Legislative Matters Committee

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Meeting Title: Legislative Matters Committee
City: Somerville, MA
Date Published: 2025-09-08

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AI Disclaimer: Summaries and transcripts above were created by various AI tools. By their nature, these tools will produce mistakes and inaccuraies. Links to the official meeting recordings are provided for verification. If you find an error, please report it to somervillecivicpulse at gmail dot com.

Time & Speaker	Transcript
J.T. Scott	all right welcome everybody it is 602 here on monday september 8th i'm your host jt scott chair of legislative matters and this is the legislative matters committee meeting of the somerville city council uh pursuing chapter two of the acts 2025 this meeting will be commit uh conducted by remote participation and the recording will be posted as soon as possible at the conclusion of the meeting We will go ahead and take a roll call to start things out to establish a quorum. Clerk Forsalese, if you would.
SPEAKER_06	Okay. Here we go. Having a problem. All right. This is roll call. Counselor Davis. Here. Councilor Ewen-Campen. Here. Councilor Wilson. Councilor, no, excuse me, wrong line. Councilor Barr. Present. Councilor Strezo. And Councilor Davis.
J.T. Scott	I think you might mean Councilor Scott, right?
SPEAKER_06	Right. Long list, I'm sorry. Having a problem, yeah. And Scott, right, correct. So we have four members present and one is absent. We have a quorum. All right, thank you, Mr. Forslisi.
J.T. Scott	Yeah, I just received a text from Councillor Strezo saying she won't be able to make it tonight. We have two substantive items on the agenda tonight. Hopefully we'll be able to get through those in short order. I do believe we will be going by the... order on the agenda. So first up, we have the acceptance of the minutes or approval of the minutes of our July 1st meeting. Is there any comment on those? All right, seeing none, we'll go ahead and lay that one on the table for approval at the end of the meeting. And then let's take up items number two and three. That's 25, 1373 and 25, 1335. One is an order from Councillor Mbah that the city of Somerville hereby accepts the provisions of Chapter 53, Section 18B of the Massachusetts General Laws. And then 25-13-35 is a public communication from several former mayors and a former elected. uh on that item so uh as we take that item up i'm gonna ask counselor Mbah as a sponsor to go ahead and introduce this item and then i understand you may have somebody uh a member of the public you'd like to sponsor speak on that and then i know that the administration has folks in attendance uh to speak to the item as well so counselor and bye if i could i'll go ahead and ask you to take that away thank you chairman scott um this
Will Mbah	You know, when I introduced this item, it was brought to me by my friend and constituent Harriet, you know, who lives in Davis Square. She was at a council meeting when I presented the item. I guess it's been getting a lot of momentum. But the main thing is this section of the state law defines a process of pre-election notification of citizens, you know, of the content. and the for and against arguments whenever any ballot question initiated by a government body will appear on election day. So the state law makes it optional for cities to put this procedure into place, even though the state itself must follow the procedure when its agencies propose ballot questions. So that is like the main rationale. At this point, I would like to, you know, sponsor former, you know, Alderman Jack Connolly, you know, who has also been following, having a keen interest on this item, speak to the item.
J.T. Scott	All right. Well, thank you for that, Councilor Mbah. I put up the text of 18B on the screen there. And I will find... There you go, Mr. Connolly. Madam Clerk or any clerk, could you please promote Mr. Connolly to a panelist so he'll be able to address the committee?
SPEAKER_06	Should be all set.
J.T. Scott	All right. Let's see. Mr. Connolly, are you with us this evening? Mr. Connolly, you should be able to unmute yourself and turn on your camera. There you go. We saw you there for a second, Mr. Connolly, but you might need to... How about that? Oh, now we can hear you at least.
SPEAKER_03	All right. We can do that. Okay. Well, I'm going to try and make sure to get that video screen going. Hang on one moment here.
J.T. Scott	Let me see.
SPEAKER_03	Oh, you got us. Okay, great. Well, thank you very much. Members of the committee. Uh, and again, as I mentioned, uh, council, uh, and Bob for sponsoring the item at your last meeting. Um, As a longtime elected, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, I spent 33 years as both a ward and an at-large elected official. We used to be called aldermen, now city councilmen. And I'm very pleased that your Charter Review Commission got around to taking a look at the city charter. It's been around since, I believe, 1899. And it was time to take a look. And after some hard work, I know A final version was drafted, came up, and both the council and the mayor endorsed it, was sent along to the statehouse. But what is missing is what a number of other communities, I believe some 49 out of 59 cities, have the process the state uses for. I think many of you are familiar with, I think you all recall the millionaire's tax in 2022. and personal recreation marijuana back in 2000. I have highlighted those in the letter that Mayors Bruhn and former Mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay introduced at your last meeting, spelling out exactly what that is. But what the new revised charter does not contain is chapter 53, section 18B of the general laws, which would require the city to send out a notice prior to the election on not just this charter, but any ballot question that should come up not only now, but in the future. And I think this is absolutely worthy of consideration because out of fairness to the elected officials who spend a lot of time talking about transparency, This charter, which a lot of people may not be familiar with until in such time they show up in November 4th, they won't have a clue as to what's contained in it unless they receive notice. And just as you see with the state, with those ballot questions, A week before the election, a section goes out sent by the Secretary of State with a summary of not just the proponent, but also the opposing point of view and a summary of the ballot question or initiative itself. So what I'm asking is that on this coming Thursday night, the Honorable City Council take this up and pass this and accept chapter 53 section 18b so that voters not only in november which will take a look at the charter will have an opportunity to review what's in it and take time should they choose to before the election so they're simply informed on what the issue is and this is an important one basically sets up the order of business that the city will do going forward and after as many years as it has been. I believe, if I recall, the city charter goes back to 1899. This will be a major revision of the process and procedure of the city, and voters in the community should be made aware of it prior to the election. Just as it's done at the state level, we can replicate that very easily here at the city level by accepting Chapter 53, Section 18B of the Mass General Laws. It's really as simple as that. And I know Mayors Bruhn, Mayors Kelly, and other electeds that I've spoken to around the city, formerly electors, have all said, yeah, this is something that should happen. Let's just follow the way the state does it. It seems to work very well. I think you recall the state audit. I had a ballot question that required 75,000 signatures to audit the state legislature and reached 72% favorability. That's something to be done at the state level. I think our requirement here would be a lot less based on the number of voters we have. But the key point here is to adopt this section of the state law that will allow the city to notify the voters on not just this charter issue this November, but any issue going forward in the future.
