Confirmation of Appointments and Personnel Matters Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is Tuesday, September 15th at 6pm. I'm JT Scott, Award II Counselor and serving as Chair for this meeting of the City of Somerville's City Council Committee on Legislative Matters. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting is being conducted via remote participation and the recording will be posted shortly after the conclusion of the meeting on City of Somerville website and other channels. So let's go ahead and get started this evening. We are being clerked by Able Clerk Fisher-Casiol. And if you wouldn't mind, Madam Clerk, calling the roll to establish a quorum.

All right, let's do it. Counselor Davis.

Here.

Councilor Humbach.

Present.

Councilor Ewen Campin.

Here.

Councilor Stratso. Present. Chair Scott.

Present.

All right, with that, all members are here, so we do have quorum.

All right, wonderful. We do have a little bit of a change in the order of operations tonight requested by the administration, just to staff availability and timing for when folks can be here. So we'll be starting... with one of the later items. We'll be starting with the item number eight here, the amendment to the code of ordinances for the salaries of non-union positions. After that, we will move on to the retail sales, retail animal sales ordinance, and then we'll follow up with the to rodenticide items. And then we'll finish up with discussion of Davis Square Neighborhood Council. So unless there's any objection to taking it in that order, let's go ahead and well, we do have item number one, which is just the approval of the minutes of our previous meeting. Is there any discussion on those minutes? All right, and seeing none, we'll go ahead and lay those items on, lay that item on the table for approval at the end of the meeting with a single vote. And we'll pick up item number eight. That's 260956, requesting ordainment of an amendment to section 2-323 of the Code of Ordinances to update categories and associated salaries for non-union positions. This was submitted with the, well, shortly after, Uh, the, you know, budget. Uh, and so, uh, this is, uh, adopting that update to our ordinances because that's where we keep the non-union set up and the grading. So I believe we're joined by director Gill. from Human Resources and Director Mastroboni, Finance Director Mastroboni. So, which of you would like to introduce here, get started? Director Gill, I see you on the screen. Please, take it away.

Yep, thank you very much. Again, my name is Anne Gill, I'm the Director of People Operations, and I'm here this evening, as you can see beside me, Jessica Pavaio, who is my colleague and the Deputy Director of People Operations. So what I would like to do, if it's okay with you, unless you have specific questions, I'm assuming you'd like me to go through the ordinances and talk about the redlined positions in the ordinance, if that's okay with everything, Mr.

Chair. If you'd like, we do have the list in front of us and I'm sure the clerk can bring it up onto the screen. This is mostly the changes to titles. Correct. And some of the grading. I guess maybe instead of going through every single red line here, for my purposes, it'd be sufficient just if there was any significant regrading of the individual positions. But I've reviewed it as part of the budget. So I'm pretty set. But I'm happy to let you walk through in whatever detail you like to allow my colleagues.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it would be probably more beneficial, helpful, and less time consuming if people had specific questions. There really aren't. There's several title changes and people who have moved around a little bit, title changes due to regrading their positions, not significant changes, I would say. It's more title and departmental changes. So if people had specific questions, happy to answer them. if that would be the way that I think it would be more time efficient, quite frankly.

I tend to agree with that. So colleagues, if you have any questions for Director Gill or Director Mashmoney for that matter, I see Councilor Ewing-Kampen, you're up first. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you, thank you for all this.

The question I have is just to explain the change for the Director of Water and Sewer Operations. Um, can you just explain that that that change what that I know this has been a position the city's been trying to hire for a long time. So I'm just trying to understand this.

Right through the chair to council camping. Yeah, we did look at that position and we, as you know, the council has been very involved in this as well that we've had very difficult time and hiring for that position. particularly because there are a lot of requirements in terms of the credentials. So we looked at that position as someone who really needs to oversee the operations and not necessarily needing all of the credentials that you would need to be an engineer to actually be doing the work. This is more of an operations person who's going to oversee operations as opposed to actually needing the credentials to do the actual work, which is the D1, D2, 3, and 4, which are required for engineers who are actually going to be engaged in the work. So we took the opportunity to downgrade that position a little bit, and we are seeking candidates as we speak. And I've had some public candidates. We have not been successful in hiring anyone yet, but we are still proceeding with those efforts.

Okay. Mr. Chair, through you, thank you. I understand. I appreciate that.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Councilor Young-Campden and Director Gill. Councilor Mbah, I see your hand.

Thank you, Chairman Scott. Good to see you, Director Gill. I guess, you know, I'm just, maybe I've probably forgotten, but what kind of like methodology was used to determine the proposed, you know, categories, you know, and amount, you know, and maybe where there's some comparison with comparable municipalities and market conditions with all these

Through the Chair to Councilman Ba, yes. Two years ago, we embarked on a compensation study. We did hire an outside consultant that looked at market data, looked at internal data, and looked at communities that were comparable to us, our competitors, as well as competitions such as Mass Water and Sewer and some of the utilities as well. And that's how we came up with the grades and the salaries that were correlating with those grades.

Gotcha. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Scott.

All right. Thank you. Are there any other questions about this? Again, all of these changes were reflected, correct, in the fiscal year budget that was submitted and reviewed back in June, correct?

Yes.

All right. And we haven't caught any last-minute changes that we need to clean up between now and then?

No.

Great. I don't have any further questions. Anybody else?

All right.

Well then, I will recommend, I will go ahead and move that this be recommended for approval. On that motion, is there any discussion? All right, seeing none, let's just go ahead and lay that item on the table for a vote for approval at the end of the meeting. Just keep it all moving right along. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate some efficiency myself, Director Gill. Thank you. All right, let's see here. I think we're joined tonight by Deputy Chief Donovan for this next one. This is item number five on agenda. It's 26-1111, an ordinance. Chapter 3, Article 8, Division 1 of the Corps of Ordinances be amended as detailed within. That is, yeah, Retail Animal Sales Ordinance that was proposed, I believe, by Councilor Link and Councilor Hart. Councilor Link and Councilor Hart are not here tonight, but they did do an introduction at the last council meeting. Just for context, The only, I believe the only retail animal store in Somerville recently closed. And it's their policy aim to ensure that we be careful about that in the future. So I'd say Captain Donovan, you are here tonight, or Deputy Chief Donovan, my apologies. Are you able to turn on your camera tonight? Deputy Chief, I can see your microphone on, but we're not able to hear you. Oh, here we go. Deputy Chief, now you got your camera on. I'm a little bit worried about you driving and talking at the same time. All right. Well, we can come back to this if necessary. Looks like Deputy Chief Donovan is having some trouble. So why don't we lay that item on the table and come back to it shortly. And instead, we'll go on to picking up the next item that the administration has requested us take up. We have Director Ziegler. here with us and Deputy Solicitor Shapiro. So why don't we take up first the, well, we'll take them up at the same time. This is item 26-1257 and 26-1310. This is the chapter six of the code of ordinances be amended as detailed within and requesting approval of a home rule petition to regulate anticoagulant rodenticides. I believe the ordinance was submitted by, again, Councilors Hart and Link, co-sponsored by Councilors Klingin and Mba. Councilor Mba, did you want to say any words to introduce this before we get into it, or shall we just kick it straight to Mr. Ziegler? You're muted, sir.

There you go.

Yeah. No, thank you chair Scott for the. You know, recognition, I guess. You know, this is, I mean, we've known that, you know, uh, rodenticide. Use always have consequences beyond the target pest, you know. Which also, which means that it has impacts on wildlife and the broader. In urban ecosystem. So. it's just important that we use the tools to pursue effective pest management while reducing any unnecessary exposure to toxic chemicals. So I think that is the spirit of this. So we need to pair this regulation with practical alternatives, like, of course, education, effective enforcement, so that we can both protect both the public health and the environment.

All right, sounds good, sir. Maybe we can submit an ordinance update allowing these hunting dogs in the city. But for right now, we'll talk about the anticoagulant retenticides. So, yes. Mr. Ziegler, welcome tonight. You've worked on this with the administration, correct?

Through the chair, that is correct.

All right, well, could you maybe walk it through for the public why there are two of these and what the scope of each of them is?

