City Council · CivicPulse

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Meeting Title: City Council
City: Somerville, MA
Date Published: 2025-09-11

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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
Lance Davis	All right, welcome. This is a meeting of the Somerville City Council. I hereby call the meeting to order. It is Thursday, September 11th. Microphone's on. Can we get my mic up, please, in the room? Is it just in the room? I guess you're in the room, so that would be a relevant data point for me to answer that question. Testing, testing, better, better? Brown bear, brown bear. Yes? Good. How do we sound now? I'm really not that important. You don't have to hear me, though. Good? Yes? All right. Thank you. If at any point you can't hear speakers in the room, please don't hesitate. We want everybody to be able to hear and participate. So thank you for letting me know. All right, back to the business. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of the City Council may be conducted, yeah, is being conducted via remote participation, so we will post an audio recording, audio-video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. let the record reflect that this council honors salutes the flag and reflects on our oaths of office someday i'm going to write that down so i remember exactly what i'm supposed to say but you get the idea um madam clerk would you please call the roll this is roll call counselor wilson present council Ewen-Campen here counselor scott president councillor mclaughlin councillor burnley councillor Sait here councillor Strezo president councillor Clingan president councillor Mbah president councillor davis Here.
Clerk	With nine Councillors present and one absent, we have a quorum.
Lance Davis	All right. Are there any remembrances? Councillor Scott?
J.T. Scott	Thank you, Mr. President. I'm very sad to bring the news of the passing of David White. At the age of 60 years old, David was a mainstay in the Union Square neighborhood, a veteran, disabled, and Somebody who just made friends everywhere he went. He was quite a character and helped out a lot of folks in the neighborhood. Had a great many passions that he pursued, including the construction of enormous kites, which I'm not sure everybody knew about. enormous, wild structures. David was, like I said, a lifelong resident, a real character. I know many people in this chamber are close with his mother, Mary White, also known as Sugar. So it's a difficult time, and I hope that we can all remember David fondly and keep Ms. Sugar in our thoughts. He passed away on Friday. Arrangements are not yet final, but there will be a memorial at St. Joe's at some point in the coming weeks. So with that, I ask us to keep them all in our thoughts. Thank you.
Lance Davis	Thank you. I just want to note that myself and a number of my colleagues on the council were down at Davis Square just this evening for the city's 9-11 remembrance ceremony, which was a really lovely ceremony. I want to thank the members of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services and everybody who helped put that together, as well as, of course, our first responders from the fire department, the police department, And if you have a chance, I saw a TV there, take a listen to the mayor's words because it was really well said. She reminded us that as tragic and horrifying and scary as that day was, the days that followed really showed how we can come together despite differences and find common ground. So I just want to echo that call and thank everyone involved in that ceremony. And of course, remember the folks who lost their lives on that day. All right, would everyone rise as you are able for a moment of silence?
SPEAKER_06	Thank you. Madam Clerk?
Clerk	Thank you, Mr. President. The next item then will be item 1.3, the approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of July 10th, 2025. That item is approved. Item 1.4, approval of the minutes of the special meeting of July 30th, 2025.
SPEAKER_06	That item is approved.
Clerk	Item 2.1 is a citation by Councilor Davis, commending participants of the inaugural Municipal Civics Academy for their commitment to civic engagement and devotion to the city.
Lance Davis	All right, I'm very excited about this, and I convinced our brilliant legislative analyst, Brendan Salisbury, to come up and talk a little bit about the program because you deserve to hear from him. I want to thank Mr. Salisbury, the clerk, the clerk's office, and everybody in the administration that was involved in that. I'm hearing that my mic may not be working online. Or is it in the room? Are we having in-the-room problems again? I want to make sure everybody can hear me. We good? All right. So I'm gonna ask Brendan to step up, say a few words about what the Civics Academy was, and then I will read the citation, and then we'll recognize the folks that are here in the room, and I think that we can, if you want to, we can stop and take some pictures, because I think that would be fun.
SPEAKER_03	Mr. Salisbury. Thank you, Mr. President. I will say very little, if you don't mind. On the weekend of August 2nd, the City Clerk's Office hosted the inaugural Somerville Municipal Civics Academy at the central branch of the library. The Municipal Civics Academies, as you may recall from my initial email to you, are a tool to promote fuller understanding in the community of not only what municipal government departments do, but also how we do the work that we do and how priorities are set. Staff from the Clerk's Office, Constituent Services, the Office of Immigrant Affairs, Inspectional Services, Mobility, Infrastructure and Asset Management, Planning, Preservation and Zoning, and our budget team spent our weekend with 15 of our residents sharing information about zoning review and permitting, engaging in a simulated SOIA workday, working our way through the complexities of a construction project, analyzing ideas for ordinances, and generally making ourselves available to hear feedback and answer questions from our participants. I think the investment in civic engagement and the level of curiosity about the function of their government that our participants demonstrated is praiseworthy, and I hope that it will serve as an example for the rest of the community. We are looking forward to doing many more of these civics academies in the future.
Lance Davis	thank you well i can say that uh the buzz that i've heard about this after the fact has been nothing but glowing uh incredibly positive people were really excited about it and i've as much positive feedback as i've heard i've heard people say oh are they going to do it again i'd love to do that So hopefully we'll be able to do another one. Thank you. I joked earlier, and this program certainly deserves more than this silly joke, but when I first ran and people asked what's the question I get at the doors most commonly, it was, what's an alderman? so clearly there's a need i think we've we've uh we've hopefully solved that problem a bit with our name change but uh obviously a much deeper dive into uh into municipal civics so um thank you for that let me read the citation and then um i think brandon you're gonna help with handing out yes the uh the actual what do we call them certificates to folks uh yeah everybody come on everyone who participated in the room come on stand up come on forward come up to the podium there If you'd like to, no pressure if folks want to stay seated, but you deserve to be on camera. All right, so citation. Be it hereby known that all the Somerville City Council and the Mayor offer their sincerest commendations to Municipal Civics Academy participants for their thoughtful participation, active commitment to civic engagement, and devotion to their city. We are grateful for the spirit of service that they bring to their community offered this 11th day of September, 2025. Do you want to hand them out for the folks that are here? And while we're getting the right certificates into the right hands, we'll take a brief recess of about five minutes or as long as it takes to take a few pictures and then get everybody back to their seats. We stand in recess.
SPEAKER_16	frame it with my diploma
Jake Wilson	Ditto what he said.
	Beautiful.
	All right.
Jake Wilson	Now you can come back and teach it, right?
Will Mbah	Yeah.
	Thank you.
Lance Davis	just gonna hold on for a moment so that folks can come back to the seats and if anyone walked away from their TVs because I said five minutes and that was about the fastest picture taking we've ever done so. Also the fastest furniture moving. Props to the city clerk for moving that furniture like a pro.
	Hello.
SPEAKER_08	Thank you.
	We're not talking about...
Lance Davis	All right, I'm going to call this meeting back to order. I see that there is a quorum in the room. Madam Clerk, would you please read the next item?
Clerk	The next item is item 3.1, a grant of location from Eversource to install a total of 10 feet of conduit in Aldersey Street from utility pole 4 over 3 to a point of pickup at 17 Aldersey Street.
Lance Davis	I declare this public hearing open. Is there anyone here to speak on the item? Jackie Duffy.
SPEAKER_16	how are you tonight well thank you how are you i'm excellent thank you we'd like to install 10 feet of conduit on alder alderley street and this is to provide electric service to 1719 alderley street okay thank you is there anyone else here to speak on the item all right seeing none i declare the public hearing to be closed any discussion
Lance Davis	All right. That item is approved then for discussion.
Clerk	Thank you. Item 3.2 is a grant of location from Eversource to install a total of 40 feet of conduit in Hinkley Street from utility pole 170 over 6 to a point of pickup at 35 Richardson Street.
Lance Davis	I declare this public hearing to be open. Is there anyone here to speak on the item?
SPEAKER_16	Jackie Duffy. Jackie Duffy. Eversource would like to install 40 feet of conduit in Hinkley Street to provide elective service to 35 Richardson Street. All right. For a new four-unit building.