J.T. Scott	Tom Connelly, All right, thank you for that Susan connelly i'm always a pleasure to see it before I move on to administration, I do want to give colleagues here a moment is if anybody has any questions to direct to Mr connelly who's joining us tonight. Tom Connelly, want to give an opportunity for that. all right well uh you know hang on the line there mr connelly in case something else comes up but uh i just appreciate you coming in tonight if i get you to just take yourself on the mute there so we can keep moving along there won't be any background noise uh let's see here director singh from the mayor's office wanted to introduce the mayor's position on this and i believe also has Commissioner Salerno and Solicitor Amara here with us this evening. So unless there's any objection from colleagues before we start our deliberation, sponsor Director Singh. Director Singh, you have the floor.
SPEAKER_00	Through the chair, thank you for the opportunity. I just wanted to share our position on this item. The administration is happy to continue having discussions on the adoption of this mass gender law. However, at this time, based on internal conversations that we've had, it is our opinion that adoption and implementation is not feasible for this year's election cycle. The election commissioner, as you mentioned, is here along with his team to outline the timelines and deadlines that are prescribed in the statute and explain to the committee why meeting those requirements would be difficult for this year's election, particularly in connection to with coordinating early voting and mailing of any potential guide. They will also outline any related budgetary and administrative impacts on the department if this were to be implemented. And then law department is here, of course, to answer any questions, but also to speak to the logistical concerns and neutrality concerns around adopting this mass gender law. um specifically around the selection uh proponents and opponents uh of any ballot question um as a responsibility for that falls on the city solicitor under the statute and then lastly i just wanted to mention that i understand uh based on the comments here tonight and um comments at the last council meeting that one of the motivations behind this proposal is making sure that voters have all necessary information around the charter ballot question. I just wanted to say that the administration is aligned with that goal and we also believe that providing information to the voters around the charter ballot question is important and necessary. I do want to say that we don't necessarily need to opt into this general law in order to move forward with a voter information plan. We'll of course have to work with our law department and our communications department to make sure that any outreach to the voters will be in compliance with OCPF guidelines specifically around the use of public funds for distributing information related to ballot questions. But we can internally figure out a plan and share appropriate education materials either on our website or at appropriate city hall meetings and other official events. So with that, I'll hand it over to Commissioner Salerno to talk about some of the deadlines and other concerns.
J.T. Scott	Okay, before we go to Commissioner Celina, can I just ask one clarifying question here? So do I understand that you said that the mayor's position is that she would support sending a communication out this year about it, but not to do so, but that we can't send out a communication because the timelines are too tight? I'm not sure I'm clear. I think I heard two different things.
SPEAKER_00	To the chair, thank you for the question. Commissioner Salerno will talk about the budgetary impacts of any mailing to each voting household. That is not something that we can commit to right now. And also we have other concerns. What we can commit to is coming up with a plan to educate the members of the public around what is on the ballot with regard to the charter bill. It could mean putting neutral information on our website like we did with the CPA ballot question. We can come up with a plan to educate folks on the ballot question that would be a feasible and also legal under state law. But right now, we don't think that it's logistically feasible for us to mail each household a guide similar to that. the state secretary's office does.
J.T. Scott	Okay. All right. Let's see here. Unless I see colleagues who want to jump in right now, I'd say let's have Commissioner Salerno come in and tell us a little bit more about his concerns on time. I see you there, Mr. Connolly, but right now we're going to hear from you. from electeds and from city staff here. We'll come back to you at some point. Commissioner Salerno, welcome to see you.
SPEAKER_04	Thank you, Counselor. I'd like to follow up with what the mayor's office had said, that we're not in a position budget-wise to get a notice out right now. But more importantly, I've got a member of my staff here who's been working on this Well, the timeline, and I think it's very important that the timeline be discussed here as to how this may be somewhat cumbersome for this election, for us to put this to be on the ballot. So if I may, just for clarification for time-wise, I include Megan Arruda, who's online with us tonight, who has spent a lot of time for the elections department working on this. I'd like to sponsor her to review it with you.
J.T. Scott	Sure, sure, sure. And yeah, welcome, Ms. Arruda. Again, should be able to. Yeah, there you go. I see your camera's on and should be able to unmute yourself. Just to make sure I understood you there, Commissioner, so this is to talk about difficulty in actually getting the ballot question onto the ballot this election cycle?
SPEAKER_04	Well, there's a lot of some hoops that we have to go through. For example, I think that, let's just say, in the question that's floating at the Statehouse right now, they have until September 30th. To answer, to give us an answer. And we normally get out a mail out early ballots as early as a month prior to an election, which would put it at October 4th. And in the meantime, the law department has got to do some follow-up. Once the state Senate says where they are, the law department has to do some follow-up work. And that's going to take about a week to 10 days for them to get the information out that they need and get responses back. So at this point, I think it would be good if Ms. Arruda would explain it a little bit more thoroughly based on her findings for us.
J.T. Scott	Sure. Great. All right. Thank you. Welcome, Ms. Ruda. It's good to have you here. Please help us understand the time involved here.
SPEAKER_10	Thank you. So the issues that we're somewhat facing is that a lot of the laws, the election laws, haven't quite caught up with mail-in voting. So mail-in voting is somewhat new. It's about five years old, but a lot of the other election laws haven't changed yet. So when it comes to these timelines, like the commissioner was saying, the deadlines to even come up with these questions kind of run into the time where you would already mail a ballot. So just the challenge that we're facing with this, just the questions regarding the charter is that if the charter is not approved through the state house until the 30th, that's also the date that the questions text, like exactly what's gonna be on the ballot about the charter is also due to our office. So that's a little... That's a time constraint there where if anything gets changed in the charter by the 30th, we also have to have our final text for the question alone on the 30th. So it's the same exact day. In a typical election, local election year, we would order our ballots right when the recount timeline ends, which for this election would be September 22nd. But in this year's case, we have this charter question, which may not be approved until the 30th of September. And then we also have another question that was presented by constituents that has a challenge period of the beginning of October. So we're already ordering our ballots way later than we would typically order them in a regular election, local election year. As for getting the text for the summaries of the yes and the nose like if this 15 be was passed. We would have to the law department would have to reach out to the proponents and the opponents of all the three questions that are being presented to be put onto our ballot um. So I know that the law department can speak a little bit more on the deadlines of coming up with the text for the summaries of the questions that would go into the mailing. And as of now, we know that there's probably about 33,000 households in the city that we would have to do a mailing to. So that would be, I guess the budget constraint is seeing how much a mailing would be because we'd have to include the three questions, summaries and texts that are gonna be proposed to be on the ballot. if this is accepted and we would have to mail it to the 33,000 households. So I don't know if I have any other information I can give, but if anyone has questions.