Sure, I'll start with the home rule petition. So the state regulates... chemical usage, pesticides, those types of things associated with pest control. In particular, they license pest control technicians to use these certain chemicals or poisons as part of their practice. Because the state regulates this, the city does not have the capability to ban the use of second-generation or first-generation anticoagulants, which, as we know, have secondary impacts on wildlife, raptors, scavengers, coyotes, those types of animals. And they may also have impacts as those poisons dissipate into the local environment that haven't been as closely studied, but In our practice, it's better to be safe rather than sorry later. So this home rule petition is an effort in which we will be able to regulate those on a local level. So that's really the home rule petition purpose. The ordinance helps to codify the banning of second-generation and first-generation anticoagulants on city-owned properties, buildings, as well as pest control associated with city-sponsored programs or public programs, which we do in practice, but this is the codifying language that can be fit into our code of ordinances. So those are the overviews and summaries of those two. I'm happy to take questions on anything that you have related to these items.

All right. Well, I'm certainly going to open it up to my colleagues. I did have a question myself, but I'm happy to let anybody else jump the line here. Councilor Youancamp.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, through you. So I guess on both these items, I'll just say upfront that I'm very supportive of these. I have been really horrified about the, specifically the deaths of many large birds, but I think there's a lot of wildlife in danger. But I can easily imagine lots of people in the public, they see a headline, Somerville is trying to ban rat poison. You know, they have extremely reasonable questions. So through you, you know, we've talked about this a little bit, but I wonder if you could just talk through how you think about this. You know, how effective are these anticoagulant rodenticides? How critical are they in the toolbox? You know, what are we going to do without them, etc. ?

Through the chair. Thank you for the question. The main use and purpose of these is sort of to distribute a high concentration of poison and a small amount of consumed poison, which is very efficient for pest control technicians as they currently practice. Being able to distribute, you know, a large number of bait boxes, install these anticoagulants, and then you should see a higher kill rate as the lower amounts consumed, but a higher amount of efficacy is then achieved. So that is sort of the purpose around them. However, as we know, the secondary impacts far outweigh the benefits. Pest control can be achieved, and specifically rodent control through more effective education, as well as enforcement efforts on the city's part, but also amongst community members. And as we continue to work to developing community-based efforts and responses to rodent control in the city. There are also alternatives. The city currently under its... residential assistance program is using a vitamin D concentrate, which has a much lower risk of secondary poisoning. We're continuing to monitor its usage. While it is relatively low consumption, it still does get the job done, and we do see reductions in rodent activity at some properties where it is deployed. So there are other options, and I do believe that it will help spur on the private industry that we see here in our community, and as well as this Home Rule petition makes its way to the state, sort of signal that pest control companies and organizations move towards more integrated pest management approaches with private contracts. And that will overall have a much larger benefit for the education of both homeowners and businesses, as well as for the environment at large. So I'm supportive of this legislation. I'm looking forward to continuing our work here and enhancing some of our enforcement education efforts to pursue a less rodent impacted community.

Mr. Chair, through you, thank you to Mr. Ziegler. Sorry, I forgot your title. I think for the public to hear, our original rat czar supports this. I think that does go a long way. This is someone who has a lot of professional expertise. I would just also point out the ordinance has this waiver provision, which says in a situation where other pest management strategies are not working, um the the city can grant a waiver for the use of these in a targeted way and the hope is that they won't just be so outrageously widespread i just think you know as we think about the public education obviously the the first question i think a lot of people are going to have is okay you can't use these kind of poisons so what kind of poison are you going to use um just assuming that it's all poison based and it sounds like concentrated vitamin d is part of the solution um but also you know what they call integrated pest management you know i think um for folks who are skeptical of this, and I don't think that's unreasonable at this point, I do also, it's not working. And I think, you know, we just can't say that enough. Like we have poison all over the city and it is, it is of course, yes. If a rat eats rat poison, they will likely die from it. But in terms of controlling the rat population, we just really are continuing to see serious issues. And I think that that is important to keep in mind that we're having these

extreme kind of negative effects on the rest of the ecosystem and we're not managing the problem so that that is a big part of why i'm supportive and i'm thankful to the sponsors for bringing this forward all right thank you council young camp and i believe it's uh director these days director of public health ziegler all right moving up uh thank you for that uh i you know that that brought up one of the questions that I had is I know we have through our residential homeowner assistance program. Heck, I even participated a few years back. And that was a, you know, a contractor that came out and put out the very classic bait boxes with the rodenticide in it. It sounds like we've changed that program. When did that change happen? And I just want to make sure I understand what the policy policy impact is there.

Through the chair. That program changed in the beginning of 2024, where we rolled out the replacement of all weather blocks, which is a second generation anticoagulant with TRAD blocks, and we've been using it ever since. The program is also extended beyond the three-week period, and you now get it for eight weeks, as well as qualifying properties can access dry ice treatment, carbon monoxide as well for properties with severe infestations. So we're trying to approach this by supplying a free integrated pest management approach as well as filing reports online that participants can then receive and take our advice and implement some strategies on their own property. So that program has changed quite a bit and we'll continue to do so and monitor its efficacy as we move forward.

All right, so this is basically just working with our contractors to ensure that they're using these vitamin D3 bait instead of the, but in terms of what folks will see, it'll still just look like the traditional bait boxes, but the stuff inside is not so rough on the birds.

Correct, through the chair. The same bait box setups because those are effective at keeping the bait internal as well as it's efficient for the technicians because there are pins within the box that you can take consumed bait or partially consumed bait and then replace it with new fresh bait.

Do you know if that's, you know, we do have pest management requirements in many of the building permits that ISD issues. Is that guidance that's provided to folks as they prepare their pest management requirements?

Through the chair, through demolition, construction and foundational permits, there is a pest control requirement. We do make recommendations that they implement integrated pest management. However, we're not able to currently regulate or dictate exactly what is being used on what property as they're pursuing those with private contractors.

All right. That's the need for the home rule petition.

Correct.

Through the chair.

All right. Well, thank you for that. Councilor Davis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a real quick clarification, just to make sure if members of the public maybe heard or misheard what I think I misheard for a moment or not. Through you to Director Ziegler, you mentioned when that residential program changed in 2024. that those bait boxes were, that we were putting second generation something in there. It's clear though, it's not second generation anticoagulants, right? That would be what would be prohibited out of this. Can you just talk a little, just so there's no misunderstanding for folks?

Through the chair, thank you for the question. Apologies if I was unclear. When the program had changed, we had replaced second generation anticoagulants with our T-RAD three block, which is what we're utilizing now and have been since. So previously we were using all weather blocks, which was a second generation anticoagulant.

All right. Are you all set, Council Davis? All set, Mr. Chair. Thank you. All right, Councilor Mbah, I see you have another question.

Yeah, thank you. Let me see. Okay, I'm not muted. Yeah, no, thank you, Chair Scott. Director Ziegler, I just want to also, first of all, thank you, you know, for the work you've done, you know, on this stuff. I guess Councilor, you and campaign also brought up something that I just want to really add on. I'll rephrase it so that it makes sense to me and to people in the public. I just want to make sure that we also have that this ordinance also will provide enough flexibility for maybe business owners or property owners to be able to address serious rodent infestation without creating any unintended public health consequences. Is that correct? Is that accurate?

Through the chair, the home rule petition will allow the city to regulate these poisons on a more direct fashion through changes in ordinance or amendments. The ordinance that's also included currently strictly references city-owned and managed public properties and buildings. It doesn't do anything on the private side. Again, our recommendations to any sort of private business or homeowner is that they need to pursue their own contracts with pest control technicians and companies that may or may not use escars. But we always recommend integrated pest management regardless. That's it. Thank you.

All right. Well, that sounds like the policy questions are mostly addressed. We do have the text of both of those before us. i've reviewed it i don't have any questions about the drafting myself but i want to make sure there's an opportunity for folks to ask any particular drafting questions about the text in front of us for either one of these items uh colleagues are there any questions concerns or requests for amendment on those all right uh well seeing none i i personally uh think this is a Laudatory step. I think this is a good step. It's one that I'm glad to see us taking. Again, I share my gratitude for my colleagues for bringing this forward. And like I said, maybe we'll work on that hunting dog ordinance. Plus there's a rat terriers. I'm sure I could get a patrol going down here, Ward 2. If there are no other questions right now, I'll go ahead and move to recommend approval of both of those items. Once again, just for clarity, that's items number six and seven on our agenda tonight. Is there any discussion on that motion to approve? All right, seeing none, then I'll just go ahead and we can lay those items on the table for a single vote for approval at the end of the meeting as well. Thank you very much, Director Ziegler, for your time here. Assistant Solicitor Shapiro. Thanks for making time for us.

