality like the attorney client confidentiality on those legal edits. So they I said I wanted to put the legal edits like the comments that they put themselves onto the agenda. and they took issue with that proposal. So I did pass those comments as well as the red line edits of both that both myself and councilor saying took to the rest of the council. And those edits included both the edits from KP Law as well as the ones that we took, the edits from the initial Cal meeting. So it's, you know, there's a lot of red lines there. I'm going to go over them in a second. The version on the agenda is the version with all of the more minor legal edits accepted and the comments removed so as not to infringe on any attorney-client confidentiality or anything like that. But with some of Counselor Sank's more substantive edits that he's going to go over later. But for now, I'm just going to, for the sake of the public, just talk about what some of the legal edits were. that KP Law brought up, what generally some of our responses were to that. And then I believe Counselor Singh will go over both his edits as well as some more substantive changes that he would like to also discuss. So team that up. Essentially with KP Law's edits, a lot of them were just very basic. uh like very basic changes to the legal language um you know semantics like semantics they changed building to property in one case they would change the word rejection to denial things like that um there was there was a clarification on they asked us to like clarify their review periods of waivers, should that be done annually, et cetera, et cetera. A lot of the comments, to be totally honest, were, I would say, a little bit pedantic, or they were already covered in previous legal analysis that the counselor saying undertook. Like there was one part where we quoted- Counselor Lemming? Yes.

Sorry, just reading the room a little bit. I think we are comfortable with the changes. If you want to keep describing them in detail, it seems like. I think we trust you and Counselor Tseng to have worked through semantic changes and not really affect the substance of it. All right.

Yeah, sure. I'll skip over this. Essentially, the only substantive thing here was the definition of local Because there were KP law was like saying that they doubted that we could require that there be a local property manager managing any managing a vacant building. I looked into that. Springfield does the same thing. They require a property manager living within 20 miles of the city, so I'm comfortable just keeping that. And then I talked with Marianne O'Connor as well, and she said she's fine with keeping residential reports being once every three months instead of once every month. So that's really the only substantive edit that came from the legal review from my end.

um but with that I'll pass it to counselor saying to also go over uh some of his some of his notes and thoughts counselor saying I will also preface this by saying we trust you and appreciate work you've done with the Chamber of Commerce to make some changes um over the last month uh you and Councilman have done some great work on this so counselor saying we trust you we believe you

Yeah, I appreciate that. Great trust. I mean, I think substantively really the closest edit the red line that I've made was there was kind of an overlap with significant improvements and renovations with an active permit. So we just kind of separated those exempt those from this ordinance into in total, because that's what we had discussed in committee. So that was a clarification that is substantive in effect. And then other things were just addressing liability, addressing preemption, making sure those holes are patched. Moving on to the proposed amendments to vacant building ordinance. There's seven items. I'll just go through them really quickly. The first one is to remove the 30 day advance payment requirement for registration renewal. And the second item is the same, but for waiver renewal. The reason why I guess Chamber members had pointed out to me that requiring renewal fees and these waiver waivers 30 days before expiration could force an owner to pay for a full year of coverage, even if their vacancy resolves in that final window of 30 days. So this is a timing fix. It's not a huge substantive one. Owners would still owe the fee for every day the property is actually vacant. They're just not forced to prepay before they have to if we adopt that amendment. are those two amendments. The third item is extending the vacancy threshold to six months. This came through our conversations with multiple members of the chamber who argued that 90 days, so three months, often isn't enough time to responsibly release a storefront once a tenant leaves. They might actually hurt the businesses that they're already leasing out to, say, if they own a few properties in a row. And there's Pizza Shop and the only other available tenants at Pizza Shop That would hurt local business in total. There are differing numbers about what a natural storefront turnover is like, even if you're working hard in good faith, but usually the lower end numbers are about six months. So six months seemed reasonable to change that too. The fourth item is to reduce the year one registration fee to $750. The original flat 1000 first year fee felt like an unfair upfront cost, particularly for smaller operators. And 750 for the first year still sits above what several comparable Massachusetts cities charge. And we would keep the escalating year two year three structure untouched. The fifth item would be to strengthen and clarify the appeals process for waiver denials. So something that had been brought up to me was that, as previously drafted, an owner who has denied a waiver had no clear path to appeal that waiver. They would go back to the same person who had denied them that waiver, and then they'd have to go to court. So a gap in the text meant that it wasn't even certain that a waiver denial um triggered the appeal section at all so there's some language clarifying that um and the proposal from chamber members um was that those appeals come to the city council given that we handle permitting um and also because it's a more public forum with which community members can make make it known that they're not happy with the vacancy and the property owner can come and kind of make their case too. And it gives us more of a say over the process. The sixth item is to add a cure period and to reduce the daily fine. There is concerns that were raised that finds a crew immediately and compound quickly, which can hit an owner who's genuinely trying to work to fix a problem as hard as as hard as it hits someone who's ignoring that problem outright. So I've added or I'm proposing a 14-day notice and cure period before any fine begins, except where public safety is at risk to give good faith owners a real chance to comply first. While the $200 a day still provides deterrence, in my opinion, for anyone who doesn't. And this would also bring Medford in line with several peer municipalities in terms of how they structure their penalty escalation. And then the last item, the seventh item, is an early registration incentive for anticipated vacancies. The core of this ordinance is really to improve communication between property owners who own vacant properties and City Hall so that we can get businesses into those properties. And a chamber member had proposed rewarding owners who notified who notified the city of a coming vacancy before it happens, rather than. Only after the ordinance forces that their hand so that we give our cities economic development staff a real head start on helping rent out that space and work to connect people together potential tenants together. And the incentive would only pay out if the vacancy actually materializes and the owner hasn't you already used it recently so I'm trying to, in my opinion, this is to make sure that the benefit is something that's earned and not just automatic.