J.T. Scott	That sounds good. I see we have a couple of questions here. Councilor Ewen Campin, I think I saw your hand go up first and then I see Councilor Mbah. So Councilor Ewen Campin, you've got the floor here.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me just say big picture. I'm extremely supportive of the goal of making sure that every voter is aware of the ballot questions, the arguments for and against. So through you, everything that we're hearing about the timeline makes sense to me that those are really tight and really challenging. The part that I'm trying to understand, so Mr. Connolly had said that 49 out of 50 cities in Massachusetts do this. Does anyone in this meeting know, is that the case? And if so, how do they manage these, what seem kind of like built in big challenges, particularly with early voting?
J.T. Scott	Director Singh, would you like to answer that?
SPEAKER_00	Through the chair, I can answer the first part. As of 2022, and I just want to say that I haven't done an exhaustive research of every community, but as of 2022, the information I have is that only about seven to eight communities in Massachusetts have opted into this. I know our solicitor's office have had some conversations with some communities that have opted into it who are running into the same issues with regard to early voting, I defer to Assistant City Solicitor Shapiro if there's more to add there.
J.T. Scott	All right. Solicitor Shapiro, can you maybe give us a little bit more clarity on this? I'm hearing two different numbers.
SPEAKER_05	Well, the information I have in front of me, one of them is a 2023 document from Brookline, which references the other communities that have it. And they've referenced Cambridge, Chelmsford, Groton, Nantucket, Shrewsbury, Sudbury, and Westwood. And I also have in front of me a 2015 document, which is from OCPF, which indicates that Newton, Cambridge, Sudbury, Burlington, Dedham, Lancaster, Yarmouth, Shrewsbury, Plymouth, and Hubbardston, which is new to me. I never heard of that before, but those are the communities that apparently have it from that perspective. So there is a little bit of a inconsistency there, but as a practical matter, it looks like at least as of 2015, there were roughly eight to 10. So Ms. Singh has that right in the ballpark for what it seems to be for the communities. If there's something that I don't have, I'd be happy to look at it, but that's the best information I have. And I've also connected with the Brookline and Cambridge on their experience with it too, from a practical perspective.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Mr. Chair, if I may, I'd be interested to hear those conversations.
SPEAKER_05	Sure. The crux of it is from the point of view of Cambridge, they also agree that there are timeline type issues in terms of trying to coordinate the sending of the guide with the early voting issue. And there may be situations where as a practical matter, someone gets their early voting ballot and then fills it out. And then a few days later in the mail, they get the guide. because we have to give seven days notice to the proponent and the opponents. So that's sort of a practical thing we're trying to struggle with. The other part of it is that there is a, at least what I'm gonna call an optical bias of neutrality with the city solicitor, but I'm sure that comes with the territory. If you have a particularly controversial ballot question, John Lund, City of Boulder, The city solicitor is charged with coming up with a neutral presentation of the summary and what can happen is that nobody's happy, but that is not insurmountable but just flagging that as an issue that they've run into and other communities. who I've talked to. So those are the two, I think, high-level challenges that I'm highlighting that I've heard from just two other communities that I've talked to. I've not talked to everybody else, but that's what I had just to kind of get the ball rolling on it.
J.T. Scott	All right. Councilor Ewen-Campen, do you still have the floor? I see a few other people.
Ben Ewen-Campen	I'm all set, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
J.T. Scott	All right. Ms. Arruda, is there something else you wanted to inject there? I saw you had your hand up.
SPEAKER_10	um i just wanted to add so to counselor Ewen-Campen um you just had mentioned how other communities do with the early voting so we did reach out to framingham who also has it on their ballot this november but um The Framingham clerk actually reached out about a year ago to all the other clerks on what their summaries were going to be and reached out to their proponents and opponents. So they already have had a mailing prepared and they already have it printed to send out the beginning of September to their voters. So I think it's just that September 30th deadline that's really important. cutting into the early voting. I think if we had had it beforehand, it wouldn't really affect early voting as much as if we could get it out right after the preliminary election. Because the other thing also like solicitor said was with early voting, once you turn your ballot in, there's no going back. So before with absentee voting, if you voted absentee and then you could get to the polls, you could cast your ballot out. if your ballot hadn't already made it into the machine, you could cast another ballot. With early voting, once we have it turned in, we can't issue another ballot. So it's almost like if you voted and then you kind of got the guide and understood the questions a little bit more, you can't recast your ballot with the new early voting laws that are in place currently.
J.T. Scott	So just to be clear, you said Framingham also has it on the ballot. What does Framingham have on the ballot?
	I apologize.
	Sorry.
SPEAKER_10	They made some revisions to their charter, so they have a question regarding their charter on the ballot in November.
J.T. Scott	Ah, but in anticipation of that, they've already prepared a voter guide and have it ready to go.
SPEAKER_10	They have, yeah.
J.T. Scott	Maybe this is one of those reasonably anticipated to be on the agenda type of things. All right. Appreciate it. Let's see here. Counselor Mbah, I see you have the... You're up next, so I'll let you have the floor.
Will Mbah	Oh, yeah. Thank you, Chairman Scott. I just... First of all, I think this is a good idea that voters should be educated on these issues. It's like, there's no question about that. I feel like it was like a missed opportunity for us and all, but if we order, if the city council ordered for information to go out to voters, how would that impede some of the responsibility that your department has?
J.T. Scott	Is that to Ms. Arruda or to the law department?