Yes, thank you very much.

All right. And thanks to all the city staff who worked on it. So why don't we move on? We'll try to come back to Captain Donovan. All right, Deputy Chief Donovan. I'm going to get that right one of these days, sir. It's good to see you, Deputy Chief. How's the audio working? I think it's working fine, Counselor, if you can hear me. Great, great. We can hear you now. Sorry, we must have snuck up on you last time. So let's go ahead and open up back to item number five on our agenda. That is the Retail Animal Sales Ordinance. Now, is this something that you've worked on with...

Through the chair, I was made aware of the amendment from the governmental affairs. I reviewed the amendment. My understanding is it gave for the enforcement mechanism to the police in all control, as well as our DPW. No problems with the enforcement mechanism. I was present. I just answer any questions you may have regarding the enforcement side of that ordinance.

All right. so i believe uh madam clerk oh thank you for bringing that up uh so just to step through this uh for members of the public uh this basically just says that uh in retail stores in somerville there you won't be able to uh buy an animal uh that retail store can provide a space for display of the animals as long as it's exclusively some animal that's available for adoption from a shelter or rescue organization and that there's no, that the animals are documented and there's no say profit center. it wouldn't be the line of business that the store would be in. And does include the enforcement provision there as well. I think it's just a way to let folks know who might want to be in that business that, well, no matter what happens in Arlington or anywhere else, at least here in Somerville, that's not our policy goal. Director Nadja Williams, did you have anything to add on the ordinance?

Through you, Mr. Chair, Amanda Nadja Williams, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs. I just wanted to uplift a note from ISD as it's listed as enforcing or they're listed as enforcing personnel currently in this draft. And Given that this is not associated with construction, building, or zoning, which is the primary focus of Inspectional Services, ISD, it wouldn't be appropriate to have them listed as enforcing personnel. As Deputy Chief noted, enforcing personnel here would be through the police department and animal control.

All right. So is it recommended that – I mean, it does say – it does list police and animal control on the enforcing personnel. Now, is this part of the – is there any – with the split of ISD into the public health and the building divisions, it would seem to me that this would be potentially something on the – public health side of things? Is it just the administration's request that it be done exclusively through animal control then?

Through you, Mr. Chair, I can doubly confirm, because we chatted with ISD, not on the public health side for this item, but my understanding has been that for any type of enforcement in this kind of area has been with animal control, but I will doubly confirm to ensure that public health ISD is not implicated by this.

Okay. Well, we can certainly do an amendment here to remove inspectional services from it. Would that be the administration's preference?

Through you, Mr. Chair, if I've had the opportunity to just confirm that with ISD public health before striking that amendment, I think that might be helpful.

Yeah, and honestly, even if they are listed as potential, as folks who are eligible to enforce, the fact that animal control and police are on there as well, that really just comes down to the question of administration, in my mind, of who the executive branch dispatches to handle violations of this ordinance. So it would not, to me, seem to have a problem to keep that line in there. It just might be a little bit confusing for folks in the public who looked it up. So I'll open this up to questions from my colleagues, Counselor Mba.

Yeah, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I think, you know, I mean, my inclination is just to you know, strike that inspectioner and the inspectioner services department, you know, just leave the police department so that there's no ambiguity about confusion about, oh, it's always like this ping pong back and forth. You know, this person is supposed to do this, you know, call this, just, and perhaps, I don't know what, you know, the past, you know, ordinance said, but again, since they've expressed, you know, the intent to have the police department enforces, there's no point keeping that line there that, and I, you know, that in some of the police department, you know, animal control and the inspectional services department are authorized to enforce. So we can just strike that, you know, and keep it just targeted to the police department.

All right. Thank you for that, Councilor Mba. I mean, I suppose we could, on the other hand, by leaving in the reference to inspectional services there, it would allow for a future administration, or even this administration in the future, if they decided to change their mind about where enforcement appropriately sat, they'd have the leeway to do it. So I'm not in a giant hurry to strike it out, but I can appreciate what you're getting at there. Colleagues, do you have any other thoughts or comment? Councilor Davis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with you, you know, given... Given the history of enforcement by various administrations or lack thereof of ordinance that have been passed, I'm inclined to leave all options available. And as you noted, as it's written, those three entities or, well, two, animal control within SPD and special services are authorized. It doesn't say they have to, but it says they're authorized. And as you noted, it then leaves discretion to the executive branch how to execute enforcement of the ordinance. And I think one could certainly imagine a scenario where it becomes more efficient for ISD to do that rather than animal control given resource allocation challenges and all that sort of thing. The draft has included it for a reason. We don't have the benefit of their input at the moment, but I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, particularly because, as you noted, it doesn't obligate anything. It simply enables another option.

