Remarks by Jesse Clingan
26 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
Thank you, Mr. President. Through you this evening, I'd like to recognize Patricia A. Gavin Sullivan, a devoted wife of the late Daniel Sullivan Jr., passed away surrounded by the love of her family on October 4th, 2026. Patricia was the daughter of the late Alice Malone Gavin and Michael Gavin. devoted mother to Michael J. Sullivan of Everett, Daniel F. Sullivan and wife Tammy Sullivan of North Carolina, and John L. Sullivan and his late wife Kathleen Sullivan of Somerville, Colleen Madden and her husband Sean of Methuen, and the late Edward T. Sullivan. Mother-in-law to Deb Foti and Ann…
No, Mr. President, thank you. I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation and just make note that it's good to see Somerstadt sort of being refocused back to what it was originally intended for with this administration. And then just further to say that this must have been a lot of pressure for you since the woman who wrote the book on Somerstadt is in the room right now, our former colleague, Stephanie Hirsch. who I think created Somerset. But yeah, thank you for this, and I look forward to hearing more.
Thank you, Mr. President, through just two quick questions. So the 9 million for the sidewalk and road work, that's the whole entirety of all road work. It's like when you click on the digital book, when you click on it, it doesn't really break down like what are sort of like projects where we're, you know, resetting curves and stuff versus just street paving or just redoing sidewalk panels. Is there a further breakdown on that?
Okay, so that's just mainly through you. Mr President like the repaving schedule and the and some of the sidewalk panel What about like larger projects?
Okay, so just so people can go look at it if they're wondering where exactly the money's going. Last question, Mr. President, through you. I do agree and understand that the fleet maintenance is an important priority for the city, and I... And I don't know if you've done a cost analysis with, like, the old vehicles and sort of what maintaining them costs versus, like, you know, whatever. I don't know if we leased them or if we're buying them. But my question is, with the one point something million is, you know, based on our analysis, like, we felt it was important to put that money forward…
Okay, again, just asking for the public who might be wondering why, you know, because we know that the fire stations, just like our school buildings, just like our city buildings, are all behind. No fault to anyone here, but good to see us catching up on those things. Thank you.
Councilor Clayton? Mr. President, thank you. This evening I ask that we hold a moment of silence in memory of Keith Michael Mannix, who passed away suddenly at the age of 49 shortly after relocating to Colorado. Keith was raised here in Somerville. He graduated Somerville High School and played hockey for the Highlanders. He had a lasting impact on everybody who had the privilege of knowing him. Keith was the kind of person you could always count on, generous, fiercely loyal, and always ready to lend a helping hand. He was the ultimate go-to guy. He also had a great sense of humor, loved…
Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank my colleague at large for flagging this. I believe this is part of a crosswalk, which is a route to school for the kids going to the Healy School. So I really would urge the utility to take swift action in making sure we restore this 100% as our kids do rely on that crosswalk to get to school. Thank you.
Rather than send it to committee, can't we just lay it on the table or something for next meeting? We can do that as well.
Councillor Clayton? Mr. President, thank you. This is the first I'm learning of this group being evicted from this property. It sounds like the ward council's been on it and it sounds like it's sort of being addressed by the city, but You know, I can't for the life of me figure out Why so early in the process with no plan at all? I mean, I'm thinking it's probably DPW workers have to open or close it. It's now City Pride, you know, but that's really unfortunate that meeting has been going on for I don't even know how many years. And they've now been displaced, and that is really, really…
Thank you, Mr. President. Through you, I BCC'd all of you on some communications between myself and Verizon. This is really about our senior population. Some people have gotten letters from Verizon that their they're retiring their copper service they first have to get approval from the FCC but that's probably a foregone conclusion but so there's still time but people are getting these notices and I believe they said there was this 500 residential pots as they call them which is pulled to to lie basically an old you know old landline and 400 commercial places so They gave a good response as a…
Councilor Klingin. Thank you, Mr. President. If the clerk would please read the resolution into the record.