Will Mbah	I think it was mostly for Commissioner Solano, but I think the way the law department wants to chime in.
SPEAKER_05	Yeah, if I could start, because I think that's, we actually thought about that, and that's an excellent point, until we looked over at the OCPF guidance on it. And the rule is that if distribution of information is not undertaken consistent with that statute, it is that governmental resources may not be used to distribute voter information commenting on the substance of a ballot question. So the general rule is that you must accept the statute in order to make it happen as indicated for a mailing, for example, to everybody. There are things we can do, which I'm reviewing with staff, things you can do without running afoul of the campaign finance statute. For example, as Singh indicated, you can have things on the governmental website, just for example. or distribute items at the meetings, at city meetings, for example. There's a list of things you can do, a list of things you can't do. And one thing they don't allow is sending out a mass mailing unless the statute's accepted.
Will Mbah	Thank you Chairman Scott and you know because as we're talking like this I was already trying to circumvent the process by trying to draft you know a board order you know calling for this you know this body to kind of like dispose information to the voters of the city you know on this ballot initiative but anyway thank you Chairman Scott.
J.T. Scott	All right. Thank you, Councilman Ba. I think just to recap what I heard there is that if we want to ensure that the mailing goes out to voters, we have to adopt this section of master and all law. And otherwise, the city would be prohibited from doing that kind of distribution, except through a website post or flyers handed out at a series of meetings.
SPEAKER_05	Various other items, too, but that's just two examples I gave you. But yes, there's other things you can do, too, but it's the high level.
J.T. Scott	All right, I have a few questions myself, but I know that Susan kind of has been itching to say a few things. And I do see solicitor Mara. So I'll defer to solicitor Mara first, and then I'm going to recognize Susan Connelly briefly and then turn this over to deliberation with the counselor. So solicitor Mara.
SPEAKER_11	Thank you, Counselor Scott. I just want to echo everything that David and Mr. Solano have said and can't emphasize enough that it's the lead time to get it right. That's problematic. And with three ballot questions, that's really the issue in most cities and towns that have done it. They've made appropriations. They've known this was coming. It's been on their books already. And as David alluded to, although we cannot do mass mailings, We can put information in flyers. We can have things on the website. They can be distributed meetings and other areas, perhaps. We just cannot mail everyone anything. And then you also run into the fact that you'll be in a situation where some people will get the information, others will not because of the early voting. So And there's three different questions, right? So we have to do the research for the pros and cons of everything. And with all due respect, the hardest one to find pros and cons for seem to be the charter questions, you know, because it was a collaborative effort. So we would have to really look hard for the reasons opposing the charter change to get it right. So our concern is that it's important to get the information out there, but it's more important to get the information out there accurately, correctly, and so people can rely upon it. And so It's unusual to put this adoption of the statute right on the heels of an election, particularly because we don't even know if two of the questions are going to even be on the ballot at this point in time.
J.T. Scott	All right. Well, I see some questions here, but let me just be super clear. Of the three ballot questions, which ones do you say the two of them we're not sure will be on?
SPEAKER_11	Well, there are... There are, counsel, thank you for the question. There are two ballot related questions, one on the four year term and one on the charter itself. And both of those haven't gone through the state yet. So those two are separate questions, but tied to the same kind of timeline.
J.T. Scott	Just making sure that everybody understands. But the Palestine ballot voter petition is going to be on the ballot. That's been certified.
SPEAKER_11	I don't know if it's been certified yet. That would be a question for elections. But I know we're not waiting for any action by the state to determine whether it can even be on the ballot.
J.T. Scott	Okay. Well, then, before I go on to, I do see Council Davis waiting, and I said I was going to get to Citizen Connolly as well. Commissioner Salerno, can you let us know, has that voter petition been certified to be on the ballot?
SPEAKER_04	Thank you. We do have the certification for that.
J.T. Scott	All right. So the signatures have been certified. It is going to be there. There was a challenge window mentioned. Is that the signatures can be challenged up to a certain date? Is that what I understood?
SPEAKER_04	Again, I would like Ms. Arruda to comment on that specific question. That's a very important point, and she's done a lot of background work on that.
SPEAKER_01	All right.
SPEAKER_04	Thank you.
J.T. Scott	Ms. Arruda. We can't hear you. It looks like you're unmuted, but something seems to have changed.
SPEAKER_01	Right.
J.T. Scott	all right well we can come back to this route if that technical difficulty gets cleared up uh counselor davis why don't we go to use and since we'll complete our lap there and then i'll loop back citizen connelly and then we can have some deliberation please thank you mr chair um thank you so thank you to the members of the administration i i understand the the the points that you've raised um
Lance Davis	My question is sort of in thinking about how to move forward and what our options might be moving forward. For my own context and understanding, has the administration considered adoption of this section of Mass General Law in the past and decided not to do that? Or is it just something that never hit the radar? I understand that it sounds like we're a little late to the game for this election. with this critical issue on the ballot, was there a decision made not to adopt this chapter previously when we could have, like some of our neighboring communities have done, sort of anticipate and be prepared?
SPEAKER_00	Through the chair, this is the first this has come on my radar during my tenure here. I cannot speak to any discussions prior to my time with the city.
Lance Davis	Okay, Mr. Chair, first ask a follow up then. And again, I'm just hypothetically trying to think of, you know, possible ways forward. Would the administration have any objection to moving forward with the adoption of this with a, you know, a later effective date?
SPEAKER_00	Through the chair, as the elections team highlighted, this does have budgetary impact to it as well. The mailing has an additional cost to it. I think we did a very rough back of the envelope math and Commissioner Salerno, please correct me if I'm wrong, about 40K for the mailing. So this is also a conversation with our finance team come budget time about adoption and the impact. And I know that In other communities, there are other costs regarding overtime and there are other administrative costs as well that we need to consider before adoption.
Lance Davis	Okay, so if I make sure I'm understanding that correctly. So it sounds like... It's the administration's view that this is an open question whether we want to do this or not. And that question sounds like it primarily is involved around whether we want to spend the money to do it or not in next year's budget. Am I understanding that correctly?