All right. Colleagues, any further comment or questions about this proposed ordinance? All right. Well, we do have two co-sponsors here in the committee. I'm content with this. I think this is, again, laudatory. It's a good way to just put our values down on paper and let the world respond accordingly. So I'm inclined to move for recommendation on this. If the administration does come back with concerns about that enforcing language or if any of the Original proposers do have concerns. Of course, the item could be severed at our next council meeting for amendments to be taken up, but I'm happy to recommend for approval of this language as written. So with that said, give it a moment, but then I will go ahead and move for approval, move to recommend approval of this item, 26111. Is there any discussion on that motion to recommend approval? All right. Then seeing none, we'll just go ahead and lay that item on the table for a single vote at the end of the meeting. And thank you very much, Deputy Chief Donovan and Director Najim Williams for being here on that one. Thank you, Counselor. Thank you, sir. All right. which brings us, I believe, to our last substantive item of the evening, or items of the evening, and that is items 2, 3, and 4 relating to recognition of the Davis Square Neighborhood Council. Items 2 and 3, that's 26-1165 and 26-1218, are communications. from the Davis Square Neighborhood Council and part of their application package. Item number 4261262 is some public comment that was received in advance of our consideration on this. And we, of course, had a public hearing last week where public comment remained open for written comment to be received up until last Friday. So we did hear from a number of members of the public on recognition there. as well as of course the presentation made by Davis Square Neighborhood Council. We also received communication today from the Union Square Neighborhood Council with some concerns that they had regarding the interaction of the language in our recognition ordinance and the formation and structure of the of the Davis Square Neighborhood Council's bylaws. So I'm going to open it up and invite Councilor Davis, since this is your turf, invite you to hold forth on your opinion on this first and then figure out how we are going to proceed with this. There's no specific time urgency here necessarily, but Councilor Davis, have you been in contact with the SNC and received that communication from the Union Square Neighborhood Council?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I actually do not see in my inbox anything from the Union Square Neighborhood Council. So if that can be distributed to the committee and made available to the public, I assume that was submitted as a public comment. I think that would be beneficial. First, so let me start by... I've lost the window, bear with me. So it was noted during the public hearing, correctly, that at the behest of some constituents, I had requested that the law department provide an opinion on whether the... The neighborhood council, Davis Square neighborhood council bylaws, inclusion of people who live outside of the neighborhood boundary and also outside of the city limits were appropriately included, could probably be included as voting members. The short answer is yes. I'll read the opinion and then sort of explain the mechanics briefly. So this was provided to me yesterday, sorry. It was dated yesterday. It either came in late yesterday or today. You asked, dear President Davis, you asked for the city attorney's opinion as to whether the proposed Davis Square Neighborhood Council may determine membership and voting eligibility based on residency within one half mile of Davis Square, even if some individuals reside in Cambridge, Arlington, or Medford. And there's a footnote that says the law department does not opine on the reasonableness of the specific membership criteria chosen. In short, such membership would not violate the ordinance. The term neighborhood council is defined in Section 7-220B as follows, open quote, involuntary organization, council, or association, skipping ahead, within a specified geographic boundary within the city and governed by a set of written bylaws, close quote. The recognition requirements in Section 7-221A-2B expressly leave membership criteria to the discretion of the neighborhood council. Section 7-222A-2B provides, quote, these membership requirements shall not preclude a neighborhood council from, at their discretion, expanding their membership criteria to include other groups with close connections to the neighborhood. As long as the Davis Square Neighborhood Council bylaws expressly include all residents, parentheses, and or persons who own a place of business, work, or attend school, who seek to become members, close parentheses, who live within a certain distance of Davis Square, the decision to include such persons as voting members of the DSNC would not violate the ordinance. The neighborhood and membership could be defined to extend beyond the geographical limits of the city. So put another way, and folks have noted that specific language in the definition of neighborhood council, which is that it is within a specified geographic boundary within the city. And that was a point that was raised specifically. My understanding from the law department's reading of this, and I'm inclined to, I think it makes sense, I understand their interpretation, is that if you read that in conjunction with the actual bylaws, you will see that the geographic boundary of Davis Square that's referenced in the bylaws is entirely within the city. It is, in fact, a... a map showing how the city defines Davis Square in, I can't remember which context, but it is an official city designation and the bylaws even reference that they use that because if the city changes that map, then it would, the intent was that it would effectively change automatically as the city so defines Davis Square. I will note as an aside, that map's a little goofy because it doesn't include, for example, Winter Hill Bank. or Domino's Pizza, which I, hard to imagine that not being considered part of Davis Square, but that's not the question that's at hand here, other than to note that a lot of these maps have challenges and flaws. The, so, you know, If there were an issue where the geographic boundary was defined outside of the city, then maybe there would be a different question or analysis. But the next section that's referenced in the opinion, which is 7222A2B, well, 7222A2 gives categories of people. who can be included or are to be included as members of the neighborhood council. It references people who live within the geographic boundaries, people who own a business, students, et cetera. And then it says that a neighborhood council can essentially can add a new category if they want, I'm paraphrasing. And the interpretation, I think, in fact, the letter of the bylaws clearly indicate that the neighborhood council has chosen to add a category of people, not expand the geographic boundary beyond the city, but add a category of people who live within a half mile of that geographic boundary. And that is, according to the law department, entirely within the letter of the ordinance. So I'll stop there. As far as the legal question goes, that is what the law department provided. I don't know if they sent this opinion also to the clerk's office, but I will forward it along to make sure it gets added to the record. But I've just read it in for this evening. If I may, Mr. Chair, I'd like to talk about sort of the as one counselor, sort of my interpretation or my view of some of these issues. And I'm speaking in this context more as a member of this committee, the chair, in fact, at the time when the neighborhood council ordinance was last revised and probably the time before that and maybe the time before that. But I believe I sat on this committee through every iteration of this ordinance. And so I, excuse me, I'll speak to at least the legislative intent as it relates to my intent as one of the legislators that voted to pass it and helped to draft it. In fact, in one of the recent revisions of the ordinance, we had a conversation about whether it would make sense to, whether it would be permitted to have overlapping geographic boundaries or catchment areas. And if I recall correctly, there was an original draft or a draft at one point that did not permit that. And I argued that that should be permitted because I could certainly envision a scenario where, for example, I think this is the example that I gave, a neighborhood council like Davis Square, which I can't recall whether these folks had even begun to meet at the time, but I've been trying to get folks to move forward with creating something for a long time. So whether it was still a dream in my glint in my eye or actually nascent meetings at the time, I don't recall. I could envision a Davis Square neighborhood council that might have a fairly significant catchment area that would overlap with, for example, a Ball Square neighborhood council that maybe might have a smaller catchment area. No shade on Ball Square. Love me some Ball Square. But just given the sort of I don't know what, the je ne sais quoi of Davis Square versus any hypothetical other square. And you could probably apply this around the city to other scenarios, that that seemed entirely appropriate. And we wrote that in, and the ordinance says that if there's an overlap and there's a development, then the councils are gonna have to work it out. We basically punted that one down the road. That's not the scenario here, but I raise that to indicate that the city you know, I at least certainly envisioned that a Davis Square Neighborhood Council catchment area might be a little bit bigger than, you know, some others we might imagine. And I also... I can't recall saying this at the time, I may have, but I certainly believe that my, I certainly recall that my intent was that the neighborhood council should have discretion. Like they should choose, because this is not a government body, right? And when, it's my belief for a variety of reasons that when these things work best, it's when we, the government, stay the heck out of it and sort of enable the community to to you know guide how it wants you know how it wants to um to sort of structure these things um all with the with the caveat that you know there is ultimately a you know a city council recognition process and that that leaves some discretion to the council to say maybe this is a little too much right so that last point is where um ultimately i think That's where the question lies, in my opinion. I think that while, and I have said this publicly, I have said what I'm about to say to the neighborhood council, when they asked my views on the bylaws, I said, I think your catchment area is too big. I think it's beyond what I kind of envisioned or anticipated a catchment area might be. I think it's going to be unwieldy. I think it raises lots of questions about whether it's sort of consistent with what we collectively as a city council intended when we created this ordinance. But For now, take that for what it's worth. They chose not to make any changes to it. That's fine. I'm not going to raise a stick about it, but I'm putting it out there. And when we get to the city council process, that might come up. And I told them that that might be an issue that comes up. Sure enough, it has. It's come up more in sort of the specific context of whether... not in some rural citizens can vote, but I think it raises a legitimate question as to what we as a council feel is appropriate for any neighborhood council, not just Davis Square, in terms of allowing voting members and sort of the scale of a catchment area and the reach that we think is appropriate for neighborhood council to you know, to sort of include. I think that the Davis Square Neighborhood Council has fully complied with the letter of the law here. And it may be that, if one were to decide that this catchment area is too big, that's on us, I think, you know, for maybe not making it, or maybe it's just, this is part of the growing pains as we have, this is now just our third neighborhood council. So, you know, we've now seen one that folks have raised a question about the scale. And I think there may be where some questions raised in some context in Union Square as well, but that, you know, those are resolved. So, yeah. I am really interested to hear my colleagues sort of thoughts on this. And as, as again, as I said, more in the context of, of the ordinance generally than in this specific Davis square neighborhood council bylaws, because if you look at the map that is in their bylaws in the, and they are attached to the, to the item. And there's a, that is exhibit with a big, you might be familiar with it and, It's, you know, it shows the sort of angled city's definition of Davis Square and then a big red circle, right, drawn around that is loosely a half mile, right? And folks, if you're following along with this, you'd be familiar with this. And, you know, it was, as was specifically noted in the public hearing and in some of the comments, we've received a number of comments in writing, both before and after. It includes a lot of places, like, Fully Avon Hill, fully on the other side of Porter Square, North Cambridge, all the way to to to the fields, the football fields there, right by our wife, all the entirety of Tufts University. But for maybe a few a few bits of the athletic fields over in Medford, all the way to Medford Street, well past Lowell Street, all the way to some of the hospital. That might be okay. I'm not saying it's not, but I am saying I'm not sure. This has always given me a little bit of discomfort. And as I said, I was initially, you know, content with leaving it to the discretion of the council, but because it has been raised, because it has been raised by a number of members of the public, including some members of the board of the neighborhood council, I think we need to have this conversation. And I think that, you know, in my view, we probably should provide some clear guidance here, whether we as a council who created this ordinance, who effectively hands some authority to be able to negotiate community benefits agreements to neighborhood councils, if we think this is consistent with kind of what we were thinking there. And thank you to the clerk for bringing up that map on the screen. I'll stop there because I've said a lot. Just a quick side note. It was also, there's some other issues that were also raised, including ongoing, the bylaws continuing to be in flux. I think that while I understand and I think those are valid concerns, for me, those aren't concerns that would lead me to not support recognition. I think that in particular the quorum requirement was raised and it was noted that the membership, the numbers of membership of the neighborhood council have swelled significantly since those violence were first put in place. Now that certain changes have happened to relationships between business folks in the square, One could imagine maybe folks might stop being quite as interested for a bit until something else comes along. And maybe even depending on whatever that next project might be, maybe not as many folks would be as interested. So I think those things are naturally going to be flux. And I'm content having that. been a part of most of those meetings as an observer and being there to support, which I've always said in the meetings, you know, I feel that those discussions, there's been a lot of robust, open discussion about the violence and my inclination is to stay out of it. But I'm content that they're, you know, they're diligently working through those processes. So I said I'd stop earlier and I didn't. Now I'm really going to stop, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Davis. No need to apologize. I know that I, for one, am certainly keenly interested in your take on these things, being the ward councillor. I do see a few other folks with hands raised, so I'll recognize our colleagues first and I'll come back to my thoughts. Councillor Mba, I see you up first.