Lance Davis	Okay, anyone else here to speak on the item? Seeing none, I declare that public hearing to be closed. Is there any discussion? All right, that item is approved.
Clerk	Item 3.3 is a grant of location from Eversource to install a total of 104 feet of conduit in Glenwood Road from manhole 7417 to a point of pickup at 72 Glenwood Road.
Lance Davis	I declare this public hearing to be open. Is there anyone here to speak on the item?
SPEAKER_16	Jackie would like to install 104 feet of conduit in Glenwood Road to provide electric service to 72 Glenwood Road.
Lance Davis	All right. Thank you. Anyone else here to speak on the item? All right. Seeing none, that public hearing is closed. Is there any discussion? All right. Seeing none, that item is approved.
Clerk	Thank you. Have a nice night, everybody.
Lance Davis	Thank you.
Clerk	The next item, Mr. President, is item 4.1, an order by Councillor Strezo that this council discuss the Somerville Special Education Parents Advisory Council report sent to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in response to the upcoming DESE District Review of Somerville Public Schools for the 2025-2026 school year.
Lance Davis	All right, I am going to be recused from this item because I have an immediate family member who works in a school where out-of-district placements are sent sometimes, so I'll turn it over to Vice President Mbah.
Kristen Strezo	Thank you, Mr. President. So I put this order forward because I am the city council representative on the construction advisory committee that has been tasked with the decision or the recommendation of what happens with the Winterhill Innovation School and the Brown School. And the meetings are long. like a good chunk of an evening, two and a half hours every month. There's a lot of devotion and care and consideration and I get a lot of inspiration in my fellow committee members and what they bring to the table and a spectrum of experiences and thoughts of opinions And some of the members are parents of special needs kids, kids with independent education plans and 504s, which is designed to help children who have specific learning disabilities or maybe autistic or may have dyslexia or may have sensory issues. And the Winter Hill Innovation School has the AIM program and has many children on 504s or IEPs. And the AIM program is specifically designed to help autistic children. There are children in the program that are non-verbal, they can't speak, or they have a different way of communicating their needs. Many may be reliant upon an iPad to communicate what they want to say, and use the iPad to do that. And as I've witnessed this process of the Construction Advisory Committee, I was astounded at how special needs families and children weren't really included in the conversation, including all of the AIM program. and what a space could look like for an autistic child, or any child with sensory needs, or a learning disability, or is disabled. What would that look like for them? And as we have this conversation, of whether or not the Winter Hill School will be built with 900 students and we close the Brown School and consolidate the Winter Hill with the Brown School, which again, I've heard from both communities, are very against consolidating to merge a large school and if the possibility of a 900 student school which by the way would be the largest school that we have if this exists if it's created would be the largest school we have would be a huge silo for children and where would the aim program fit into that role and I want to talk about an experience with a kindergartner, a child at the Healy who, when they were in kindergarten, after lunch would hide in their cubby and throw books and shoes and scream and would have behavioral problems after lunch. And the child would be placed in the redirect room. And the redirect room is the room for kids that are suspended or discipline problems alongside the eighth graders that got into a fight or had, for some reason, ended up in the redirect room. This kindergartener was placed there when they were unable to regulate their emotions. And as it turned out, this child was later diagnosed with autism and intense sensory needs. And those sensory needs were triggered what came to happen after lunch when the cacophony of sounds in a large cafetorium or cafeteria as most people are known to call it, when the second graders would come into the room and the voices and the overstimulus of the sounds were too much for this autistic child to handle. And the child would come back to the kindergarten classroom and be a behavioral problem. And these are conversations that I have not yet heard in the CAG, in the department's explanation as to why we must build a 900 student school. And I most certainly am not comfortable talking about, I'm not gonna get into that with the high school. We don't want to build a huge silo. And we want to make intentional spaces where kids and families and everybody in Somerville and the future generations can thrive. And what I have consistently brought forward in the CAG committee is that this is not just a financial and an infrastructure decision. This is a family decision. This is a future of Somerville decision. This is a child decision. It's not a money decision. It is not us subsidizing the Brown School to exist. It impacts people's lives. And so I want to talk about what special needs looks like in Somerville. And the leaders of ADA accessibility and special education is the CPAC, which is the Somerville Special Education Parent Advisory Council. And the CPAC is a group of parents and advocates of special needs kids that are families that advocate for Somerville families and kids in the Somerville public schools. And they are legally created and they have power. And in many ways they have been dismissed, disregarded, even despite their intentional data and when they have brought forward concerns, they've been patted down or their research dismissed or attempted to have holes poked in their data and research as not good enough. And that is so wrong. And so with that, I am here to sponsor Mr. President Liz Eldridge, who is the chair of the Somerville CPAC, to speak on an assessment, an accountability, a data assessment that they presented and plan to submit to DESE. And if I may, have her speak on that.
Will Mbah	Thank you, Councilor Strezo. Ms. Barrett, you have the floor.
SPEAKER_11	Awesome. Thank you very much for your time, everyone. Thank you for having me tonight. My name is Liz Eldridge, and I am the chair of Somerville Special Education Parents Advisory Council. We are an organization that is required by law in every district in Massachusetts, and we uphold an advisory and a participatory role. I'm here today to provide some context to a rather long report. It's about 25 pages, but I'm going to distill that down for you. So we can dive into some of the more important details here. In late February, DESE notified Somerville that it would conduct a district review to analyze the extent to which our district has the necessary systems in place to intentionally close gaps between student groups and provide a high quality education to all students in Somerville. When we learned of that, we connected with allies and leaders in the fields of special education advocacy and determined that this was an opportunity to uphold CPAC's advisory and participatory role, and thus we submitted a 25-page report to DESE to ensure the voices and lived experiences of families and educators were part of the district review. Our report is based on district data, public records, and extensive testimony from both parents and teachers. This report is a compilation of multiple sources of publicly available data, all put in one spot that increases accessibility and transparency. There's a copy, I think, for everyone this evening, as well as you might have received an email copy. It's also available for anyone that's listening in the audience or online on the CPAC website. and you can dive into it in full. I'm going to highlight now some specific areas of the report. Again, the entirety of the report is available on CPAC. First, to provide a little bit of context, in early May of this year, Somerville Special Education was designated as a needs assistant by DESE, citing noncompliance issues and MCAS scores, in order that the district was required to engage in improvement activities to address areas of need as identified by the team. Second, we're concerned that there is a gap between the district stated vision and the lived reality of students with disabilities. We believe that gap is not just small, but it's enormous. While district plans talk about equity and inclusion, in practice, many students are missing legally required services, evaluations are delayed, and IEPs are sometimes written based on staffing shortages rather than student needs. This is illegal. Third, students with disabilities make up a bit more than one fifth of our student population, about 1,070 students in some of the public schools. 2024 MCAS data shows that only 12% of students with disabilities in grades three through eight were proficient in English language arts, compared to 46% of their general education peers. In math, 10% versus 39%. That means that nearly nine out of 10 students with disabilities are not meeting grade level expectations. Fourth, the root causes are structural. Understaffing, lack of training, inconsistent school-level planning, communication challenges, a weak multi-tiered system of support that varies from school to school, and budgets that fail to prioritize legally mandated services all drive the concerns outlined in this report. Educators are being forced to triage which children receive support, and parents are left to fight for the rights and needs of their students. So what needs to change? The district must ensure every student with a disability receives the education and support they are legally entitled to under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Massachusetts regulations. Our report shows Somerville is running a dual system, an aspirational one, described in its plans, and an operational one that leaves students without services. Corrective action means more than compliance on paper. It means fidelity in practice. IEPs must be written based on student needs and then fully implemented. That requires funding special education at levels that match student need, hiring and retaining qualified staff, ensuring timely evaluations and service delivery. It also means creating inclusive classrooms and buildings that work in practice, staffing co-teachers as required, providing paraprofessionals and specialist support, and equipping general education teachers with training and inclusive and differentiated practices. Finally, the district must meaningfully engage families and CPAC as state law requires and create a culture of accountability, transparency, and inclusion across every school. We want to be clear, this is not about individual teachers or families working in isolation. This is about a system that has not been meeting its legal or ethical obligations and is about an urgent need for accountability and structural change. CPAC submitted this report not only to document the crisis at hand, but to insist that the upcoming state review be a turning point. Every child in Somerville has the right to a free and appropriate public education and our students with disabilities cannot wait any longer. Thank you for your time.
