City Council - Special Meeting

The council meeting will now be called to order. Madam Clerk, roll call please.

Here. Pursuant to the open meeting, Laura, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present. are deemed acknowledged and permissible it is 530 on the 28th of July this meeting has been called to order just for everybody's own edification for the public and those who are here the City Council chambers as memo to the council in the community a couple of other meetings is closed to the public u

If everybody in the city council hearing room could please rise for a moment of silent prayer. I apologize.

Thank you and a salute to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Sorry about that. We're a little out of our element here. So I'll reintroduce the item. It is citizen's input. Mr. Dias, 560 Ray Street, and the subject matter is budget. Three minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Dias. Next item, you were reading here? Yeah. Council Vice President Deon.

Yeah, I'd only like to make a couple of comments, and I guess the first one is whether this would be funded down the road if need be is not in the mayor's purview. It's up to the council to vote to fund it or to give extra money, not the administration. The purse strings are here. and um and secondly yes we're obligated to pass a balanced budget and i'm not saying and and i'm not making these comments saying whether i agree or don't agree with the transportation issue just basic facts um and then the other thing is yes we're responsible we have to pass a balanced budget correct but just like a

Thank you. You yield? Yes. Thank you. Councilor O'Connor?

I just have something to add because I get pretty frustrated when people make a statement that I sit here and wonder, is that true, is it not? But Mr. Dias, you just made a comment that the mayor is bullying the superintendent. The superintendent is here. And if she is being bullied by the mayor, I think she should tell us that. I mean, you made that statement. If she's being bullied, I want her to tell us. Are you being bullied?

Well, you can say you feel possibly that way, but to make a statement that, has she had a conversation with you about being bullied?

Well, you can't listen to all whistle blowers. With that I yield.

Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Kadeem? Thank you.

Yeah, I just want to pick up on what council and seat seven was talking about. Mr. Dice, do you have any documentation of proof you can leave with this body today to back up the statement you just made about the bullying?

So the answer is no. You don't have any documentation of facts you can give us.

People make comments. Let me just finish the question so you'll understand it. People make comments and usually back it up with facts, documentation to prove that their comments are true. That's not that difficult to understand, is it?

So I just want to ask a simple question. You answered the question. You don't have any documentation to back up the comments that you're making. You're just listening to whistleblowers, which is okay if that's where you want to roll. That's fine. It's up to you. I don't go that way. When I make a comment, I have documentation to back up what I'm saying so people can actually see it and want to judge for themselves whether it's true or not. So, you're the one that brought it up, not me.

That's totally different from what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Boolean comment. I just want documentation on the Boolean comment that you made, not about what happened and what changed, what happened, what he promised, what he didn't promise. Let's not try to change the subject. It's very simple. All I want to know is if you have documentation or anything else you can leave with this body to prove your comments about the bullying. That's all.

With that, I am dismissed. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Mr. Dias. That will conclude citizens' input. Priority matters before this council. The mayor in an order and a memorandum of agreement between Mayor Paul Coogan and the four of the city council regarding outside legal counsel. Motion to adopt has been made by Councilor Pereira, seconded by Councilor Raposo. Is there discussion on this item? on the adoption of the memorandum of agreement between the mayor and the city council. Council Vice President Dionne.

Yeah, I would just like to state that a lot of time and effort did go into this. I think the goal was to be a bridge between the city council and the administration to just to try to bring people to the table. How people vote, whether they agree with it, don't agree with it, People don't have to agree with it. Was there compromise that went in? Absolutely, you have to have compromise in many situations. And I want to be very clear, it was always about the body. It was never about the president and myself. We made it clear from day one, there was no agreement that could be signed by us. There w

I'm just curious, maybe through the chair to my colleague in C1, does that mean that there will never be an ordinance or can any other council create an ordinance that will put into effect what you had in that ordinance? five or six years from now, a council is different and someone says, we should have an ordinance to put in certain things in place. Will that null and void this agreement or do you think that's something? I appreciate the fact that you're going to get rid of your ordinance that you had in there now, but there's nothing to prohibit future councils from saying, we really need an

Thank you, Councilor. Any further discussion on this? No. There's a motion to adopt, and I want to, again, thank you to Madam Vice President, working with you and Corporation Council, as well as the interim city administrator and the mayor for getting us all in a room to work through these intricacies so that we can move the dial forward here. So, again, thank you for everybody's efforts on that. I echo everybody's comments. Motion to adopt has been made and seconded. Hearing no further discussion, we'll call Madam Clark.

All right. This is what I have to say about the whole issue with this budget. My understanding was leadership had a meeting with the mayor to talk about the budget. school department finance team met with the mayor with the city's finance team now to be perfectly honest with you i never got a call from anybody in leadership to say we met with the mayor and this is what we're looking at so far this is what's happening so i'm hearing a lot through the grapevine so i'm going to throw the grapevine out and you people who are all here can tell me what's true what's not and where we move from here t

Motion to waive the rules to invite Ms. Arpke and the school committee superintendents down. Has been made by Councilor Kadim, seconded by Councilor Hart. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

We might need another chair or so, but. All right, very good. If you can, beginning with you, Madam Superintendent, introduce yourself for the record, please.