SPEAKER_00	Through the chair, thank you for that question. Budget is part of the consideration. Of course, the concerns around early voting and timeline is still something that communities that have opted into it are struggling with. So there are a variety of considerations that we would have to think about if we opt in, but budget is, of course, part of it.
	Okay.
Lance Davis	So I guess just finally, and thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me a series of questions here to you, to the director. So is it the administration's preference that no action be taken at this time and that we keep this in committee and continue to work on exactly a plan to implement this? Or is the preference something else?
SPEAKER_00	Through the Chair, thank you for that question, Councilor. That's correct. We're happy to continue having discussions about adoption and implementation for future election cycles. But at this point, we cannot implement it for this year.
Lance Davis	That's all the questions I have. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
J.T. Scott	All right. Thank you, Councilor Davis. Yeah, I appreciate those questions. And I'd have to say that... You know, fortunately, we have, I think, an administration and a council who have been very amenable to mid-year appropriations and certainly an item for as little as $40,000 we've seen handled by interdepartmental transfers very simply for other reasons. So I'm less concerned about it, but I understand the argument. I'm going to go to Citizen Connolly briefly and then hopefully have some deliberation here amongst committee members, and then we can figure out how to proceed on this. Yes.
SPEAKER_03	Thank you, ma'am. Yeah, I just I'm a little confused because all I've heard so far is that it's not logistically feasible. There's budget issues, the timing for this election, $40,000 cost. If I recall, isn't the city budget somewhere around $380 million for this coming year? I'm a little confused like you are, Mr. Chairman, about the cost of this, but if I recall, I believe the Charter Review Commission sent this to the Statehouse back in May, and it just seems incomprehensible to me that these items weren't in consideration, knowing that there was an election coming up with a matter of months after the adoption and sending this to the State House. I would think and I understand there was this matter was reviewed by the Charter Review Commission for if not a couple of three years and this never came up and I will and I've sent it to Councilor Mbah that I have on research with some of my friends and colleagues that their city charters with these initiative and referendum positions under Chapter 53, Section 18B have been adopted by cities and towns. Once it's adopted by the city town, yes, there are procedural matters like timelines and everything else that Nick has mentioned and the solicitor has mentioned. Had that been adopted by the Charter Review Commission and sent along, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. What are we afraid of in the city charter that the voters shouldn't know about If this is the first time in 126 years that the chart has been revised, why aren't we shouting from the rooftops about what a great thing this is and why wasn't that thought of during the course of this whole review? I'm somewhat in a quandary as to what's the big hurry for this if it's taken this long, if it's got to take a little longer. Even if it does mean spending a few extra dollars to do this, why not spend the $40,000? Okay, you've got to work a little bit harder over the next few months to make sure that this happens. But the voters deserve the right to be informed about a substantive change as drastic as this. And I think that's an issue. To me, this is a real travesty of transparency. And I and others are not going to be happy. If you try and move this forward without taking a very solid and hard look at what's involved, there's nothing difficult about adopting this Chapter 53, Section 18B. Implementation, sure, you've got to do some work, but anything worthwhile always involves doing some work. And both the city attorney and Mr. Shapiro, the assistant solicitor, mentioned there's a specific procedure for it. I'm sorry, putting it on the website and doing a mailer from the city isn't going to work. You've got to do it the way it's spelled out in the Mass General Laws, just as the ballot question for the million dollar tax for the recreational marijuana question. All items were done with initiative petitions. It certainly could happen here, whether it's the city or a bunch of citizens who want to put something on the ballot. There's a process, procedures, signatures to be gathered. If it's worthwhile, it should be taken the time and it should be set up, whether it's for this charter or for any initiative in the future as we move on. This charter has been around for 126 years. We need to take a little more time. amended, now's the time to do it.
J.T. Scott	All right. I appreciate that, Mr. Connolly. Mr. Clerk, could you make sure that I have hosting status here so that I can manage participants appropriately? I appreciate that if either the city clerk or a committee clerk could take care of that for me. All right. So thank you for that. All right. Let's see here. We'll take care of that. So going to colleagues, I appreciate that perspective, Citizen Connolly, and I appreciate you taking the time to be with us this evening. So for colleagues, we have now the will of the committee to consider. This is the adoption of Section IMGL. As we maybe heard, we're not exactly sure how many cities and towns have done this, but certainly some some number of them that is above eight have done so and so the question is whether or not we would like to adopt this as council davis said there is also a question of adopting it with an effective date that is after this election so that it would be in effect for future elections but would not affect these questions uh i have to say i myself am also uh this would seem to be business that would be reasonably anticipated to be before the city. So, uh, being prepared to publish information about this, I don't think would be a reach. I don't think $40,000 is particularly high reach for this, uh, somewhere, uh, less than one, one hundredth of 1% of the city's budget. Uh, and given the amount of free cash we've rolled with in previous years and the still open vacancies, I'm sure there's plenty of lag money to cover this particular expense in this, uh, in this case. That said, it is the will of the committee, so I'd love to hear from my colleagues about your inclinations here, and then it'll be open for motions on how to handle the item. I will say at the outset, I'm inclined to favor adoption of this, but eager to hear the discussion. Councilor Ewen-Campen, followed by Councilor Imbach. Councilor Ewen-Campen, you have the floor.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't... There's a million reasons that I'm frustrated it took us this long to get the charter to this point. That ship has sailed, right? I think we could have done this a year and a half ago, basically. We wouldn't be in this situation. That said, this is the situation we're in. I am compelled by the arguments that the Elections Department, the city solicitor, makes on the timeline. If it was purely a matter of cost, this would not be a hard question for me. But as it pertains to getting the pro and anti statements together in time for early voting, given the deadlines, that seems real to me. So... You know, I was obviously unaware that this state law existed to be opt into until Councillor Mbah put this forward. So to me, it's commonsensical for us to do something like that. We're going to ask ballot questions, you know, as the state does. People should be aware of them before they get to the ballot booth. Otherwise, it kind of makes, why are we asking people to vote on these things that they have no prior information on? That said, I just think, you know, as it pertains specifically to this one, I don't see how it's going to work this year. So my inclination would be to not, you know, rush an ugly mishap for this election, but instead to, you know, keep working on this. I think it makes sense to adopt this in the future so that we're not in this situation again. But I don't I wouldn't personally support it for this election, given what we've heard tonight.