Council Vice President Lazzaro, Councillor Mullaney, Councillor Scarpelli.

Thank you. I motion to approve all of those except I would like to sever the reduction of the total fee. Do you understand what I'm saying? The last one, number seven. I think that should remain. I don't think there's a good argument for lowering that.

So there's a motion to sever number seven fee reduction.

Yeah. Unless I can hear again. That's only if there's an incentive program for that. Yeah.

Oh, sorry. Number seven is basically saying if you register early before a certain period, let me just make sure I'm quoting the right period, before 120 days, so that's four months. So if you register in the first four months of your vacancy, so that that gives our city staff a chance to work with them, they'll get like a 50% off discount. And I'm happy to- Versus? Versus just registering in the last two months of that six month window, which wouldn't really help our city staff. It wouldn't give them time to work with the property owner to fill that space.

I don't like it. It feels like a handout to me. I just feel like we're, I think a lot of these are fine. I think that last one, I mean, we've already extended it beyond, and these are, all of this stuff is based on, Other cities vacant building ordinances that are already enacted that were that were written with the collaboration of their chambers and I fear. That because members of our city's Chamber of Commerce are. property owners who own storefronts, that there may be slightly more impact to members of the Chamber of Commerce in that way than maybe other chambers i don't think that that it's necessary to both on both sides of this to extend the amount of time you have to say oh but i don't like that business and i don't want to bring it in because it's going to be a competitor to my other business like i don't think we're actually as a city council as a city as a whole in the business of making sure that uh every business owner can manipulate our local economy and by withholding access to available space to businesses that want to open. If somebody is coming to you and they want to open a halal chicken place and it's next door to another halal chicken place and then there are two halal chicken places, okay. The market will figure that out, probably. But what I hear the most from anybody when I talk about, you know, being a city councillor they say can you please fill the empty storefronts in west manford square so like i'm tired of i'm tired of getting of going back and forth on this stuff and i actually so genuinely do want to say that i appreciate the good faith conversations that counselor saying counselor lemming were having but i mean primarily counselor saying um and all of the outreach and and really trying to bring in different stakeholders but i really think we need to move forward on this and just I mean, in the vast majority of these edits, I agree with. That's fine. Take more time to some degree. You don't have to start paying before the building is vacant, sure. But pay the full amount, because that's revenue for the city as well. So no, I would like to sever the seventh one, and I will be voting no on it.

Councillor Mullane.

Thank you. So I just want to say I appreciate all of the work that has been put into this ordinance. You know, before I've even been on the council, I know there's a lot of time and effort that went into it. I will say that when the chamber members did reach out I responded to all of them and offered up meetings and met with two of them that responded and said they would like to meet and we talked through a lot of these different proposed amendments in here and to me honestly it felt like good business in terms of some of the areas that they were mentioning and things that wouldn't be detrimental on the reverse side. I mean, especially when they were talking about how long it takes in terms of filling a vacancy with a fine piece of it and extending that to the six months. I felt like that was a reasonable request of trying to get businesses in. And I hear you about not trying, Vice President Lazaro, about, you know, if there's two different businesses coming in. I just I do feel that we want to be able to provide all of our businesses with the ability to be successful. And I felt like some of these amendments that were put in here that Councillor Singh proposed really do help that. And certainly being able to clarify the waiver process, I did think that was so confusing to go back to the person that rejected you to then have that same conversation. So I'm glad that that came through. And I will also say that I'm in favor of doing the early registration incentive because, again, there are many fines that we have in here. And it would also be good to provide incentives in order for businesses and vacant storefronts to come to us early so that we can or excuse me we the city can really um be there to help move the needle on it um you know i feel like being able to have something that yes we have the fines they're still in there they're still going to be hopefully followed and the incentive also provides on the reverse side to be able to benefit you know good good behavior and partnerships with other storefronts and other businesses so for me i i appreciate the work and time went into it and i would be in favor of moving forward with all of the amendments that have been presented counselor scarpelli uh thank you mr president and again i think that there were some concerns and i think that uh council i mean council saying i think did you do diligence and i think that