All right. Councilor Pereira, you have a vote.

So maybe if you can all clarify that for us so that we can then take a vote.

Well, one of the things we spoke about at the ordinance committee, which counselor proposed the chairs, and he had put in you know so let's have an ad hoc committee with certain members of the council certain members of the school committee to keep an eye on that so if that's going to happen as well I think that would be helpful to both sides and you would know you'd be able to discuss the transportation issue there so are you saying that if we give the $16,650,000, but that you needed more, do you have faith that we would be able to give you more? At that point, Emily, would we be able to giv

I think you can. If you can get it later, you can get it now. Am I wrong?

Not if you take it from investments, from the interest in investments.

And you might not have that. And I'm not talking about what we're going to do for next year. I'm talking about right now. You can't get $450,000 to make them whole at $17 million.

I don't care where you get it. Is that $450,000? I mean, I look at some of the hirings that have been done. I look at some of the raises that have been given to certain people within City Hall that if we're tight, I think that some of those raises...

I'm going to yield and let some of my colleagues have a chance. Thank you. You're saying you could do it with the $16,650,000 as long as you know that another $450,000 would be available and you can start out with that. Do you know through transportation now We do not.

And I agree that transportation is critical because we do want to make sure that our students

i'm going to yield to give my colleagues thank you before i acknowledge our other counselors just as a point of clarification council of carrera made a good point what is the school committee's or your position on how much you need for transportation is it 17 million yes that is exactly the amount that the school committee passed on april 16th it's 17.1 million dollars for a non-net school spending okay and that has not changed And that's what we want to know, just to be clear. And the city is submitting a budget at $16.6 million. All right, just so we're clear, because Council of Prairie was

I just wanted to be clear because she made some good points and I wasn't sure of what you were saying. Councilor Kadeem.

Yeah, just one follow-up question. So after 10-1, and once the DESE report is submitted, if you have students who enroll after 10-1 and they need busing, how does that operate?

OK. And I caught a bit of the school committee. They were discussing the rolling over of the SIS. Has that happened yet? It has not happened yet. So you don't have an exact number of how many students you have at this moment?

If I can, Deputy, if you could just introduce yourself for the record, please.

Do you know your enrollment was at that time, last year, at that moment?

Thank you. I yield to Mr. Rasmussen. Thank you, Counselor. Counselor Canuel.

Thank you. Council, Vice President Deon.

guess my first question is well my first comment is um in terms of the one million dollar um cut we did in indorex that you had to um reduce the budget by um not all of that offset came from funded vacancies am i correct 400 000 i believed was a reduction on the city side in pension liability to offset that number that was part of it.

correct however um did you use all funded vacancies or a portion and then offset with the 400 000 so in other words are there still some unfunded vacancies in the budget at the present time so so the vacancy savings that was added it's not like i pulled out vacant positions and didn't fund them in the budget that's not the way the vacancy savings was applied it was applied in the sense that there's turnover that happens so if a position is

okay so let me try i want to make sure i i'm clearly understanding what you're saying because what i'm hearing i could i could be entirely so you're saying that the savings based on vacancies is based on the vacancies you think we're going to have some turnover we've had but it doesn't mean those vacancies won't be filled

Okay, so basically the savings and the cuts were made on to a certain degree assumptions. so if we've got 100 employees in the department there's five funded vacancies those five funded vacancies are still there and still being funded in the budget correct there's a percentage that's taken off at the top because the odds of them being filled perfectly for the full amount for the full year clearly are slim at this point so then i guess that tells me that we certainly can cover an additional 400 000 um where we still have unfunded vacancies because because you're not funding it doesn't mean it d

But you would agree, there are still a number of funded vacancies that could be unfunded to compensate if we need the money. That's a choice that the council could make, yes. Yeah, okay. um that's interesting that's an interesting way to cut a budget by projection and assumption um i hope it works out there are other cities that do that it's not an unheard of idea

So that savings isn't already calculated in transportation and the school department's numbers?

would everybody agree with that i don't want to put anybody on the spot but you know i feel like some of this is assumption some of it isn't i want to know what's rock solid and what's assumption and if it's not a completely accurate statement i think we need to know that so from a financial standpoint would you be able to opine on that if you could just move the microphone to you should we make a motion away the rules and bring mr pacheco to the table we already did that when mr pacheco can come down we've waived the rules already so

You wanna speak on Councilor Deon's comments or at all from a financial?

so you're realizing a savings this year that you didn't have last year is that what you're saying yes and do you know what that fully amounts to right it's it's the same as emily said that's a full year 45 000 right for a full year all right well that's still a far cry in a 17 million dollar budget but i okay i appreciate that and then i have another question um and the savings per bus how did you determine that number and what what did that what was the totality of that per bus and you said this over various schools in the community school they have five buses so that means they didn't need x

543, we'll call it 543. Right. But so, in reality though, to a certain extent, that number is based on assumption. Assuming we're not going to need those buses and vans. Assuming things aren't going to change. Assuming we're not going to get students that are going to require that transportation. Is that an accurate statement? Correct. So that number could change completely?