J.T. Scott	All right. I appreciate that, Councilor Ewen-Campen. I'll hold my thought on that. Councilor Mbah, you're up next, followed by Councilor Davis.
Will Mbah	Thank you, Chairman Scott. As the maker of the motion and somebody who brought this to me, like literally the week before that council meeting. And I kind of like just thought, because usually I don't just take something and submit. Like, again, I keep invoking the resident that initially brought it to me. And I went back and forth. I'm like, this seems like common sense. So I will, you know, bring this forward. I think... uh it we owe it to the resident of the city you know for them to be informed if there's something on the ballot so uh i take full responsibility and apologize for any mishap but i think you know uh a price should or cost should not be an issue in you know to kind of like get information to to the voters so I will be supportive of whatever thing we can do to adopt this. And, you know, I don't know about how implementation, but I just want this, the voters should actually see that we are listening, you know, so they don't think that government is some organized conspiracy, you know, to kind of like keep them away from knowing what is happening. So that's my stand. Thank you.
J.T. Scott	All right, thank you, Councilor Nabai. Councilor Davis, your thoughts.
Lance Davis	Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm also frustrated, but I think the frustration lies in that somehow this didn't come up any sooner, and I certainly could have dug it up. Here we are, as the good Councilor from Ward 3 said, I'm also not inclined to sort of push us into a situation where we may then instantly be in violation of state law. But I I agree that the money aspect doesn't strike me as a significant challenge. The logistics, I hear that argument. So I guess what I'd like to understand a little more clearly and perhaps with more of a definitive commitment is what... what is the administration going to do to make sure that this information is available um you know we've heard we could put information on the website we could hand out flyers like those were hypothetical i heard those presented as hypotheticals so you know i'd like to understand I suspect there is a more concrete plan than that. Just my hunch, knowing the folks involved. So what is the plan? Walk us through what we're going to do to try and accomplish the intent of this information, what this ordinance would do without running afoul of the rules that say we either have to follow it to the T or not mail anything.
SPEAKER_00	Through the chair, thank you for that question, Councillor Davis. I can say that, yes, we are expecting that we will be able to get this question on the ballot. So in anticipation of that, we've started working on, of course, not only the text of the ballot question, but also a summary, one pager. We'll have to work with our comms department and our law department to figure out what are appropriate ways for us to put that information out there so we're not violating state law. I do want to say that while we can make sure that we're ready to press send, the question, the home rule petition is still pending at the State House. Just today, I received edits and feedback from the Senate. committee where this is pending. So we can't reach out to opponents or proponents in anticipation. We can get materials ready, but we can't hit send before we know exactly the language that will be before the voters. So to answer your question, we've started working on the materials and we hope to come up with a concrete plan and share that with the council soon.
J.T. Scott	All right, Councilor Davis. So I appreciate the desire to do our best. However, I do think this is a situation where there is a structure that's in place there for getting information out to voters. It's not just about the four-year mayoral term and the charter. There is also another ballot question that is out there that there's a great degree of interest in and I think folks have an expectation that there's going to be information published on this. Cities and towns find ways to do this. I understand the time crunch here is particularly tight, especially since we are waiting on the State House, and the State House has, from what I heard, until September 30th to approve it in a timeline that would allow it to be on the ballot for our municipal general. That said, I'm also... I share the opinion of my colleague up in Ward 3 about not wanting to rush an ugly mishap, I believe was the phrasing for this election. I think if we're operating on timelines that are so tight that it leaves us in doubt as to our ability to comply with state law and requirements of informing our residents about the content of ballot questions, and it's been 125 years since this charter was changed, I'd be more inclined to ensure that we have it on an election where we do have the time to satisfy those requirements. As much as I know everybody would like this charter to have been put to bed two years ago, and as much as I spent years of my life as the chair of that charter review committee, I would be dismayed to see it placed before the electorate here in a willy-nilly fashion. And I'd be more inclined to wait until our next municipal election to put that. That's it. I think I've seen our city do incredible things to make incredible efforts to do the right thing when it's in a situation where it's clear. I'm not sure how this would be recommended out of committee tonight. What I would love to do since we are coming up on the hour, I know that President Davis has to go attend the school committee meeting. So I would like to at least draw our conversation this evening to a conclusion, whether that is to have a vote, whether or not to recommend approval of this or simply to discharge it. Because what I am not inclined to do is to leave the matter in committee. for an extended period of time without having our colleagues at the council at large be able to express their will either in the context of a vote to recommend for or against approval of this or adopting the statute or even simply taking a vote to refer it back to committee with the understanding that it would not be adopted in time for this election. So I would like to have us come, if not to consensus, at least to some motion and vote on it this evening in the next few minutes. As I said, nothing I've heard so far has dissuaded me from the wisdom of actually adopting the statute. And I have confidence in our team's ability to make something happen here. So with that said, Councillor Mbah, another bite at the apple, go for it.
Will Mbah	Yeah, no, thank you, Chairman Scott. So Councillor Davis, did I hear you correctly? Like we can adopt this and then set implementation for like just to be able to follow a proper procedure like can we like like move this another election cycle or something and then would that means that the chatter will not be on the ballot this cycle like is that just so we can properly do things the proper way or like what is like i'm i'm not sure like what because again i'm ready that we should adopt this And so what's the next step?
J.T. Scott	You know, I'm not sure, Councilor Davis, if you have that answer or if we could point that to the law department. What are we expecting back from the State House? And does the State House have a requirement of what ballot the question goes on to? Or is it simply approved for appearance on a subsequent municipal ballot? That would be to Solicitor Shapiro or... or Amara, whoever's got that one.