Kristen Strezo	I'm fine placing it on file, but I do want to ask my colleagues to please look over the attachment of this. It's on the agenda. It is critically important to consider as we move forward and what this looks like for the rest of the city with our buildings.
Will Mbah	Thank you for being here. We'll place this item on fire.
Clerk	That's going to bring us to the first item that we'll take out of order, Mr. President, which is item 6C, a report of the Committee on Legislative Matters, meeting on September 8th, 2025. Thank you, Madam Clerk.
Lance Davis	Councilor Scott.
	Everybody speak into your mic.
J.T. Scott	absolutely counselor scott you have the floor thank you mr president uh the legislative matters committee met on uh oh my lord monday september 8th at six o'clock we were there for about an hour and 15 minutes Four out of five are present. He had discussion about a few substantive items, one of which is being recommended out to be approved tonight, and one is discharged with no recommendation. I'll start with the easy one. This is the Licensing Commission recommending the acceptance of a Mass General Law Chapter 138, Section 12 , which just allows current wine and beverage license holders to convert to an all-forms license. There's a really helpful memo, and folks in the Clerk's Office were here to discuss it. This was recommended to be approved by a 4-0-1 vote. The other conversation was a bit longer and has been recommended or was discharged without a recommendation simply because we only had four people there and because it is a matter that I believe deserves consideration by the full council. This was an order from Councilor Mbah that the city accept the provisions of Chapter 53, Section 18B of Mass General Laws. This is simply a voter information provision, which says that any ballot measures that will go out would need to have an informational packet sent by the city. explaining what the measures are that are going to be on the ballot and why a voter might want to. So a simple summary prepared by the solicitor's office and a very short pro and con argument, I believe, of 150 words. so that voters will at least have a chance to understand what's going to be on their ballot before they get to the ballot box. This was brought forward by Councilor Mbah and was supported by a letter from former Alderman Connolly and former Mayors Bruhn and Gay. A very interesting conversation happened in committee. The concern from the mayor's staff and the elections department is that there would be a cost of approximately $40,000 to put this mailing out, and that there are deadline issues since, as of now, the three ballot measures, of the three ballot measures that could be on the ballot, one of them, the voter petition regarding Palestine, has been certified by the elections department but the two others one on adoption of the charter that has gone through the city council and process and the inclusion of a four-year term for our mayor those two items still have not emerged from the state house and would require state house approval in order to go on the ballot my understanding on that is that the deadline for that to take place would be on the 19th. But in any case, if it's not been approved until the 30th, that certainly puts us in a bind in terms of the timelines involved for sending a mailing. Eat my mic more? All right. Mr. Chair, it's the first time I've ever been told that I'm not loud enough. Thank you. So with that done, I believe there is room for discussion on this. I'll withhold my own personal commentary. Just want to relay this, the summary of the discussion that was in committee. So that item on the adoption of the committee report will be before this council for consideration, deliberation, and disposition. With that, I ask that the committee report be accepted as submitted. Thank you, Mr. President.
Lance Davis	Discussion on the committee report separate from the item that will be before us following approval. All right, seeing none, do we need additional votes for the item that was approved in the committee?
Clerk	We do.
	Okay.
Clerk	So this is on the item 25-1317, the 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. On that item, Councillor Wilson.
Jake Wilson	Yes.
Clerk	Councillor Ewen-Campen. Yes. Councillor Scott. Yes. Councillor McLaughlin. Yes. Councillor Burnley. Councillor Sait? Yes. Councillor Strezo? Yes. Councillor Clingan?
SPEAKER_12	Yes.
Clerk	Councillor Mbah?
SPEAKER_12	Yes.
Clerk	Councillor Davis?
SPEAKER_12	Yes.
Clerk	With nine councillors in favor, none opposed, and one absent, that item is approved. And the item now before the council is item 25-1373, that the City of Somerville hereby accepts the provisions of Chapter 53, Section 18B of the Massachusetts General Laws.
J.T. Scott	discussion Thank You mr. President so just for further context here this is a state measure a state law that can be adopted by cities and towns which requires when in some way requires information be sent to voters but also in important ways enables information be sent to voters my understanding from the law departments explanation and committee is that without this provision The city cannot actually spend money to send a mailer out to residents in the city That that would be prohibited. That would be an unlawful use of the city's money unless it was enabled by this statute So if there was a desire by the city to spread information about this another way, it could be posted on the city's website. It could be potentially distributed through flyers at public meetings that were held to educate the public. But in terms of a citywide mailer to inform people about the content of the ballot questions, that that would not be allowed without the acceptance of this measure. I have heard a great many viewpoints on this in the last few days. And from my standpoint, Mr. President, I am not concerned about what side of any particular issue, whether it's the Palestine question or the charter question, that any of the proponents of this are on. It's simply a question of is this the right thing to do in terms of communication from my viewpoint? And I certainly understand folks who say, well, some of the advocates for this were in city government many years ago, and they could have adopted this provision, to which I say only it is never too late to correct a mistake, as our colleague from Ward 5 once said. So I have, after considering it, I continue to be inclined to support the adoption of this, simply because I think more information in the hands of voters is generally a good thing. And frankly, at this point, I'd like to have as much democracy as I can get for as long as we can keep it. But that said, I understand there's logistical concerns here and eager to hear the thoughts of my colleagues. I appreciate the opportunity to give my opinion. Thank you.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I just want to share my view as a committee member. I'm obviously completely supportive of the idea that we should be sending as much information about any ballot questions, period. I was previously unfamiliar with this provision that we can opt into. And I fully support us moving forward with this, but my good colleague just said it's never too late to correct a mistake. I am convinced that it is too late for this particular election cycle based on what we heard Monday night. We heard a thorough presentation from Director Salerno, the Elections Department, from the Solicitor's Office in terms of, I'm not particularly concerned about the cost. I think if that was the only thing, I could be compelled. But with the timeline, with early voting i am not comfortable moving forward with this kind of trying to opt into this right now um right before an election i think would be you know in my opinion um kind of irresponsible and would would set us up for for a failure um so i very much want to act on this for future years i would support um i don't know you know if someone has a proposal tonight and the language prepared to have us you know for this to kick in next year that'd be fine i don't have that language um i would prefer that this go back to committee and that we actually get it right before passing it counselor thank you mr president
Will Mbah	As the maker also of this motion, I want to first of all just echo the sentiment of my colleagues, you know, the councillor from ward two and the good councillor from ward three. Again, the way for the public, it's important also like for us to like let them know what's going on for those who are watching because they probably don't understand. Probably just as a highlight, we conducted a charter review process and there were some provisions that could have been in there Again, it was probably an oversight on our part, which we also have to acknowledge publicly. But the person that actually brought this to my attention, actually, you know, I'm honored that she's here. You know, my formidable constituent and friend, I call Harriet my friend. You know, Harriet is sitting behind there. That was the person that brought this to my attention, and it took me just literally less than five minutes to say, it's a good idea. I will bring this forward. And for the members of the public, this is Chapter 53, Section 18 of March General Law, which we should have adopted in the review process. We also have legendary friends like Beverly Schultz, who actually worked so much. Thank you, Beverly. They are community members that have poured in their time, soul, and energy in really working on this city charter. I don't even think that they are being paid for, so we are truly grateful for your effort. We don't expect that, I mean, perfection is not, we strive for it, but when we make mistake, we definitely have to acknowledge it and then find ways of correcting it. So section 18 states that a city or town may adopt this section to require that pre-election notifications are sent to voters for citywide ballot question. The information sent will include full text of each question, fair and impartial summaries of each question, and written arguments by proponents and opponents of each ballot question. Many of you may be familiar with this process. It is conducted by the Secretary of the Commonwealth for every statewide ballot. But when I actually brought and I reviewed this, I really felt like this is something that, again, it makes sense for us to, the city charter is worthy to, we need to envision that this will provide transparency for the city and information to voters, allowing us to make Voters should be more informed decisions about how citywide ballot measures are still being used in this case. And after listening to this conversation at the legislative matters and also follow up with a bunch of other constituents and state, my local state officials, I spoke to a few of them, spoke to some of my colleagues in other cities. I don't, and the administration actually talked about cost. They mentioned many things that I wasn't. If it's about cost, we can provide a cost. But if it's about the legality, then we can have a conversation around it to note its implication. Because again, there's nuance in this process that we don't know. We also don't want to place any undue burden on our city. And so, I would like to have Harriet, with your permission, Mr. President, for Harriet to actually state her intended purpose for this policy order so that we can know exactly how to move forward about which direction to take. I do think that it is wise to learn more about how this actually work, and how it will work, because there are many implications about it. I'm not a lawyer, so get more information before we can really, I'm also happy to know exactly what is the implication of not adopting it right now, like what will happen for the voters because they deserve the right to be informed about what they are voting on on the ballot. So with your permission, I would like to sponsor Harriet to speak to this item.