Thank you, Chairman Scott, and thank you, Councillor Davis, for I will keep mine also, you know, really short. I think, first of all, I really applaud the Davis Quintinville Council for all their engagement. You know, civic participation strengthens our democracy and gives residents a very, for my avenue to engage with their government. So it's huge, you know, applause to them. And also I started going to this meeting right from the very beginning. Also think I probably miss a couple. And I also really appreciated the fact that if, they've been humble enough to learn from the Union Square Neighborhood Council. So it is my understanding that a lot of the guidance and evolution came from folks from Union Square Neighborhood Council. So for me, seeing what I saw today from the Union Square, you know, neighborhood council. This is like someone on the board writing on behalf of the Union Square neighborhood council. I think it's also an easy fix because if you read, they say, you know, a neighborhood council, I mean, for me, just the fact that we had to even ask the opinion of a city's attorney or solicitor to give whether there's an issue because it's supposed to be as clear as possible. It says neighborhood council, shall mean a voluntary organization, council, or association. This is from our ordinance formed by a property owner's in a residence worker and or tenants within a specified geographic boundary within the city and governed by a set of written bylaws. So within, so I think it just makes sense. Unless half of the board members live in Cambridge or Arlington or Medford, then that's an issue. But if not, I mean, we should, this is something that could be amended and then we move forward. So instead of saying, oh, well, it's okay to, you know, it can get really unwieldy. So I just think that this is an important point that has been raised and we should take it, you know, go back to the laws and look at what ordinances we have in place and see how we can actually mirror what the Union Square Navajo Council, you know, is recommending so that at least it's fair and equitable and it doesn't become, like we are setting precedents So I don't think that this is like a big, you know, do it. I think even folks that are within that body, in fact, I don't see, it would be strange for me to see somebody say, oh, no, it's okay. Somebody in Cambridge should be able to vote. We can make this bylaws however we want. You know, so I think we have an ordinance that defines, you know, a neighborhood council. So this is, you know, for me, I think that little, you know, we need to redefine that so that at least it's actually, it's in alignment. That's my two cents. I don't need to go around and around and around saying the same thing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, can I respond to that directly? Certainly, Councilor Bates. If Councilor Young-Kampen would be willing to defer. Of course, please. Thank you, Councillor, and thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you, Mr. Chair, to the good Councillor at large, that's the point that I specifically explained, and I know I said a lot, so I totally understand if some of the sort of details got missed there, but the question of within the city limits or within the city boundary was specifically addressed by the Law Department. They explicitly said it's fine, and the reading, for better understanding, The reference to within the city limits is in the definition of a neighborhood council. And those geographic boundaries are, as you see on the screen in purple there, that is entirely within the city of Somerville. That is the geographic boundary. That is compliant with the ordinance. The council then shows to add a category of people who may be members who are people who live in Somerville. outside of the purple, but inside the red circle, right? And the ordinance explicitly says that they can do that. I also will note that even if they had not done that, the ordinance already clearly contemplates that non-Somerville residents may be voting members because a non-Somerville resident clearly could own a business, clearly could be a student, clearly could, right? So it's already, even if you take away the red circle there, Right. And you just go with the neighborhood boundary within Somerville. The ordinance already clearly contemplates that non-residents could be and would in all likelihood be voting members because of those other categories that we put in the ordinance. Right. And we then said a neighborhood council can add a new category or categories if they want. In this case, the Davis-Coy neighborhood council did add a new category of people, not expanding the geographic boundary, adding a new category of people, which is people who live within outside the purple within the red. Right. So so that that question has been answered to my satisfaction, at least. And I know I've had the benefit of reading the law department's opinion, which I just read into the record. You know, it's easier for me to sort of grasp all that because I have it on paper. But, you know, just to ease your mind, hopefully that that they have weighed in. And that issue, at least, is is is resolved in the opinion of the law department. What I noted earlier was, you know, does this otherwise generally sort of align with what we intended when we drafted the ordinance? Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to clarify.

Sure. Thank you. Counsel, you and Kent.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not going to say up front that I'm going to be brief because once we get to talking about neighborhood councils, I can't make any promises. I have just two kind of things up front to say. The first is Through you, I'm just incredibly grateful to Counselor Davis's leadership on this. You know, they're really I'm very I'm following this very closely. I'm very supportive and optimistic that that we're going to get to recognition here. But I do not foresee any kind of situation where I would be supporting this. And the ward counselor has serious, you know, questions that he wants to get answered and isn't quite ready yet. So I just want to be clear about that. I think the ward counselor, you know, in this particular case and as a general matter, knows more about this than the rest of us. And so I'm really thankful for all the work that that Councillor Davis has put in. Second, I just wanted to clarify this just because several members have talked about an email that we received from the neighborhood council. Councillor Davis asked to this be put on the record. So that's good. I just want to be really clear, Mr. Chair, the Union Square neighborhood council did not send a public comment opposing what's going on. They asked a question. They just said, you know, given this definition of an organization within the city, we want to make sure that this is compliant. I had not seen the solicitor's memo that that Councillor Davis read. Incredibly helpful. Totally agree. Asked and answered from my perspective. Totally reasonable question. And yeah, I just want to clarify, I did not read that in any way as opposed to what the Davis Square Neighborhood Council has been undertaking. Just a good faith question about that definition. Um, so I guess just on the substance here, I think Kessler Davis raises a very valid question of, should we look at the ordinance, you know, in terms of how big a geographic catchment area. I do just want to, every time neighborhood councils come up, there is such a big disconnect between my understanding of this recognition process and the general public's that I just want to kind of share my perspective on this. Um, So neighborhood councils are independent organizations, right? They're not part of the government. And any neighborhood council can call itself a neighborhood council and they can go negotiate with a developer and they can show up at public hearings and they can testify on behalf of a neighborhood. The issue is how do they get quote unquote legitimacy, right? The only reason that a developer, I imagine, would want to engage with a neighborhood council is if they felt relatively confident that by dealing with a neighborhood council, that means when they go to a public hearing, there's not going to be 200 people showing up screaming at them because they've dealt with this body that kind of represents the neighborhood, right? And that does a pretty good job of synthesizing those feelings. And for those of us in government, then when we're trying to kind of, there's a lot of feedback coming on a proposal. If a neighborhood council makes a bold statement, either for or against something, and then 700 other people write us with different opinions, well, then the neighborhood council is not very effective, is how I would put it. So you can't fake it. There's no formal recognition process that gives a neighborhood council some magical power or legal authority. Their legitimacy comes from actual effective representation of their neighborhood. And that is complicated and takes a long time. And you're going to have different constituencies with different priorities. And from my perspective, um what what we're trying to guard against with this ordinance is a quote-unquote random group of people who call themselves a neighborhood council but really don't take in the perspective of their neighbors don't listen don't have transparent meetings don't allow for elections of the board we we want to say that you know from our perspective if you want our the city council's stamp of approval recognition you know our little nudge in the direction of quote-unquote legitimacy then we're going to kick the tires of your organization and say, do you have bylaws? Do you have elections? Do you have transparencies? Do you have a real geographic boundaries that you take seriously? I think that there's a feeling among kind of the general public that this recognition process confers a new legal authority onto neighborhood councils. And the history of this is unfortunately slightly complicated, but I just think it's worth saying that the headline is, no, it does not. The recognition process does not grant a new legal authority to a nonprofit that's not part of the city. Period. End of story. The reason it's slightly complicated is because the dawn of all this stuff in Union Square, the mayor in 2017 signed an agreement with the major developer in Union Square, US2. It's called the Development Covenant. It was almost 10 years ago. And under a lot of community pressure, one of the things agreed to by the mayor's office and by this developer is that the developer will sit down with a neighborhood council and negotiate a community benefits agreement. That's what it said. But there was no neighborhood council at the time. Um, and then, so I think for the community and for the newly elected council at that time, we thought, okay, we need to make sure that that doesn't just get kicked under the rug. We need to create a body called the neighborhood council so that this can't get ignored. And then even after a group had had this kind of grassroots process to form as a neighborhood council, the city council wanted to be very clear. That's the group in the covenant in that agreement. This is who you have to negotiate with. You can't get out of this, guys. And so that's why we developed this recognition process. It was just a way to say in that context, there's a covenant, a contract between the developer and the mayor that calls for you to develop to do a CBA with this group. This is the group. Go do it with them. And they did that. That's a one and done. That's kind of done now forever. So going forward, you know, I encourage everyone to read this thing carefully. I consider this it's an opportunity for the city council to, again, kick the tires of the organization, make sure that they are open, transparent, you know, democratic. And if so, you know, I definitely tend towards great, you know, that there's not some competing neighborhood council in your district that is, you know, says that you're usurping their power. You know, great. Like then I think they deserve recognition. So so that's all to say, I think, you know, the types of feedback that we're hearing about arguing about bylaws and, you and catchment area. Fundamentally, I really agree with what Councilor Davis said, that these are things that the city council should not dictate. These are decisions. And if the body is incapable of coming to some kind of conclusion, then they're gonna kind of not have a great deal of authority to represent their constituents. And maybe the board will get reelected with new people that do a better job coming up with those answers. um but but that's all to say um it does seem like we're kind of in a situation here where you know the ward counselor has a question about the the definition of this category of of voters in the red circle on our screen and it raises the question of should we take a look at the ordinance more than happy to do so but i just kind of wanted to share my big picture So just to wrap up, extremely supportive and optimistic that we can get there. Very supportive of the ward councilor and the neighborhood council here. And also just want to clarify to the public, you know, this does not create some new quasi-governmental body. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know that was not brief.