SPEAKER_11	I apologize, sorry, hold on. There we go. I do believe it is possible, but I wanna reserve the ability to go back and triple check unless David can confirm for me that you could adopt the statute with an implementation date in the future, right? would be the easy thing to do. I believe there is ultimately some language in the charter and perhaps Neha can correct me if I'm wrong, that does speak to having it on this ballot or when we can get it on the ballot and comply with state requirements because we sort of anticipated, but I don't know that we, I know we were not anticipating a voluntary election of a state statute that no one had mentioned. So I don't know and I haven't looked into whether that provision would be broad enough to allow us to delay the charter. I also am not sure if there is any time left and I'm completely throwing out ideas that I need to at least confirm, but these are the things I can potentially think may possibly be within the realm of reality. I'm not saying they are, but what I can, I don't know if a petition, if there's time for a petition, yet another ballot question to delay, implementation. I don't know the answer to any of those. None of this was anticipated. The only thing that was anticipated was that we may not have a charter in time to comply with the election requirements. and we didn't want the charter implementation to be negated if we couldn't comply with the state requirements on elections. So we do have some language in there allowing us, if we can't comply with state election requirements, that as soon as we can, which would be in whatever next election, we wouldn't have to go through this whole process again. I don't know if it would be broad enough to cover the scenario you all are just now thinking about. and sharing with us, but we could look further into it and I'll defer to David and Neha if they have anything further to add.
J.T. Scott	Okay, well, so what I think I heard there is that if we do adopt this statute, it would place other requirements to be compliant with state law. So it wouldn't put us in violation of it, but it might both require and allow for the postponement of the placement of this particular, those two particular questions on the ballot. But imagine the already certified issue we'd be able to make compliance on. But yes, solicitor, did I get that wrong?
SPEAKER_11	I'm, with all due respect, counselor, I'm not sure you got it wrong, but I'm not quite sure that it's right exactly either. I'm not sure that the wiggle room, I'm not sure if the state ballot requirements, election requirements that exist for everyone, that's clear. Compliance with those, we have to do. In terms of voluntarily adopting a statute, without having enough time to really do it right. I'm not sure as I sit here tonight that that would also qualify. I'm not saying it won't, but I would need time to look into that further to give you a definitive. I don't want to mislead you.
J.T. Scott	Yeah, no, fair enough. And yeah, fair enough. I'm not a lawyer. All right. Well, with that said, yeah. Yeah. Councilor, are there any other questions or thoughts from the colleagues here or any motions that anybody has in order? I mean, I'm inclined to have this out of committee so that it can be discussed at our Thursday meeting and also inclined to welcome follow-up information. It sounds like there's some research our law department wants to undertake through here based on these questions. Councilor Davis?
Lance Davis	Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. You and I are, as is often the case, of the same mind. I was going to suggest that, you know, your earlier suggestion that we might move this out of committee without a recommendation so that there's opportunity for that follow-up and for our colleagues and the rest of the council to hear the concerns, hear the issues, and weigh in. That certainly seems like a reasonable way forward, given where we are at the moment, if it's the will of my colleagues.
J.T. Scott	Yep, no, I appreciate that. I think it's also always, of course, helpful for colleagues to hear the considerations and viewpoints of the folks on the committee, because we did get an extra hour to talk about this thing. So, you know, if folks here want to express their current thinking about it, so that colleagues will have that in the minutes and available on a video review. I know there's a few people who expressed to me they want to tune into this discussion after they got done with the rent control rep. So as I said, I'm happy to communicate mine, which is that I'm inclined to support passages of this because I believe it's an established structure for getting information out to voters. I can't think of too many justifications that that rise to the level of saying, no, we don't need to do that this time. So that's my take on it, but I am inclined to move to recommend this, move to discharge this without a recommendation. On that motion, is there any discussion or other expression of current intent or position from other members of the committee? All right. No discussion on that motion. So on that motion to discharge, uh, without recommendation, uh, this would be on item, uh, two, three, one, three, or two, five, one, three, seven, three. Uh, why don't we go ahead and take a quick roll call on that one since, uh, council Davis, I believe has to leave us shortly.
SPEAKER_06	On the motion council Davis.
Lance Davis	Yes.
SPEAKER_06	Councilor Strezo? Councilor Bauer?
Ben Ewen-Campen	Yes.
SPEAKER_06	Councilor Young-Kampen?
Ben Ewen-Campen	Yes.
SPEAKER_06	Councilor Scott? Yes. Mr. Chair, four members have voted in favor, one is absent.
J.T. Scott	Thank you. It's not my favorite practice here, folks, but given the time sensitivity of all this, I'd rather have it be on our next agenda at the city council rather than wait for, we may not have the time to wait for a few laps on this. So I appreciate it this evening. With that said, now we're going to be moving on to, oh, let's go ahead and place the communication. That's 251335. We could place that on file. And then we will move to pick up 251317. Councilor Davis, once again, thank you for your presence here. I understand the school committee meeting is starting and you are up at city hall. So anytime you do need to step away from that, we understand and we will be able to maintain quorum as long as the three others of us are still here. So with that, thank you. and then Councilor Ewen-Campen drops off, so we lose more. I kid.
Will Mbah	Let's see. Chairman Scott, I also want to thank Councilor Davis because I almost, I had to be at a high school for a debate, but I, yeah, you know, I said, no, city business come first. So, yeah, my... God bless.
J.T. Scott	All right, so let's see here. Now we're at item four, that's 251317, Licensing Commission Requesting Acceptance of Mass General Laws, Chapter 138, Section 12D, to allow current wine and malt beverage license holders to apply to convert to a non-transferable all-forms alcohol license. I did receive an email one hour before the start of this meeting from our legislative... intergovernmental office staff from the mayor's office, and that has been attached to this agenda as a PDF. I'll go ahead and pull that up and share that on screen. Here we go. I believe that is the right window. Let's see if I got it right. So this is a letter from our clerk, Kim Wells, just to introduce the item. This is based on a recommendation from the city clerk and a vote of the licensing commission, which recommended adoption of this. But for the details, Madam Clerk, would you like to introduce this? Oh, or Mr. Patera, all right. Our licensing commission.
Clerk	Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Yeah. through you, as you can see, and as you so kindly introduced. This is an item that the state legislature has made available for cities and towns to opt into. And as the city clerk's office is the administrator of the licensing commission, much like we are for the city council, we started with this as a discussion among that body and they were unanimously supportive of making this opportunity available to our licensees. And so this memo before you outlines some of the details of that. I will leave it to our licensing operations manager to answer any further questions if the committee does have them.