Lance Davis	Councillor Mbah would like to sponsor Harriet Herri to speak. Councillor Mbah, this is for information that's, so I was honored and grateful to have Ms. Herri speak at the last council meeting. This is new information, talking about different things. Okay, very well, unless there's any objection. All right, seeing none.
SPEAKER_17	This is Harriet Randvig from 5 Leicester Terrace, Somerville, and I really appreciate the whole council and whoever's listening to this meeting hearing me. Now, I also did not recognize some of the legal implications, but what I also see is there are creative ways to make this information available. And one of the ways I see this is having printed out large print regular copies, even embossed copies at every public place, all the libraries, city hall, you name it. The website is not accessible. fully to me personally as a blind computer user. And I've been using computers since 1992. And it is really awful. I know how it is to walk into the ballot box and realize, I don't know what I'm voting for. Oh, I guess I should say yes. Or should I say no? So I feel there are creative ways without breaking the law that we can share this information. And I really, heart and soul, request for all of us. Now, it's probably horrifyingly impossible to ask the charter folks to work with plain language people to put it that way. But without plain language, you are barring many citizens from understanding the legalese in which a charter is composed. And I thank you for hearing me out.
Lance Davis	Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Randvig. Any further discussion? Councillor McLaughlin?
Matt McLaughlin	Thank you, Mr. President. Just a few updates and some comments. One, the charter has passed the Senate today, so it is awaiting the governor's signature, and then will hopefully be on the ballot. So it's looking good. I do want to just clarify a point Councilor Mbah made about a mistake being made. Just as a fact, there was no mistake made because What you're referring to is that Mass General Law should have been incorporated into the Charter itself, which wouldn't make sense. We had several conversations like this about what would or wouldn't be in a Charter. This is basically our Constitution. We wouldn't incorporate something like that into the Charter itself. We do it the way we're doing it right now. So this is the appropriate way to do it. I wish we did it several months ago so that this would be resolved and all the questions would be answered in a timely fashion. Just want to make that clear. I think this does make plenty of sense to me. I think a lot of cities do it. I think the money is not an issue. The logistics is the issue. And it was said that it's not too late to make a mistake. It's never too late to correct a mistake, but there's always time to make more mistakes. And that's what I'm concerned about, is that if we do this without understanding the repercussions of it, what it does to the impact of not just the charter, but other ballot questions that people have worked incredibly hard on, have spent months and years trying to get it on the ballot. and now we're kind of under the gun trying to make a decision about something that we only discussed at the last city council meeting. So that's my concern, which is why I still have more questions too, and I would prefer for it to go back to committee for more discussion. Just a few other thoughts is one of the, great aspects of the city charter is it is written in plain language which is probably a pretty big deal considering it was a hundred years ago that this was written it's an old-timey language it's in legalese i don't understand it there's a new document that everybody can read and it is online we should make every effort to get as much information out as public possible, but if people do want to look at it, you can look at SomervilleMA.gov slash charter review, and you can see the current one, you can see previous drafts. There's a lot of information on that site, and I will tell you, as an activist myself, taking off my council hat, putting on the activist, I'm going to be making a big effort to publicize this and let people know, because I'm also a person who, if I go into the ballot box and I don't understand what I'm voting for, I usually do try to figure it out beforehand, but there are especially ballot questions are very complicated. What does it mean? What are the implications? I either don't vote for it or I don't vote at all or I vote against it if I don't understand it. So I would understand if people felt that way. on the same note i feel the same way about this right now i don't know what would happen if i voted yes what would happen to the ballot questions that people have worked on so i agree with a couple of my colleagues that we should send it back to committee for further review i think it would make sense in the future but it is concerning that there's a primary next preliminary next week and in a few weeks later we have a big election so just want to make sure we get it right don't make any future mistakes right now Thank you.
Lance Davis	Any further discussion? No? Okay. Oh, Council Member Ewen-Campen?
Ben Ewen-Campen	uh mr president thanks i just wanted to make it really clear that i agree with every single thing that miss randvig said and i i hope it is clear to everyone who's been following this that the city does have a communication plan that they're going to develop we are all committed to making sure that this information is spread as widely as possible and as as councillor mclaughlin just said it's also you know once we leave here in our roles as city councillors we can all as citizens do everything we can to spread the word as well
Lance Davis	Councillor Bott. Let's go to Councillor Wilson first. He hasn't spoken.
Jake Wilson	Councillor Bott. Thanks, Mr. President. I always try to speak for myself in these situations. I do feel confident saying two things that I'm pretty sure are true for everyone here. Everyone here supports transparency. Everyone here wants people to know what they're voting on. I'm very confident in those things. The cost to me, $40,000, is that's not a that's not really a consideration here you know we can we can find $40,000 to make sure people know what's going on it is that question of feasibility and of logistics and that has me you know concerned that it might be rushed or we might get it wrong in some way I like the idea that the council union camp and mentioned of possibly looking at a later start date for this you might recall during our charter review process right we talked about the idea of things that we knew would poison pill this charter that we might be able to pass this charter and possibly go the route of the Attorney General approved ballot question to bring those before the public. So it's possible that there could be additional charter amendments down the road and it'd be good to have this in place because those will be very much in the weeds. And so I definitely support the idea of having this. I'm just very concerned about rushing this and getting it wrong. You know, I like the suggestion, you know, as our colleague from Ward 3 just mentioned, you know, well, what can we do, you know, in terms of the communication effort around these, you know, outside of a legally mandated process this time around so we can make sure we get it right?
Will Mbah	Thanks. Council Pat. Thank you, Mr. President. It was also, again, eloquently spoken. It was also brought to my attention that last November was the first time that we ever had a Braille voter guide. And it was imperfectly implemented, like the good Councilor Sait. But it started things going, and next time will be better. So we are always improving things. And I think that that's part of you know, how democracy works as well. So we can take our time and not, again, like we talked about, like the cost part should not be the problem. And so, but if there's legal implications, we want to go figure it out so that there are no undue burden on the city and also unintended consequences of what we are trying to push ahead. So thank you.
Lance Davis	Any further discussion? I'm hearing a general sense that we're in agreement setting this back to committee for discussion.
J.T. Scott	Councillor Scott? Mr. Chair, as a procedural note, just a vote in favor or against this would preclude it from going back to committee for a period of time. So if you wanted to get a sense of the will of the council, a vote on whether or not to refer this back to committee would accomplish that. Thank you.
Lance Davis	I see that we have Liaison Radazzi here. I want to give you the opportunity to speak to her. I heard a pretty good sense that the logistics, but I actually would like to hear, if you don't mind um one of the things that we did talk about in committee and that we heard again from ms randvik was things that we can do instead of this um and so i want to give you the opportunity to you know let us know that you've heard that and if you have any specific new information you could share about and I should have asked you about this this afternoon. We did talk about it in committee, so I apologize for not queuing it up, but at the very least to give you the opportunity to acknowledge that there are plans in place or plans being put in place, if you care to speak to any of those, and also to call out Ms. Ravick's suggestion about large print and boss copies at various places, if that's something I'll put that question out there for consideration in addition to anything else that might be in the works. I also want to flag Mr. Hemming's comment that the website is not as accessible as perhaps it ought to be. Let's certainly dig into that a bit as well. Can you just speak to what the administration has taken from the committee meeting discussion Assuming this does go back to committee as it sounds like that's the will of the council, what are we gonna do to still make sure we get the word out?