No need to apologize. Thank you, Councillor Ewing-Campen. I saw Councillor Davis and Mbah's hands go up. Councillor Davis, do you have a direct response to anything in that?

Yeah, I do, Mr. Chair. Just a clarification, if I may. Well, sort of a clarification and sort of a Maybe it's two clarifications or a response. First, in a general sense, to the good counselor from Ward 3, great, thank you. I mean, to be clear, as I tried to articulate earlier, I'm not necessarily raising a concern as a, expressing a concern as the ward counselor. I'm intended to sort of request input from y'all to sort of your thoughts, because I think generally speaking, in terms of the concept of neighborhood councils, I think there's an argument sort of both ways here and that authority that we reserved for ourselves as a council, this might be an area where that might be exercising. Hey, maybe let's dial this back of an order. I'm not saying we should do that. That was what I was looking for sort of that input and you've shared that, so thank you. One point of clarification though, and maybe this is a sort of a, you know, multiple ways to read the ordinance. But, you know, the ordinance does still include a provision that explicitly addresses community benefits negotiation. It states that a recognized neighborhood council may negotiate a community benefits agreement with the developer who's, you know, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't say that a not recognized neighborhood council can't, but my intent as one vote for this council was like, that's exactly what we meant, right? That to have, to sort of force the developer to the table with the neighborhood council, the neighborhood council needs to be recognized and that, you know, by whatever legal, technical legal measure, there might be some gray area there, but practically speaking, it's the expectation of the city that developers with a project that significantly impacts the area within the council's boundaries needs to sit down at the table with the neighborhood council and that is you know at least a soft authority uh to do that um and so you know i think that i don't know if if it was your intent to sort of express that differently express that except the country that uh uh through you mr chair to council you and kevin um but just at least to be clear to be clear from my perspective and and and you know as The next section actually then talks about if the neighborhood council, if a community benefits agreement results in money, it establishes a community benefits stabilization fund, right? A process so that if there's payments, where does it go? To me, that feels pretty official. And my impression of the sort of conventional wisdom about neighborhood councils, just in listening to people talk about it, is that Being recognized gives you the authority, whether hard or soft, to force the developer to the table and talk. And so there may be some room for interpretation on the edges there, but at the very least, I think that is certainly my intent with this ordinance. And the reason why I think one might look at a very large catchment area and ask some questions about the appropriateness of folks engaging in those discussions. Now, I will note one other sort of nuance, and then I'll stop. The definition of community benefits, and this is really clever, I think it's probably given us too much credit for having thought of this at the time, but I don't care if you live in Topeka and the neighborhood council has said anyone who resides in the United States of America can be part of the council and therefore has the authority to negotiate community benefits with a developer. The development must have a significant impact on the geographic area and community benefits are... Where is the... Sorry, I lost it. Community benefits are provisions of programs or services that directly benefit Somerville residents, including but not limited to blah, blah, blah. So anything that is negotiated by whomever is part of it has to benefit Somerville residents. You know, the practicality of enforcing that, I think you can imagine how that would be complicated. But, you know, that is, I guess, a counter argument to sort of the concern that folks outside of the city or wherever might not be negotiating effectively. You know, for the benefit of someone who lives in Somerville, but in the next street over, as opposed to living in Avon Hill, for example. But there is at least that requirement that any community benefits that are negotiated do have to benefit Somerville residents. I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. This has been very helpful back and forth. I definitely have some thoughts. I see Councilor Mbaa's hand is raised. However, Councilor Strezzo has not yet spoken. So I'm going to recognize Councilor Strezzo next.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I completely echo what our colleagues have said about this. I'm an award counselor, has said about this. And so I don't have anything to add to that, but I did have my concerns about the CBAs. And if we had residents of, or I'm sorry, members, or if there were members of the Davis Square Neighborhood Council of other communities, Arlington, that were weighing in on that, how CBAs would be affected. So the Davis Square Neighborhood Council, going forward with this, Councilor Davis really answered that question. So I feel a lot more comfortable with this, where I am with this, but I'm with you colleagues where I want to let the Davis Square Neighborhood Council, I want to follow their lead. I know my role in this. is a counselor and it's, so I I'm, I'm following, uh, I think we're okay. And that's my, my concern as well as the CBAs and, and want to making sure that it stays in Somerville benefit Somerville residents and benefiting Davis squares specifically. That's all.

All right. Thank you. Counselor Strezzo, uh, counselor, I've got some thoughts, but, uh, I noticed you had your hand raised there. So, uh, Didn't know if that was a direct response to any of the conversation that had just been happening.

Thank you, Chairman Scott. I just wanted to thank Councillor Davis for that. You know, I mean, you couldn't be more crystal clear. Like the way you explained was really helped me, you know, a lot, you know, to kind of like feel extremely comfortable. And I'm so excited, you know, to kind of like move forward with this, you know, whenever, you know, you're ready to, because Just for me, my experience with, you know, Davis-Guinevere Council, even just the emails, the tremendous amount of work that have gone into that process. I can see people asking questions. I mean, I've been on all the email stretch, you know, even though I've not responded, but you can see, you know, a resident asking questions, you see like, you know, good faith effort attempt to answer almost every single question because some questions are bad faith questions. So I can see like, no, this has been such a robust process and everybody, you know, is really engaged. They've even scaled up the participation level. It's like just... it's been going in the, in, in a way that it just how I envision civic engagement and participation. So I just want to say, yes, uh, uh, it wasn't, I don't think, uh, the question from, from the union square neighborhood council wasn't to say, Oh no, they oppose. I mean, like this is, was about clarification. And so thank you, counselor David for really explaining, you know, the entire scope of, you know, uh, of our ordinance and also, you know, of course, I mean, like you raised some issues that maybe that's something that we can, you know, do internally. But at this point, you know, I'm really proud of the work that has gone into this. So I'm very appreciative and I can't wait, you know, to actually see what becomes, you know, the next phase of this organization. Thank you, Chairman Scott.