J.T. Scott	All right. Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate the memo. It's a great summary. And just for folks in public who may not realize that there's two different kinds of liquor licenses. One can serve beer and wine and one can serve cocktails and everything else. There have been a lot of iterations over the course of Massachusetts history, and it is a fascinating one when you get into the aftermarket on liquor licenses and some of the other problems and ills that have come out of that system over time. It's been expanded and cleaned up over the years. To my eye, this seems like a pretty straightforward exercise here that simplifies and increases access, but I'm happy to hear any questions from colleagues for our licensing operation manager and any deliberation for hopefully moving to a quick motion here. So Councilor Young-Camp and you have the floor.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Thank you, Mr. Chair. At school pickup today, I was talking with a group of parents about what was on the agenda. And I said that one of the things was to make it possible for restaurants that have beer and wine licenses to transfer that to have cocktails and stuff too, and how I was planning to support it. And they all said, thank you for representing me. So I'm in support of this, ready to vote.
J.T. Scott	All right. Counselor Mbah.
Will Mbah	Yeah, no, thank you, Chairman Scott. I'm also in support. I guess I was just, you know, since this came up, I wasn't sure, like, how many... of those licenses that we have in the city, like what is like overall capacity, like, you know, just because this is like the useful time to kind of like take stops of like, you know, like what the city looks like and, you know, what we have in place and where we're going. If, you know, it's like, again, it could be, Maybe 100,000, that's fine. But again, just for curiosity, yes, I support it.
SPEAKER_14	But do we have any idea how many of these have been granted?
J.T. Scott	That sounds like a great question for our clerks office to see what the current number of beer and wine or malt and wine licenses are out there and how many all forms licenses are out there in the city current.
SPEAKER_08	Mr. Chair, through you, Michael Poteer, Licensing Operations Manager. We do currently have some available licenses, that's true, and I'd be happy to kind of go through numbers with you if you'd like. Later I can collect those. This is sort of a, this is more of a forward-looking measure that adopting will make it easier for existing wine and malt beverage license holders to convert to all forms. So even if it's not immediately used by all of our licensees, it's something to have to work with them moving forward.
J.T. Scott	So just off the top of your head, you don't know how many outstanding malt and mine licenses and how many all forms licenses are currently issued in the city?
SPEAKER_08	We have a, we have a good sense of those of that number. And again, I'd be happy to just, I want to be absolutely sure. So I would double check for you. But again, this isn't about immediate utility of the statute itself. It's more of a forward looking way of making sure that folks, if they have a one malt can convert to what is considered a more lucrative all forms license.
J.T. Scott	Councilman, is that Is that good enough for now?
Will Mbah	Yeah, it's good. Again, just send me some information. I want to just know if at all the state has a cap for any municipality, just the mechanics, how these things are all promulgated in the city. That's all. Oh, the guy disappeared. But, you know, at one point also, if any, if they've ever been any issue where some licenses have had to be withdrawn or whatever, just again, this is like just when you really have this conversation. So sometimes when you know, somebody like you before us, we want to get as much information so that when we start discussing, have encountered something, we know exactly what the issues are and how to mitigate it.
J.T. Scott	Sounds good. Also sounds like a great conversation to be had after meeting somewhere at one of these license holders establishments because the legacy of licenses having been revoked and all the shenanigans around beer and wine licenses in this town is a long and entertaining That said, I do see the city clerk with a raised hand there. Madam Clerk.
Clerk	Thank you, Mr. Chair, through you. If the council will indulge us, I do think this may be a good opportunity to explain a little bit more about how licenses are allocated across the city because it isn't actually quite as simple as there's just one number for wine and malt and one number for all forms. And that might be useful information to have on record for future.
SPEAKER_08	so um if you will let our licensing operations manager take it away one more time i think that could be valuable information yeah let's get after it happy to do so mr chair through you the way that licenses work for alcohol service in the city they're allocated by the state and originally they were allocated in one big bulk package called quota licenses that were based on just on population In 2012, the city petitioned and successfully received from the state legislature additional licenses that were exclusively for the use in the newly developed, at the time, Assembly Square area. Since then, in 2016, Somerville requested additional licenses for two specific areas within the city. one area is called enhancement um it is as it sounds these is this is a area where there already are licenses for restaurants and bars and things like that um they gave us some additional licenses for that area and another called transformative and that's for an area where there really isn't quite as much of a restaurant um seen to encourage uh development in that area so for any of those licenses that were issued by the state under the wine and malt limitation, adopting this law would allow those folks to convert to all forms. There is a cap to these licenses. A useful way to think of it is there's a bucket for all forms and a bucket for wine and malt. If this is adopted, if someone in the wine and malt bucket would like to convert to an all forms, it still stays in the wine and malt bucket. So it doesn't actually impact the number of all forms licenses we have. Does that make sense?
J.T. Scott	Thank you for the most concise possible version of that explanation. That's effectively how grotesquely complicated it is. Okay, Councilor Ewen-Campen, I saw your hand up and then to Councilor Mbaba before.
Will Mbah	I just wanted to say thank you for that, to Clay Wells and to Mike for that.
SPEAKER_14	It's useful knowledge for me. I appreciate it. All right, Councilor Ewen-Campen.
Ben Ewen-Campen	I move to recommend approval.
J.T. Scott	I love to hear it. On the motion to recommend approval for this item, number 251317. Mr. Clerk, could you call the roll?
SPEAKER_06	On the motion, Councilor Davis, Councilor Strezo, Councilor Mbah. Yes. Councilor Ewen Campin. Yes. And Councilor Scott. Yes. Mr. Chair, three members have voted approval, two are absent.
J.T. Scott	All right, well, that brings us to the end of our agenda this evening. So I believe it would be appropriate to pick up item 251225, that's approval of the minutes of the July 1st meeting, and take that up for a vote concurrent with a motion by the chair to adjourn. Is there any discussion on those motions? All right, seeing none then, let's take a single roll call vote on the motion to adjourn and to approve the minutes.
SPEAKER_06	On approval of the minutes and on adjournment, Councilor Davis, Councilor Strezo, Councilor Barr. Yes. Councilor Ewen-Campen. Yes. Councilor Scott. Yes. Mr. Chair, three members have voted to approve and to adjourn and two are absent.
J.T. Scott	All right, thank you to all members of staff. Thank you to Citizen Conley from the public. And thank you, of course, as always, to my colleagues for your time and attention. We will see you again later this week. This meeting is adjourned.