SPEAKER_01	Thank you, Mr. President. Yes, the city also shares the desire to have an informed electorate. That's a very important part of democracy. We are open to continuing discussion on the adoption of the statute. Again, was listening. The city is working with comms, with law to make sure that we're working within the confines of state law to make sure that we're putting out information in a legal way. We're exploring a variety of different ways that are authorized under current state law. and we'll make every effort to make sure that we get some neutral summary language of the ballot question um yeah i heard some of the suggestions about website about the large print bold i'd i am not a comms expert or anything so i know that there's ongoing conversations with comms with law with elections so we're trying to figure out what we can do going forward on this but happy to continue to discuss this as needed thank you counselor
Kristen Strezo	Thank you, Mr. President, to you, to our liaison. Would it be possible to – is a roll call within the – our ability within the law – And also is a text message with the general information of these ballot questions within our ability with the robocall. And first off, I also was not convinced that 45K is really the heart of a lift with the city. Even if we put all our effort in with the communications department doing the heavy lift on this, can we do an intense push out to the community for those that ordinarily wouldn't go to the website to look for information on the language of what will be on the ballot question in the charter committee, in charter, And would we have the ability to have the language via text? And an intense push to have the average person sign up to receive a text or a call on or around election time on that information, just like we do with the school departments to remind parents to pick up their kids on Wednesday earlier. similar structure to everyone.
SPEAKER_01	the chair um i took notes of your suggestions again i know state law specifically ocpf is very strict about what you can or can't do to advocate for ballot questions so i'd have to defer to the law department on that i know that that's an ongoing conversation and i know that there's also an effort to make sure that any kind of summary that we would put together would be in plain language so that folks can understand without having to be a lawyer but i did take note of robocall and the text message push as possibilities I can refer those back to the law department and see if those are currently allowed under state law. If not, I know that there's other avenues that they've been exploring and we're happy. Again, the common goal here is that we want to make sure that our electorate is informed. We just want to make sure that we're doing that within the guidelines from the state that currently exist.
Kristen Strezo	Mr. President, thank you for that. I appreciate it, and I know you will. And I want to say emphasis on the neutral language. Of course, that's where I want to be on this. I think I forgot what I was gonna say. Oh my gosh, that's such a bummer. I think I forgot what I was going to say. But with the concept of a robocall, just an opt-in, one of the things that I heard, speaking because I have been speaking extensively about this in the past since this has been brought up, and where are the gaps? And I know that there is often a heavy reliance on going to a website. Or just Google it. So I have a reliance on that and getting away for it between now and the November election of who is missing from the conversation. That's why I'm suggesting robocalls and for something who may even have landlines still. who hasn't been included in the conversation and would say that they wouldn't be aware of these ballot questions. We want the charter to succeed, but of course we want the neutral choice of our voters to decide that.
SPEAKER_01	Thank you. Through the chair, appreciate the suggestions. And I have also forgotten what I was about to say. Oh, I was gonna say, sorry. I was gonna say that we're also, in order to cover more of those gaps, we probably wouldn't choose just one method of spreading the information. It would be a variety of whatever is possible of the options in front of us. So I'm glad I got that back.
Matt McLaughlin	Council McLaughlin. Mr. President, if I may, real quick, I just want to sponsor Bev Schwartz who worked on the charter to speak just to talk about outreach efforts and informing the public.
Lance Davis	Council McLaughlin would like to sponsor Bev Schwartz. Seeing no objection.
SPEAKER_12	Go right ahead. Hi, so as soon as we heard that this was likely gonna happen, I reached out to my fellow charter committee members and five of us are volunteering to do outreach on this. So we're gonna, with the help of Matt, we are going to put together an effort to try to reach as many people as possible about the charter. I also wanna say just throw in one more suggestion in the robo call text suggestion is, at minimum, I would think that the city would be able to put the actual language of the charter somewhere. And if somebody can just robo call or email a link to that, that's not arguing pro or against. That just gives people access to what we're voting on. i just i i want information to get out there but i don't want anything to get in the way of moving this forward our we have a charter that's dated 1899 a great deal of work was put in by a lot of people and we did a lot of public outreach now granted that was two years ago and there are people who've moved into the city since then and they don't know We got to do our best effort to reach them. But given the effort the the level of education we got the This was not off the hip thing. This was a well-researched and well outreach and i would think it would be a shame to have this fail because of a technicality or something like that so please for all of us who've worked really hard consider that thank you thank you ms schwartz uh councillor wilson
Jake Wilson	Yeah, Mr. President, we'd be remiss, you know, we heard the update today that it has cleared the Senate now, so just awaiting the governor's signature. We'd be remiss to not thank our state delegation for all the work they did carrying this and getting this pushed through on a really compressed timeline after this came in very late, far past the usual deadline for these things.
Will Mbah	All right, Councilor Mbah. Just the last plug, just to make sure that in the same token to add one or two cents is once we send those robocalls or send information, it should actually be in a few multiple languages so that other people that don't know what this is all about should understand what we're doing.
Lance Davis	Okay, seeing no further discussion, unless there's an objection, we'll send this one back to committee. All right, very well. Thank you everyone for discussion on that. Next item.
Clerk	That is going to return us to the regular order of business, which is item 4.2, an order by Councillor Strezo that the Commissioner of Public Works provide information regarding the installation, safety, and accessibility of a railing on the concrete stairs between the play structures and the soccer field at the Winter Hill Community Innovation School playground.
Lance Davis	Councillor Strezo.
Kristen Strezo	Thank you, Mr. President. We just built this playground, but also this is brought forward by a constituent. I think it's a very valid point, and I'm asking if we can put it in committee. I'm open to HCD or open spaces.
Lance Davis	School buildings. Any particular, I'm inclined to send this to school building committee because it's, we've talked about those types of things, but we could, could be open space, could be.
Kristen Strezo	I'm fine with that. Where's my chair there? Someone else had an opinion.
Lance Davis	Good, all right. Well, that is approved and the copy sent to school building facilities and maintenance.
Clerk	Thank you. Item 4.3 is an order by Councillor Mbah that the city clerk implement the hiring practices detailed within for positions in the city council and city clerk departments.
Will Mbah	Councillor Mbah. Thank you, Mr. President. As we all know, our city clerk is an A player, so we are so proud of, you know, having her. And there's always room for improvement. And I always say that one of my greatest wish or dream is I want to be remembered as somebody who opened doors for others. So I think, you know, having been a diverse city when I ran for mayor, my main goal was also ensure that a municipal government reflects the people that we are serving. So we just got to continue to work on fairness, transparency, strengthening public trust in our institutions. So this is what he hopes to accomplish. ensuring that you know the equity and excellence go hand in hand and this simply reaffirms some of his leadership in advancing inclusion while protecting fairness and compliance so um i will kind of like with your indulgence i will be the one to be honored to kind of like you know, paying what I wrote down in that order. So just for the public record, you know, because I want to go on record for this. So whereas the city of Somerville is committed to equity, inclusion, and ensuring that our workforce reflects the diversity of our community, And whereas representation of people of color in city council and clerk's office positions strengthens public trust, fosters accountability, and ensures that decision making reflects the lived experiences of all residents. And whereas the city council has a responsibility to lead by example in adopting equitable hiring practices that expand opportunity for historically underrepresented communities. Now, therefore, be it ordered that the City Council hereby requires that any hiring process for positions within the City Council or the City Clerk's Office shall, to the extent practicable, include at least one person of color from some of his community, including but not limited to current Council staff, Councillors, or qualified residents as part of the hiring committee or interview panel. and any finalist pool for positions within the city council or city clerk's office shall whenever reasonably possible include at least one qualified candidate of color as determined through the standard hiring criteria in order to advance equity strengthen diversity and ensure meaningful representation in hiring outcomes and be it further ordered that the personnel department, in coordination with the city clerk and city council president, shall develop clear implementation guidelines, including outreach strategies, compliance mechanism, and equity focus training for panel participants to ensure fairness, consistency, and alignment with the city's equity goals, and be it further ordered that the city personnel department shall provide an annual report to the city council summarizing implementation, compliance, and measurable outcomes, including demographic data on applicant pools, finalists, and hires, And be it further ordered that this policy is to be implemented in a manner consistent with all applicable state and federal equal opportunity laws. Nothing in this order shall be construed as establishing quotas or unlawful preferences. Rather, it is intended to ensure diverse candidate slates, equitable access to opportunities, and inclusive decision-making processes. And be it further ordered that the city clerk of committees forward this order to the personnel department, the city clerk, and the city council president for appropriate action. And I know that one of my colleagues, Councilor Sait, so I think I was mostly intended to just you know approve this and not even refer to committee but i think she expressed that she wants it to go to committee if you want to say a few words and determine how this where this uh what where they should go i'm happy to you know to also do as you wish uh through you mr president counselor
Naima Sait	Through you, Mr. President, when I saw this, my first thought is, what do we have in place? I had so many questions, and I think this would be a really good opportunity to discuss, do we have systems in place? What are the hiring practices? What's the council's involvement? And have this conversation in committee.