So I guess my final statement would be that as one counselor, I can't say that I'm completely comfortable with cuts in a budget that are based on assumption, cuts in transportation that are based on assumption, minus hard facts, minus variables. For me, I find that to be a bit of a problem. I don't know that I'm comfortable with the number at this point either based on that. I mean, when you figure out a budget, you generally know how much you have, what everything's going to cost, and then you can come up with a rock solid budget. I mean, I could assume that my electric will go down 100 bucks

The McKinney-Vento fund, how much money is left in that fund? Just curious.

So, so there's a motion on the floor by council of Kadeem to send a communication to the administration on getting the amount from where, from the, um, for the amount of how much?

Correct. We can do that. Actually, if that's the case, we can do that when we have it in our appropriation vote. So it wouldn't be necessary.

I just wanted to be clear. Motion has been made by Councilor Kadeem to suggest to the administration that they send down the transportation line, taking out of the... uh five out of the five hundred and seventy five one seven four hundred and fifty thousand dollars was that the correct number yes four fifty four hundred and fifty thousand dollars has been made by council of khadim seconded by council vice president dion i know council of peckham needs to speak but on the on the suggested letter any further discussion on that no to be honest with you i would like to sorry to be honest i'd like

Can we table this meeting and come back? I mean.

We can't do that tonight. I'll allow it because it's not anticipated as well. Good. Well, I want to take a five-minute recess.

This forum for city council meeting is now back in session after a brief recess. At this point, who had the floor? I don't remember. Councilor Kadeem, you had the floor. You haven't yielded yet. I'll give you the floor back if you'd like. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Peckham.

Any further discussion? No. Madam Clerk, if you could please introduce this item to the record, please.

Good evening. Just one question. So as far as our ARPA expenditures and the deadline of September 31st for all projects, where are we with that?

Okay. Good. No question as to projects right now, everything seems, because I don't want to hit that deadline and then we're giving the federal government back money.

the september 30th yeah september and what do we have into that project already do you know

Yeah, point of information, when Attorney Hom left, 8.1 million had been expended and we still had 8 million in opera funding because it was a $16 million project.

And there's no questions with that because I drove by recently and doesn't look like much has been done. So from now until the end of September, we're going to get that project done.

I appreciate it. Is there a way to reach out to Ms. and get me a response by Thursday, sometime on Thursday? Sure, absolutely. I appreciate it. With that, I yield, thank you. Thank you.

Council Vice President Dionne, you good?

Yeah, I'm good now. Okay, very good. Thank you, I'm sorry.

Motion to adopt is amended. The amendment is the amendment, the appropriation motion to approve the appropriation. There's no amendment necessary because we haven't amended anything. Right. To be clear, madam clerk motion to approve the appropriation for us. The new appropriation that has been introduced by the clerk has been made by council. Vice-president Deon seconded by council of the Dean discussion on the approval of the appropriation hearing on roll call on the phone, please.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next order of business.

So a motion to reject would be appropriate. Made. Made by Councilor Raposo. Seconded by Councilor Cagnuol. Discussion on the rejection? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? You guys have it. Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Motion to accept the item in place on file has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Cannula. I'm just going to speak on this very briefly as a letter for you all. The reason I drafted the letter and added it to the agenda tonight is because many colleagues, and I know Councilor Pereira and Councilor Camara both spoke on having a policy in place so that everybody was on the same page when it comes to utilizing outside council. I made this letter to you all with a copy of the already approved policy that was had when we had KP Law here. I want the council to have the ability to g

Motion to accept the item in place on file has been made and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Second. Motion to pass the item through second reading and enrollment as amended. Motion to reconsider. Motion to reconsider would be first. Is there a motion? Motion to reconsider has been made by Councilor Kadim. Seconded by who? Councilor Camara, that would be appropriate. A motion to reconsider has been made and seconded. Hearing no further discussions, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Yeah, that's why I was thinking about that. Yeah, no problem. Motion to reconsider. Let's do this again correctly. Motion to reconsider has been made by Councilor Hadim, seconded by Councilor Vice President Deon. Hearing no further discussion, are all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Motion to pass with second reading and enrollment as amended.

Motion to pass the item through second reading and enrollment as amended has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Pereira. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Three minute recess. Our city council meeting is now back in session, Madam Clerk.

Motion to pass the item to be ordained as amended. Second. Has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Pereira. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Motion to adjourn has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Hart. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Good night, thank you.