All right. Thank you, Councilman Bhatt. Yeah, thank you, colleagues, for all of this. I want to apologize if my introduction of the Union Square Neighborhood Council's email that came out today clouded this conversation at all. I simply raised it in the same spirit as including the public comments that we received from from other earlier communications. And just to be perfectly clear, yes, it was a question that was directly in line with the one that Councillor Davis had submitted to the law, which Councillor Davis, I hopefully will reassure you that whoever my successor is as the Ward 2 Councillor will also at least share some part of your brain in the future. But, yeah, their question went directly to the same question you had asked the law department. As the good counselor from Ward 3 said, thank you for reading out that response you had gotten from the law department. For me, that is very much an ask and answer in terms of legality. To Counselor Mba's point, if it is this council's desire to open up that ordinance and take a look at it, at least in the few months that I'm still here, I'm happy to engage in that process. But I do want to lift up what the Ward 3 counselor said and maybe put a finer point on it, which is that the whole reason that this ordinance had to exist is that a previous mayor signed a contract with a developer that had some Unfortunately, amorphous language in some places, and unfortunately, specific language in others, which required the duly recognized neighborhood council be the one that the developer engaged with. And this council, in response, had to generate an ordinance in order to match the language of a contract that the mayor had already signed. The body that has been had been advocating on behalf of Union Square residents for a very long time. Prior to that, you know, it existed, the legitimacy came from the neighborhood organizing and I think there's it's Council Unicamp, and that's going to go in one of the long list of my favorite speeches of yours, because it gets in to some extent to the whole nature of legitimacy and governance. Anyway, this is to your point. If a neighborhood council can't bring in all those voices, doesn't actively reach out and doesn't convey the will of the neighborhood, then they're not doing their job very well. Well, that'll probably change in the next election that they bring up. And if it doesn't, it might change in the next election that we stand. So I think this is part of the messy and beautiful process that we all engage in in terms of creating structures of governance for ourselves. So I, you know, in terms of the membership numbers, I think membership numbers and attendance in these neighborhood council meetings absolutely fluctuates with interest. We've seen that over the last nine, 10 years of Union Square Neighborhood Council. Heck, we see that at city council meetings when the room empties out after about the first, I don't know, 45 minutes to three hours, depending on what we've got on the table. You know, this is to, I think to our credit, that folks don't feel like they have to necessarily sit on our shoulders on every minute of these things because they have confidence in the folks that they've elected to represent them. And I think when neighborhood councils are working well, they're out there enlisting folks to come get engaged and also are operating with a lot of the good faith of the folks that do poke their nose in and go, yeah, okay, these folks have it. They've got it. That's good. So, you know, when it comes to catchment areas and bylaws, those things are fluid. And in my opinion, they should shift. We saw that with the Union Square Neighborhood Council shifting their catchment areas because The Summer Nova project was right on the boundary and there was concern that some of the folks that would be directly impacted by that weren't adequately represented in the Union Square Neighborhood Council process. So they expanded that area to make sure that when the vote came up, it had all the folks that they wanted to make sure were included. So just like we get to amend our city council rules and bylaws and amendments to ordinances, That's also the process that they're going through. Although I will say explicitly for a multitude of reasons, we continue to be very clear that neighborhood councils are not government agencies. They are independent networks of folks who are just showing up to do the hard work of researching, researching those developments, gathering public input, deliberating on what's good for the neighborhood and then providing their opinion. And that opinion, at least for me personally, I weigh very, very heavily because I know the folks involved are all volunteers and that they care deeply about the neighborhood and they are doing the work, not just to analyze, but to be in conversation with their neighbors about the implications. So I, I, I think this is a very natural part of the process, and I think it would be a mistake, as was stated earlier, to think that the conference of recognition of a neighborhood council is the end point in anything. If anything at all, it's very close to the beginning, and how long these neighborhood councils continue to exist, continue to stay relevant, and continue to act as a force for good representing their neighborhood is very much dependent on the folks who get involved and stay involved. So I think this is, you know, I'm not concerned. The momentary concerns or the fact that bylaws may still be under amendment or consideration, frankly, that will continue to be the case for as long as the neighborhood council exists. If that ever ossifies into a you know, a fossilized remnant, it's probably an indicator that the neighborhood council itself is dead. So I am comfortable with the presentation. I appreciate the neighborhood council here in Newton Square sending that letter because clearly it was a shared concern from a few folks. And it indicates that the Union Square Neighborhood Council is still doing its job very well, which is to not just be clued into matters down here in Union Square, but also keeping an eye on the city and taking their role as trailblazers in this regard and stewards of the concept to a certain extent very seriously. In the same way that I don't think anybody's... Let me say I've seen enough nitpicking over the details of language in this committee over my terms to know that that is not an indicator of opposition to the policy intent. It is simply a very sincere desire to get it right. So with that spirit, I'm grateful for the question. And at least that's the manner in which I took it. So I am personally... very supportive of this. I haven't heard a strong objection from the ward counselor. From myself, I'm inclined to recommend, to vote in favor of recommending recognition of the council. That said, if it is the desire of the warden counselor to hold off while other things get addressed, or if there are other serious concerns out there that give him pause, I'm certainly open to it. But for myself, this seems like a very small but symbolically meaningful step that city council can take to recognize the enormous efforts of a large group of people out there in Davis Square over a number of years and is as much a citation of congratulations as it is the conferral of any kind of specific legal authority. So with that said, Councilor Davis,

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for that. I will say that your input and that of the good counsel from Ward 3 was sort of exactly what I was looking for. Obviously, I will still welcome any other thoughts from our our colleagues who aren't on this committee uh you know if if whenever this comes up uh before the city council um but uh you know it's particularly given the the significant role that you two played in in sort of the creation of this ordinance and it's in its origins as i'm you know that that's that's exactly what i was what i was sort of looking to hear what i and how are y'all looking at this? So that's really helpful. And you noted it, but I think I wanna call out specifically how much the Union Square Neighborhood Council folks have helped the Davis Square Neighborhood Council. They've been, and I speak on behalf of the Neighborhood Council, by my observations, and I imagine that no one would disagree, they've been an incredibly valuable resource, Michelle and Ann and Emily and others. have been at meetings that have been a really good resource. And so there's, you know, it's not an accident that, you know, this got to the point that it has. And I think that that's worth saying. So thank you all to them. A couple of points I just want to sort of put on the record, because I also, I'm at a place now that at the moment I'm inclined to support, you know, recommending approval of this recognition. And then as I said, subject to, you know, someone, a discussion at the council level. which I'll put in a request to the president to allow that at the next meeting. I think you'll be okay with it. But there's one other point that was raised by some of the comments that were made that I think is worth at least just a response on the record. I don't want to sort of feel like we've ignored it. And that is, this was alluded to earlier, but that is that whether the idea of having recognized neighborhood councils with with some aspect of some level of authority to negotiate CBAs is a good idea at all. And whether that's an appropriate thing at all to sort of empower a neighborhood group that, excuse me, may, you know, may not all be rowing entirely in the same direction at every possible moment, which I think is an unreasonable expectation for any group. And so I want to speak to that. I understand the concern. And I think it's a valid question. I think that there's... In a perfect world, I think I would probably prefer not to have that type of a negotiation with a developer to happen the way we currently envision it happening. But we haven't come up with a better way. You noted, Ms. Chair, the sort of cart before the horse or bass backwards to quote one of our prestigious former colleagues approach that was taken in Union Square where the administration at the time signed a binding legal agreement without any of us having any clue what was going on. And essentially then said, all right, now we gotta make laws to align with this. And that's not the way to do it, right? So we set that aside. But, and I've said this before, you know, when I look at zoning, zoning, it's probably one of, if not the strongest tool we have as a legislative branch in a municipality in the Commonwealth to do stuff, right? And, you know, I have in the past sort of proposed zoning amendments or concepts that would have attempted to glean community benefits, squeeze community benefits out of developers, et cetera. And Ms. Chair, you and I, as well as others in this committee, spent a lot of time talking about the council's oversight of special corporate granting authorities and multi-member bodies in the city and the importance of that. To me, as one counselor, all of those issues are a little less critical, if not materially, if not significantly less critical, they're materially less critical, but they're, because of the existence of a neighborhood council, right? I worry less about us trying to over legislate things in order to make sure that, you know, the city gets the appropriate, the city shares the appropriate benefits of a development And it's not just a developer putting money in their pocket. With a neighborhood council, that's another tool to do that. So I worry about those things significantly less than I would if this didn't exist. I agree it's not perfect. And if we come up with a better way of doing it, or we are empowered by the state to do things differently, then great. And we can always reconsider it. But for now, this is what we got. That's point number one. Well, actually, so point 1A or 1B, that's point 1A. Point 1B is, however, and this is, you know, write this down, all future councils, we have to be really careful to not look at a successful vote in favor of a community benefits agreement as being a, you know, a seal of approval. for a project. I think it's really easy to sort of look at that way. And I think community benefits agreement votes have been sort of presented that way. They've been, I think, I'll stop. I think we've done that to a degree in the past. And I've pointed out before, you know, A community benefits agreement might get 95% of the votes that are cast, but 75% of those yes votes might hate the project, but feel like this is the best they're going to get if it goes forward. I'm making those numbers up. Just because a community benefits agreement is approved by a neighborhood council does not mean the community at large wants the project to go through in the context of if there's a zoning change, for example, that's before the city council. I think the city council needs to really use its discretion that is its obligation to use in considering whether it's zoning or any other approval that might be requested and not just you know, take the easy route and say, well, if the neighborhood council votes for the CBA, then I'm going to vote yes. That's not only lazy, it's wrong. And it is likely to be a mistake. It's likely to be misinterpreting or misreading what you have in front of you. And so, you know, Maybe we need to print that on T-shirts or something, but we got to remember that, right? And I think that goes to the concern about CBAs and that was raised. So that's point 1A and 1B. My last point, hopefully, is more to the specific item before us, or at least to the It's all to the item before us, but to the decision on this particular request that's before us and the issue of the catchment area. As I said, I'm comfortable right now going forward. As I said, it was always my intent to give neighborhood councils broad discretion. I think this application found the edge of where that comfort zone maybe was. But having heard the discussion tonight, I'm okay going forward. I will say, though, I think, and I particularly want to point the... point folks, including the folks in the neighborhood council who are listening or will listen to this, to take a look at their slide number six from the presentation that was made in the narrative that they presented. It's attached to the item. This was the 14-page document, I guess, so not technically slides. But page six has a map of where the verified voting members who are residents live. And so I don't know if there's another map where non-residents live, but no, it's actually, I think that might be a misnomer because there's clearly folks that are in Cambridge that are on this map. And so whether being informed by that map or by just taking a look at where the actual voting members do currently live, if there are significant areas of the catchment area where there's nobody, We had a lot of noise about the Davis Square Neighborhood Council and projects in Davis Square in the past year. There's been a lot of publicity. If folks from those areas didn't come out in the last year, maybe we don't need to include those areas. And I would encourage the folks at Edward Council to take a look and consider the catchment area in light of this map or an accurate map showing all of the residents. As I said, it's maybe mislabeled here. I'm not quite sure how to read it. And I wasn't able to. I reached out to some of the members in the past couple of days, but not with enough time to give them an opportunity to get back to me and set up a call. But, you know, take a look, consider the conversation, consider the sort of practical, what has happened in the last year and where the membership is and, and, and, and, you know, given everything that we've all talked about and just think about it, I'm not going to move to unrecognize the neighborhood council if no changes made. But I think it might be worth considering given that given the discussion here and, and, you know, what I would anticipate being the case as other development projects go forward, that maybe, you know, potentially hypothetically might um generate less energy and excitement for lack of a better phrase as the particular one that that has been a topic of discussion in the past year or so i'm done now mr chair thank you for giving me so much time to uh to ramble on nope uh this is why we're here we're a deliberative body mr chair or mr president uh so given that um