Lance Davis	i have no objection i appreciate the good counselor for asking a copy of uh this to be sent to the clerk and the council's president madam clerk would you please ensure that you send a copy of this to me and one to yourself as well please thank you um i'd also like to ask a copy be sent to the law department for review and i think this would be appropriate in confirmation of appointments and personnel matters which you sit on all right so refer to that committee please next item
Clerk	Item 4.4 is an order by Councillors Clingan, McLaughlin, and Wilson that the Director of Mobility and the Director of Engineering collaborate to install crosswalks across Walnut Street and Wigglesworth Street near Sunnyside Avenue to protect Winter Hill Community Innovation School students, families, and educators using the Otis Street footbridge.
Lance Davis	Councillor Strezo would like to sign on. Councillor Clingan? To send to traffic and parking, please. Be referred to traffic and parking? Approve the copy of traffic.
Clerk	Item 4.5 is an order by Councillor Scott that the City Clerk provide this Council with an update regarding promulgation from the State Cannabis Control Commission of regulations and licensure procedures related to the operation of cannabis consumption lounges.
Lance Davis	Councillor Wilson would like to sign on.
J.T. Scott	I would like to as well. Councillor Scott. Thank you, Mr. President. This is one of those which is kind of hard to believe this many years after legalization that we still don't actually have any of these interior lounges. My last understanding from the state is that the Mass Control Commission would have promulgated these regulations by this point this year. I believe we're still waiting on them, but it would be great to have an update. I know I've been approached not just by advocates, but also by people who own retail establishments in the city of Somerville where they have set aside space for this particular use. And when the folks who are in this business don't know what's going on or asking me, I think we could all use an update. So I'd appreciate it. I think it might be a fun time in licenses and permits sometime for the clerk to give us an update. Well. Sure, I'll take one. Madam Clerk, what you can add?
Clerk	Thank you, Mr. President, through you. So as you mentioned, the Cannabis Control Commission is still working on final regulations. The comments on their draft were due earlier this week, I believe Monday, and they are expecting to have final regulations by the end of this month. Of course, we know still TBD when we will actually expect to receive those. But Somerville is operating using the draft as a strong guide since it has taken quite some time to get here. and is about to begin a series of outreach sessions to get feedback from the public and from the business community. So that has just recently been announced through the media team and the information is posted on the city website and I'm happy to share it with counselors as well. And we are looking forward to sort of leading on this as soon as we are able.
Lance Davis	Thank you, Madam Clerk. I saw Councillor Wilson and Councillor Ewen-Campen. Was that a sign-on? Councillor Ewen-Campen was a sign-on. Councillor Wilson, did you want to speak? No? Okay. Councillor Bodd likes a sign-on as well. All right. And Councillor Sait. So license and permit sounds fine to me. That'll be approved to refer to your license and permit.
Clerk	Item 4.6 is an order by Councillor Scott that the Director of Public Space and Urban Forestry discuss with this council a policy for use of open space on municipal property around city buildings for community gardens.
J.T. Scott	Thank you, Mr. President. This is one that's been raised to me probably three or four times over the last six months in my office hours, and I will say it's been great to be having weekly meetings with our intergovernmental team here. It's a big improvement. So this is one that I have raised with the mayor's staff, but I haven't heard where that's gone. So just to brief everybody here, We see these pollinator gardens, our friend Ms. Antonino spearheaded a lot of these. We have spaces around city buildings getting used for various gardening projects now. Some folks in the community feel like there's still underused space around a lot of our city buildings, particularly some of our closed ones. The Winter Hill School has a lot of green space around it and maybe if that was being actively gardened, we'd have less problem with people squatting in the building or going and lighting fires or what have you. So this could be a feed two birds with one seed situation, to quote some of my hippie friends. I just think it'd be an interesting conversation to have in public space and urban or in the open space environment committee. and I think it would be a great way to both hear the practicalities around the proposal, how the proposal would differ from other places where we've implemented something like this, and also to let folks in the community know that the opportunity may be there to use more of our scanned public resources. Thank you.
Lance Davis	All right, thank you, Council Wilson. I'd like to sign on. Councilor Mbah, Councilor Sait, always happy to sign on to a pollinator. I edit myself, so count me in. Thank you. Next item. Sorry, I keep forgetting to do that. Approve to the copy to open space, environment, and energy.
Clerk	Item 4.7 is a resolution by Councillor Scott that the administration, including the Director of Mobility, discuss with this council a process for establishing municipal standards for furnishings at bus stops and shelters.
J.T. Scott	Councillor Scott. Thank you, Mr. President. This is another case of wanting to both book a win and try to do better. I'm sure everybody here is familiar with the incredible new protected bike lanes all the way down Washington Street. That is a win seven years in the making, and I'm thrilled to have them there. It's also an incredible example of bus shelters that are not necessarily common at bus stops around the city, but we have shelters on all these floating bus islands. Sadly, the benches within them have hostile architecture. Folks who are followers of this council know that there were conversations several years ago when hostile architecture was installed at Red Line stops. There was a great deal of conversation. And to the city's credit, in new parks and new park furnishings that we've had over the last several years, the King Kelly Park comes to mind. The Pocket Park on Lake Street also comes to mind. Actually, it's all Ward 2. But those places have excellent movable furniture that don't have the kind of armrest obstructions that would prevent anybody from laying down on a bench. But these new bus shelters along Washington Street do. So this is one, I've had this conversation with the mobility department and with the mayor's staff. To give the short version of it, we purchased furnishings for these off of a list of MBTA-approved contractors with the MBTA-approved designs, and all of those MBTA-approved designs included these hostile architecture elements. That said, these are things the city bought. and installed. We didn't have to and we don't have to. So the question of what to do in the future, whether that's replacing the existing furniture that just got installed or just to ensure that we have fully accessible public furniture in future bus stops, which I hope we have a great many of, is one that having spoken to the director of mobility and to the mayor's staff is a conversation they're open to. I'm not sure whether the correct path forward is going to be an administrative policy or an ordinance, but I've been assured that city staff is interested in and open to having this discussion. So it would be my hope perhaps for public utilities, public works seems appropriate.
Lance Davis	Okay. Any other discussion? Seeing none, that will be approved with a copy to public utilities and public works.
Clerk	Item 4.8 is a resolution by Councillor Scott that the mayor update this council on any plans to issue a requirement for federal law enforcement agents acting within the city of Somerville to provide identification upon request and preventing the use of identity concealing masks within the city by federal agents.
J.T. Scott	Councillor Scott. thank you mr president it has been a busy couple of days here in somerville i believe no less than half a dozen confirmed reports of ice activity within our city limits including a i hear a very sporty photo op that they did right here in front of city hall that said all joking aside this is a measure that was actually inspired by what we're hearing about from chicago from illinois this appears to be a thing that can be done, at least in other places. So I would like to have us have a discussion here about what we can do to ensure that, at the very least, the activity of abductions of our neighbors by masked people could be reduced and certainty over who is doing what within our city, to say nothing of where our neighbors are being taken, would be something that we all have a great deal of confidence in. I don't anticipate any comment from the administration tonight, but I would like this to go to committee to be discussed at its earliest opportunity.