What is refreshing to me is that the business community felt they weren't heard, and right away, everybody jumped on it. I think that even if you weren't part of the group, you really listened to people. And then when you see the finished product, I thought that it was very thoughtful. And on the seventh, the incentive piece, I think that it's important because I appreciate Council is ours viewpoint, but I'm looking at it differently. I'm looking at it saying, well, if you're going to put to allow chicken places together. That means one's going to feel and then we're gonna have an open storefront again in a few months. The other piece. I think with that also helps our team, our city team to say, hey, wait, we don't need another Chase Bank in a restaurant. So why don't we use that time to really advocate for another restaurant or a business that would fit in that, that, that neighborhood. So I, I, I would tend to support all the initiatives and I would approve the motion and the effort. So thank you for that.

Thank you. Councilor Lemming, then Vice President Lazar.

First, just a request. Is there any way we could get like a screen share of the proposed changes just for the audience and as a way to frame the conversation? I know that Councillor Singh had a very beautiful graphic that he sent to me earlier that I think would be appreciated by other folks as well.

Yeah, if you could share your screen or anyone.

Matt, I'm not on this Zoom. So I know I sent it to you. Would you be able to pull it up?

Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. I'll just share really quick. Let's see. Okay. Yeah. Is this, this is the, this is the one with the changes. There are actually two versions of this document. I believe one with the original version and one with the changes. Again, this is, this is counselor saying to work, even though I'm sharing it reported to me earlier, I think it's, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful flow chart of how this whole thing sort of works. And yeah, but I'll, I'll say that I'm so I'm fine with all the changes, except I will tend to agree with Councillor Lazaro. I think that a changing to the registration permitting fee. I mean, I want to keep it. I'd want to keep it to 1000. I'd also want to keep the daily the daily fines to 300. And that's really because If this ordinance works correctly, then these fees should be a deterrent. They should never actually be levied. There are a lot, like this ordinance is covered with ways to waive these fees and ways for owners who genuinely can't fill their vacant storefronts to have recourse. And so if this is working correctly the way it should, then any good faith business owner and property owner really shouldn't be paying a dime under this ordinance. What they should be doing is working with the city and kind of stopping this habit of just buying property, sitting on it, and doing nothing at all with that. For the property owners that are doing that, I'm more than fine with charging them $1,000 a year, $300 a day for every day that they refuse to put a phone number on the front of their building. Um, so, so yeah, that that's, I think the rest of them makes sense. You know, there is, there definitely is a case to be, to be made for changing, um, the, the initial registration from, uh, uh, from, from three to six months. But, but in terms of the fees, I would, I would, uh, agree with, uh, counselor, counselor Lazar's original, original assessment. And I'd also, uh, I'd also motion, I'd motion to sever, I don't think I caught the original numbers, but essentially any of the fee changes away from the original proposal.

Do you accept a friendly amendment to your motion to sever the amendments? to the main ordinance? Okay. So it's four, six, and seven. You may not yet. Sorry. First Councillor Seng and then Vice President Lazaro.

I was just going to propose like a way forward in terms of voting. I'm happy to wait until all the counselors have spoken taken seven votes.

I don't like it.

Yeah, I know. I want to save us the number of votes. It sounds like generally there's consensus on the legal edits and then one, one, two, three, five. We don't even have to

We could have just had a motion to approve as amended with the amendments by Councillor Lemming and saying, and it sounds like now we're severing out just the ones that are four, six and seven.

Sounds good.

All right. So I'll go to you, Vice President.

Thanks. In order to help us understand what this ordinance is doing, When Councillor Mullane, and again, really appreciate the work, appreciate you offering to meet with people and everything that came out of that. But the incentive, you don't have to offer an incentive because the incentive is getting your your space rented because then you have money because like your your business is renting your commercial space and when you have um i don't mean this to sound rude or flippant but but this ordinance is for people who are not renting out their space and there's a fee that they pay because they've been delinquent in doing that And everything here is like a cutout and a workaround. And I appreciate Councilor Lemming mentioning it in this manner, because if we make it less of Like less difficult than why, why are we doing that, why are we making people have their storefronts vacant for longer, there are so many ways to rent your property. And and obviously there's some kind of incentive for people to leave it empty. what we're trying to avoid is to have people leave it empty so that's my only point the the incentive is that you you receive rent as a business as an owner who who owns commercial property you receive rent from the people that rent your space that's supposed to be the incentive you you place the rent at the level that you want it to be at and then you rent it so if you're holding back for some reason I just don't like we are not in