Obviously, a recommendation from this committee is simply a recommendation. And as the president pointed out, if it is recommended out, well, regardless of how it's recommended out of committee, it sounds like there will be a discussion at the full council level. So if there are any members of the public who have thoughts about the conversation that's happened here tonight, certainly there's, I want to say about nine days between now and when this would come before the council, more than enough time to get in touch and relay concerns or questions either to members of this committee or to the council at large so that those can be included in that conversation. I thank you all for the conversation tonight. It feels like we are at a conclusion. I don't see anybody's hands raised. Councilor Ewing-Kent,

I was going to wait for someone to make the motion, and then I just have a brief comment on the motion.

All right. Mr. Chair, I'll be happy to make the motion if that's in order. It is in order, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move to recommend approval of the recognition of the Davis Square Neighborhood Council.

Yay!

All right. So just to be perfectly clear, that would be a motion to recommend approval approval on 26-1165, which is the actual submission package from the neighborhood council. The communications in item three and item four will be marked as work completed. But the motion to recommend approval is being made on item 26-1165. On that motion, Councilor Ewen Camp.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm obviously in support of the motion. I just wanted to make two quick notes that are associated with what Councillor Davis said, a couple points he made, but just I think it is worth saying that while I do not believe that we should be meddling in bylaws, I very much agree with the ward councillor, you know, just for members of the Davis Square Neighborhood Council larger community who are listening. This is something where I think it's an opportunity to kind of compromise. This is just, it's been longstanding kind of questions and concerns that all of us have been hearing, even at our level. And the size of the catchment area, it's just something we've been hearing about long enough. It seems probably worthwhile to, and I know that it has been taken seriously in the past. But to consider something on that, I would say from my point of view, increasing the size of the quorum is not what I would not personally recommend that that, you know, it's just going to make it harder and harder to make decisions. That's just my my off the cuff comment. And then just one thing I briefly wanted to touch on, because it's been very relevant in the Union Square Neighborhood Council. I think things were a lot simpler when there was the big bad developer and the mayor were making all the decisions and things were moving forward. And then the neighborhood council's role changed. to the public was very clear, right? It was like this project is happening, whether you guys like it or not was, you know, the simple way to put it. And the neighborhood council's job is to to to improve it as much as you possibly can before it inevitably happens. We now have a really different government where we actually listen very closely to neighborhood groups, neighborhood councils. And I know many counselors have said publicly, as the counselor Davis said, I'll never vote for any kind of zoning amendment until there's a CBA. I completely understand the reason behind statements like that. But I do think it can have the effect of actually putting the magnifying glass on members of the neighborhood council in a really unproductive way for them. I think the heat on development questions should be on us elected officials. It should be on mayors and city councilors, planning board members, people who sign up for this job. And, you know, because I think we've done a really good job of putting the cart before the horse and having a community process before we You know, this is not so much a public comment to the public as much as it is to us, but I don't know. It just feels worth saying. I think it's important that neighborhood council's role is not misconstrued as they are the decider on whether Project ABC happens right there. Their job, and I think they view it that way, and I certainly do, is if a project is very, very, very likely to move forward. How do we make sure that we get as much benefits for the community as possible? And I think, you know, in that situation, there's much less likely to be this, you know, acrimony over the role of the neighborhood council as the harbinger of doom. So just wanted to say that. And I'm in favor of the motion. Thank you.

All right. Are there any other any other discussion on the motion to approve? All right. Well, then, you know what, for this one, let's go ahead and just take a roll call on this particular item, 26-1165. All right.

On recommending approval of item number two, Councilor Davis.

Yes.

Councilor Mba.

Yes, please.

Councilor Ewan Campin.

Yes.

Councilor Strenzo. Councilor Strezza? Yes. Did you hear me? Yes.

Okay.

Chair Scott?

Yes.

All right. With that, that is all votes in favor.

All right. Excellent. Thank you very much. Let's go ahead and mark items three and four as work completed. And since that brings us, I believe, to the end of our agenda this evening, let's go ahead and take up all of those items which have been laid on the table for a future vote of approval. And you can read out the agenda numbers for those. But I believe, just to double check, that's going to be items 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8. as well as a motion to adjourn. We can bring all those up in a single vote.

All right. On adjournment and recommending approval of items 1, 5, 6, and 7 taken up together, and 8. Councillor Davis.

Yes.

Councillor Baugh.

Yes, please.

Councillor Ewan Kampen.

Yes.

Councillor Strezza. Yes. Chair Scott.

Yes.

All right, with that, that is all votes in favor and it is 7.48 PM and we are adjourned.

Thank you everybody. Our next agenda is anticipated to be also a crowded one where we will be covering a number of items just to give folks a preview of that agenda. I believe that is going to include the discussion of the short-term rental ordinance. civilian oversight, and potential several others as well. But those are the big top line items that I anticipate on the September 29th agenda. Of course, that agenda will be posted before too long. So thank you, everybody, this evening, and I will see you all very shortly.

Thank you, Chairman Scott.

Thank you.