Lance Davis	Councillor Yunkin wanted to sign on. Councillor McLaughlin?
Matt McLaughlin	Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to sign on as well and would love to take this up in public health and safety. I don't know what can be done about this, and I thank the council for bringing it up in terms of the local authority over federal authority. But I know, and I know I'm in a circle full of people who are all on the same page, I believe, on this. I know there's people even in the city who who may not understand why this is important or may even support what's going on. And I always want to just take an opportunity as someone who grew up here, who knows people who may think like that, to give a different perspective. So recently I read that the head of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Terence Cunningham, they took a position against federal agents using masks within the country. And I just wanted to read a quote from this guy who said, you know, the public needs to know who it is they're interacting with. When you look at someone and having a conversation with them, you see empathy on their face. You can have a conversation, understand who that person is. You need to be able to identify that person should something happen. We believe strongly that the face coverings are inappropriate in most cases in policing in a democratic society in 2025. So this is the head, a retired police officer, police chief representing a national organization, international organization condemning the use of masks this way. So I just want to flag that for anybody who thinks that people are okay with what's going on here. People who know better, who know the job, know that this is wrong, what's happening. And I would like to give a message to the regional director of ICE, who has supervision over all these people, who did have people, staff, trolling City Hall. come in front of City Hall to take pictures, take selfies, make fun of us, who failed to identify themselves when they abducted a tough student and wore masks then and intentionally put in terror into the community. I also served in the military in an occupied country and we even then We're taught to be professional and polite to the people around us. And we were in more imminent danger than an ICE agent in Somerville, Massachusetts ever will be. We didn't wear masks. We respected the people around us. And I know what my commanding officer would do If I acted like this, if I took a selfie in front of a mosque and decided to embarrass people, or if I did anything like this, if I failed to identify myself, if I acted in any inappropriate way, I would get a court-martial. And to know that this is being allowed and encouraged from the highest levels of government is very disheartening. This is not an occupied country. You're not trolls. You're representative of our government. And you should conduct yourself that way when you're in any city in America.
Lance Davis	Okay. I saw Councilor Ewenkamp and Ed Wilson wanted to sign on. I will as well. Thank you. That was my thinking exactly.
Clerk	The next item then is going to be item 6A, a report of the Committee on Finance meeting on September 9th, 2025.
Jake Wilson	Mr. Wilson. Mr. President, your finance committee met on Tuesday, September 9th over the course of a 58-minute meeting. We took up a 22-item agenda. Two items requested to be withdrawn inadvertently got recommended for approval. There are replacement items on tonight's agenda that the administration is requesting we take up for immediate consideration to replace those. They have some, as was explained to us, they were able to go get the full amounts for the full year, and that's why we wanna go with those for a couple of grant acceptance items. So we'll need to take care of that. We'll have to move to sever those items. Could do that at the end of the committee report. First, well then, I'm gonna move to sever items 6A-19 and 6A-20 from the committee report. Let's do that. Mark to sever and is withdrawn.
Lance Davis	Move to sever and withdraw items 6A-18 and 6A-19. Any objection? The motion is approved. Are those items are severed?
Jake Wilson	Back to the committee report, Council Wilson. All right, in addition to minutes from our July 8th meeting, we recommended that you approve tonight three appropriation items, including the annual appropriation from the Community Preservation Act to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, two grant acceptances, a transfer for the grant match for the Shannon Grant, and 11 prior year invoices. We discharge with no recommendation the acceptance of the annual $1.1 million block grant from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. This was the longest discussion of the evening with counselors requesting more information. Specifically, I recall one of those was the areas set to see more traffic enforcement, just the geographic areas of the city. We did receive this morning from IGA follow-up memos pertaining to this. I trust colleagues who had questions have had a chance to look through those. I hope you have. but yeah assuming that that's the case we will I guess we're gonna have to vote on that one but I will ask this committee report be accepted as submitted any discussion on the committee report all right seeing none that is approved and that puts items 618 or no so we're gonna replace replacement items down
Clerk	That first puts one item before this council for approval in the roll call vote, which is item 25-1289, requesting approval to appropriate $56,601 from the salary and wage stabilization fund to the non-contributory pension account to fund an increased pension amount. Okay, on that item. Councillor Wilson.
Jake Wilson	Yes.
Clerk	Councillor Ewen Campin.
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
Clerk	Councillor Scott.
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
Clerk	Councillor McLaughlin. Yes. Councillor Burnley. Yes. Councillor Sait.
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
Clerk	Councillor Strezo.
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
Clerk	Councillor Clingan.
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
Clerk	Councillor Mbah.
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
Clerk	Councillor Davis. Yes. With nine councillors in favor, none opposed, and one absent, that item is approved. And now if you are so inclined to take up those additional items to replace.
Lance Davis	Yes, please.
Clerk	So that is going to be items 7.7, a request of the mayor requesting approval to accept and expend a $301,000 grant with no new match required from the Department of Mental Health to the Police Department for crisis intervention training and technical assistance for personnel and program expenses.
SPEAKER_06	Council Wilson? I will move to approve. Any discussion on the item? All right, seeing none. No, no recall. That item is approved.
Clerk	And item 7.11, a request to the mayor. Requesting approval to accept and expend a $50,000 grant with no new match required from the Department of Mental Health to the Police Department for jail diversion program personnel expenses.
SPEAKER_06	Move to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, that item is approved.
Clerk	The next item before this council, then, is item 6B, a report of the Committee on Land Use, meeting on September 4th, 2025.
Jake Wilson	Councillor Wilson. Question, Mr. President. There was an item that was discharged with no recommendation. Do we have to act on that? You do indeed, Mr. Chair.
Clerk	Thank you for flagging that. Okay, let's find that in the list here. That is item 6A22. A request of the mayor, requesting approval to accept and expend a $1,100,000 grant with no new match required from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development and the Police Department for the development of the Union Square Plaza and Streetscape Phase 1.
Jake Wilson	Mr. President, given the discussion in finance, I'm curious if colleagues who had questions have anything they want to contribute here before I move to approve. Any discussion? Any questions?
Lance Davis	I'll move to approve then. All right, Council Wilson moves to approve. Any discussion on the motion? All right, seeing none, that item is approved.
Clerk	And now, item 6B, a report of the Committee on Land Use, meeting on September 4th, 2025.
Matt McLaughlin	councilor mclaughlin thank you mr president we did meet at that time uh four out of five councils were present uh the well i know we had yes we had four councilors council clean pinch hit in for us uh we really discussed one item uh which was gilman square up zoning a draft sort of proposal informal proposal from a land use analyst i'll be quick on this just because it It was basically concepts of upzoning for Gilman Square. And what I decided or myself and the land use analyst in collaboration with the city and other people is to focus on Gilman Square as has always been an interest from Gilman Square residents about upzoning while the city completes its process on the Broadway corridor which will cover several green line stations there. So if we do Gilman Square and Broadway that will cover a number of transit oriented areas. And we'd be in a good place, hopefully, maybe this year, we'll see. We weighed the pros and cons. The city highlighted such issues as increased tax burden on people if their property was upzoned, the height of potential buildings, especially if we went high-rise, the situation with the Homans Building, which is owned by the city. And that was basically a good discussion. We're going to have another discussion on September 18th. and I encourage people to tune in, and hopefully we'll have something worth having a public hearing about and full discussion in front of everyone. So I submit this report to be accepted. All right, any discussion? I see none that accepted.
SPEAKER_06	That is accepted.
Clerk	Item 7.1 is a request of the mayor, requesting approval of a home rule petition to raise the sound business practices and written quote contract thresholds under Mass General Law Chapter 30B for city contracts with certified disadvantaged businesses.
J.T. Scott	Just anticipated and looking forward to it in legislative matters.
Jake Wilson	Mr. President, could I move to waive the readings of items 7.2 to 7.6, 7.8 to 7.10, 7.12 to 7.20, 10.5 and 10.6 and ask those be sent to finance.