Thank you for that. Mr. President, colleagues, you may have seen on the news, you may have participated already. I was down there with the mayor a few days ago. I know a few colleagues have been down to the picket line, and there was a parade on Labor Day, which seems celebratory. The spirits are really high in the picket line, but let me be clear. This is a fight. We want these people to get back to work as soon as humanly possible. So I just want to tonight recognize these workers and say that I stand in strong support with the striking workers of Teamsters Local 25 and Unite Here Local 26…
Thank you, Mr. President. Through you. So, colleagues, the impetus for these orders are, you know, somewhat obvious in the wording, but I just want to add a fine point on it. You know, we have a moratorium on – if a utility opens up a street that's been paved in the last five years, they need to – paved curb to curb at that point if they do open the street up, or they typically don't allow it, it has to be for emergency anyway. Oftentimes the street's six years old and the life may be 15 and at six years now they've made a trench down the middle of the street and now maybe two years after…
Thank you, Mr. President. On these, again, I think colleagues probably know what I'm getting at for the public. I'm sure you probably have seen contractors will bid on a job. They'll tear up the street. They'll get real aggressive for, like, the first couple days. Then they just minimize staffing to, like, one person in a backhoe. And people say, what is going on? We haven't seen people down there for days. Now, again, this is why I don't profess to know everything in procurement. The reason why I have this conversation with procurement and with engineering is so people understand that they…
Yeah, I'd like to keep it in infrastructure because even though there's a procurement piece to it, it's really more about public works projects and bidding. So I can always kick it out after, but I think to start the conversation, we have it there.
Mr. President, thank you this evening. This is actually one that I meant to do before the break. This is of Michael Ciparini. He was 58, of Lynn, formerly of Somerville, passed away suddenly on June 5th, 2026. He was born in Boston, raised in Somerville. Michael was the beloved son of Sandra Smith-Henron and the late Michael Ciparini, He was proud of his Somerville roots and will be remembered for his warm personality, quick smile, and ability to make everyone feel welcome. Above all, Michael was a devoted father and grandfather. He cherished his sons and grandchildren, especially his beloved…
Councilor Klingon. Thank you, Mr. President, through you. I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this forward and thank the advocates in the community and activists in the community. I'm happy to sign on to this. I'm also happy to see that I believe the mayor put forth a home rule petition, hopefully allowing us to ban it citywide, not just on city property as this does.
We will be talking about it right after this. But I'll just speak on this. I won't speak on that then. But, yeah, just aside from the cruel death, the cruel, slow death that rats endure, rodenticides, they also harm other wildlife, including our cats and dogs, if they happen to get a hold of one that's eaten rodenticide. And then there are many in the U.S. There are thousands of accidental human rodenticide poisonings each year. So putting this poison into our environment into our city is it's not serving as far as the purpose that it serves it does a lot more harm than good we know that we…
Councilor Clayton? Real quick, just two other quick points I wanted to make was that I read this really great article in The Guardian recently titled, I Love Rats, But We Can't Live With Them, The Headache of the Rise in Roading Populations. And this guy's been working with rats for decades in the sewers of New York City. And, you know, we recognize that rats are dangerous to humans' health. They carry diseases, so that's why he's saying we can't live with them. But they're also very similar to us. They're very smart. So the best way is to make sure they're not repopulating. And with the…
Thank you, Mr. President. Through you, I'd like to sign on to this. I never know what, you know, Haley's my boss, this is asking for more employees, whatever. I can give you some perspective, not only from just growing up and, you know, on government cheese and going out of the welfare office has become much more high-tech and I speak from experience that I work for EHSIT and we support those workers in those offices of DTA and I hear the amount of people that are in those offices every day and just how hard these DTA workers are working get people their SNAP benefits and I don't know if…
Thank you, Mr. President. Through you, happy to co-sponsor this. Thanks to my colleague for doing most of the heavy lifting. And thank you for the community members who are speaking up this evening. Most of you know I grew up in Somerville, and I lived in all different parts growing up. The 80 bus has been a bus that I've taken probably hundreds of times growing up throughout my life in Summerville. I agree with some of the sentiments that have been mentioned here. The resolution put it perfectly. We don't have an accessible station. On top of that we you know a lot of times the green line…
Just don't we have like three members here that need to recuse himself from this? Sorry.
Thank you, Mr. President, through you. Thanks to my colleagues for bringing this forward. I think these things are kind of cyclical. There's definitely been an uptick in discussion around this. You'll see it online. And I share the frustration with my colleagues as far as enforcement goes. I saw one recently, someone was saying that there was a vacant house, basically a single family home. So it's pretty egregious at this point where like you clearly don't live in the home nine months out of the year. It's been vacant for a year and now a bunch of furniture has been moved into it and you're…
Thank you, Mr. President, through you. Thank you, Council Link, for bringing me on to this. I've advocated for the more cleanups, the better, obviously, but I do think this makes sense in terms of just kind of marrying it together with the slice of the city, so one in the spring and then one in the fall. As the leaves start to fall and the garbage accumulates over the summertime, I just think at least two flagship cleanups. But then, of course, I suggested a program where citizens can initiate a cleanup if the city can get that going, initiate a cleanup any time that's convenient for them.…