Lance Davis	That all matches what I got written down on my agenda. Good, Madam Clerk. Any objection to the waiving the readings of those items and being sent to finance? Seeing no objection, so be it.
	Next item.
Clerk	Item 7.21 is a request to the Mayor. Requesting approval of an exemption for Jonathan Siragatis as required by Master Journal Law Chapter 268A, Section 20B.
Lance Davis	Questions? All right. Seeing no objection, that item's approved.
Clerk	Item 8.1 is an officer's communication from the city clerk conveying block party licenses issued.
Lance Davis	Block parties. I'll note that Josephine is on there, one of the oldest block parties. Not to play favorites, but it's a good one. Look at the list, go to your block parties, apply for more if your street isn't on there. Thank you, that is placed on file.
Clerk	Item 9.1, if anyone is so inclined to make a motion.
Lance Davis	Who's our vice chair of licenses and permits? Would the vice chair of licenses and permits please remind me who you are? Literally, nobody wants to take the job. Hold on. I got it right here. Where did it go? Come on.
Jake Wilson	Open up.
Lance Davis	It can't be me.
Clerk	It's me. Oh, it's Councillor Clingan.
Lance Davis	Councillor Clingan. Well, in fairness, it was me. But when I became president just a short time ago, I had to switch it around. So it's perfectly understandable. Look, the city website still doesn't have the updated positions, which I raised today. Hopefully, we'll get that fixed. Things sometimes take time.
Jesse Clingan	Mr. President, through you, to you, yeah, this is one that I, because I wasn't on this committee and then made the chair. I was just put on this committee recently after Councilor Panetta-Newfeld left. So I haven't even been to one of these meetings yet. So it just completely slipped my mind. My apologies. Councilor Clingan, we all have faith you've got this. Okay. So, yeah, I'd like to waive the readings of... Perhaps 9.1 through 9.10? 9.1 to 9.10? And move for approval? And 10.7? I went 10.72.
Lance Davis	I had to find it on the page, Mister. It's a fluid process, ladies and gentlemen, and everyone else. 10.7, yes, very good. So I'm going to note on 10.7, this is a supplemental item. And I'm typically remorse to take action on items that are in the supplemental agenda. I did review this item. I had this conversation with the clerk. And I'm comfortable moving forward with it if it's the will of the council. Typically, if there's a supplemental item that comes in, it should be because it was not reasonably foreseeable and there's some time sensitivity to it. The other supplemental items, I expect it will all go to committee, so they will be properly noticed and we'll have a discussion there. But I want to flag that. We certainly can move forward. I've been advised on this item. If it's the will of the council or we can set it to committee, you can take a look and see what it is. I have no objection to it being approved tonight, for what it's worth. All right, seeing no objection to discussion on those items, the reading is waived and those items are approved. Thank you.
Clerk	Item 9.11 is a public communication from Michael Vaglica, submitting comments regarding bike lanes.
SPEAKER_06	It's on file.
Clerk	Item 9.12 is a public communication from Greta Pintacuda, submitting comments regarding bird feeding.
SPEAKER_06	Based on file.
Clerk	Item 9.13 is a public communication from Lindsay McCassey, submitting comments regarding Davis Square.
Lance Davis	Based on file.
Clerk	Item 10.1 is a resolution by Councilors Strezo and Clingan that the administration inform this council of the process, action, and communication used to consider acquiring the closed school building privately owned by the Archdiocese of Boston on Thurston Street after the Winter Hill Community Innovation School was deemed unsuitable for use.
Lance Davis	okay so again i'm just going to reiterate for going forward on any supplemental items um i i i'm going to ask for an explanation of the time considerations uh or or why it came up you know why it was not reasonably foreseeable or uh if you'd like it to go to committee If it goes to committee, it's then noticed the public has an opportunity to be aware of it and we can have that discussion. So no objection with any of these as long as they're being sent to committee for discussion. I'm not inclined to approve any of these. The other option is we can lay them on the table for the next meeting and approving them if we don't have to discuss anything in committee. This is all part of our making sure we comply with open meeting laws. On that, let's have a conversation and then do you wanna talk on the item or on that policy? On the item.
Kristen Strezo	Okay, so let's go to Council Strezo first as the... Mr. President, well, through you two, Council Clingan, my name is first on this order, but I'm fine to pass to you to speak first because you look like you really want to say something. I don't want to let you say it.
Jesse Clingan	Council Clingan, the floor is yours. Oh, thank you. Yeah, so no, I was just gonna say to send it to the School Buildings Committee, that's all. I mean, since I do have the mic, I will say that, you know, the city is aware of the school building at St. Anne's. This question as to whether or not it's available or whether or not the Archdiocese is willing to sell it. There is some rumor that maybe they're leasing it, like they're in talks of a lease, probably with the charter school, This is a piece of property that if we're to build at 115 Sycamore could be integral to creating a campus and essentially being able to expand our footprint on that site. So this is something that we need to sort of pin down whether or not it's available. I did listen to the MSBA selection process for the designer the other day and a few of the design folks mentioned this particular property in their proposals. So I think it behooves us to really kind of figure out what's happening with that and whether or not, you know, we're going to need that. And I know that's just kind of putting a little bit put in the car before the horse. But if we lose the opportunity, then it's gone. And and, you know, we won't we won't have it. So I've been talking with Councilor Strezo, who's on the CAG. I'm on the school committee. the msba building committee and uh happy you know we put this in thank you for being the lead on this um but that's what i want to say on the matter but yeah happy to send it to school buildings committee and have that discussion there counselor thank you mr president and might i add that uh
Kristen Strezo	This has been a topic that has been brought up numerous times by CAG committee members, and the Director of Infrastructure Asset Management, Director Reich, said that they did explore it, but I have not seen any documentation or actual evidence that that has happened. So what I'm requesting alongside Councillor Klingent is actual documentation or evidence that that has happened. And why this would not be a viable option, because it looks like a pretty hardy three-floor building, school building that already exists. And echoing what Councillor Clingan has said, yes, I very much want this sent to committee and a hearty discussion on that as well. Thank you.
Lance Davis	All right, Councillor Wilson would like to sign on. That will be referred to school buildings, facilities, and maintenance. Next item.
Clerk	Next item is item 10.2, an order by Councillor Wilson that the city clerk work with this council to amend the code of ordinances to better regulate the sale of secondhand goods.
Jake Wilson	Councillor Wilson. Mr. President, counselors were contacted on Tuesday, so not a reasonably anticipated item, by a local business owner, understandably frustrated with what is some very, we'll say, questionably worded language in our code of ordinances around licensing for the sale of secondhand goods. I've spoken with our city clerk. and our council's legislative and policy analyst about this. And I think there's, and we'll say a lot of room for improvement in the current language. And I'd like the opportunity to come up with better wording for legislative matters to take a crack at in terms of amending our code of ordinances. And I've gotten pledges from both to work on this. So again, nothing needed tonight. It'd be great to send this to legislative matters and we can then work on crafting that language.
Lance Davis	Okay, I saw sign-ons from Councillor Ba, Clingan, Strezo, Scott. Great. And that will be referred to Legislative Matters.
Clerk	Item 10.3 is an order by Councillor Burnley that the City Solicitor update this Council on the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cooperation requirements attached to forthcoming Urban Area Security Initiative grants.
Lance Davis	Be referred to Public Health and Public Safety. Sign-ins.
Clerk	Item 10.4 is that the Chief of Police or the Metro Boston Homeland Security Region Representative update this Council on the strategy for applying for Urban Area Security Initiative or any other federal grants that require Immigration and Customs Enforcement cooperation.
Jake Wilson	Yeah, Mr. President, just for some context, this came up in Finance the other night because it was pointed out that the UASI grant that we were accepting was from, I think, FY23, and therefore did not have this updated language in it that we are so concerned about requiring cooperation with federal immigration authorities. So very good to have this discussion. We'd love to see it happen in Finance, along with some of the items that typically get sent to Finance along these lines. Very good. So that will be referred to finance.
Clerk	That brings us to the end of the agenda for the evening, Mr. President.
Lance Davis	Are there any late items?
Clerk	I see no further items before this council.
Lance Davis	Very good. Council Wilson moves to adjourn. We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.