Recap of January 14, 2025 Regular Meeting of the City Council

Video on YouTube

Meeting agenda

We voted to nominate and elect the City Council President and Vice President for 2025 (Zac and me, respectively). It’s not required for the same people to stay on as President and VP for a whole term – some terms the Council mixes it up halfway through, others not. 

Other first-meeting housekeeping: Transferring all 2024 papers to 2025; adopting the standing rules of the Council from 2024 to apply to 2025. 

Councilor Scarpelli offered two resolutions in remembrance of beloved Medfordians who recently passed away and the Council offered their condolences to the families. 

Councilors Leming and Callahan have recently been working with local families and parents of local youth with disabilities. They offered a resolution that the City Council host some members of these families at this meeting and then work with the City Administration to prioritize funding and programming for youth with disabilities. They described how there are precious few activities that are appropriate for youth with disabilities in Medford. Families often have to go far outside the City in order to participate in activities, enrichment, and youth communities that are appropriate for their kids, which requires a ton of driving around, if families are even able to do those kinds of logistics in the first place. They also talked about how they have been advocating for years that the City should do a better job of supporting kids with disabilities and need to start seeing some improvement. Even just an information hub that helps families know where to find appropriate programs would be a help compared to what parents currently have to do to locate and access programming for their kids. 

These parents and advocates put it more eloquently than I ever could! Here are just some of the lines that I wrote down: 

• “All we’re asking is to have the same things that other children have. We want exactly what the other children are getting.” 

• “Our kids have a lot to offer… What we’re really asking for is to be more a part of this community.” 

• “A community that misses out on [disabled kids and what they have to offer] misses out on a lot.” 

• “Let’s set the precedent of actually being inclusive, not just using the word.” 

At the end of the discussion, the Council also added a motion that we make a budget request (our first of the FY26 season) for the Mayor to fund additional staff to coordinate and support youth with disabilities. 

Councilors Tseng and Leming sponsored a resolution that the Resident Services & Public Engagement Committee work on an Open Data Policy. This is based on the observation that most of the City’s data (electoral, financial, personnel, assessment) is not easily available for public review/analysis, and making it more accessible would improve transparency and better enable residents to share and analyze City doings and City information. The Committee will discuss the proposal and how the City might create a navigable and accessible “open data” system. 

We took the final vote to approve the McGlynn/Andrews roof and HVAC repair loan order. We took the first vote on this in December, and had an in-depth Committee of the Whole on the matter immediately before this regular meeting. 

We took the final vote to ordain the amendments to the Community Control Over Public Surveillance Ordinance, and to ordain the new Welcoming City Ordinance (with a minor amendment). These projects were workshopped in Committee in December and both were robustly discussed at the December 17th meeting where we took the first vote to approve. 

We unanimously approved the Community Preservation Committee’s appropriation request of $146K from the CPA General Reserve to fund Phase 2 of the Carr Park Renovation Project. 

Councilor Leming has been working with the Director of the Veterans’ Services Department on ordinance updates that would allow incentives for renting to veterans. The new policy utilizes funding that is already in the Department’s budget but enables the Director to offer cash incentives of up to $750 to landlords for renting to qualified veterans. It “gives landlords an incentive to take a chance on veterans,” said the Director, noting that stigma and stereotyping often leads landlords to avoid renting to veterans. Many thanks to the Councilor for leading on this, and to Director Shaw for being so dedicated and focused on addressing housing discrimination among our veteran population which, as she has said before, is a rampant problem. 

Councilor Scarpelli offered a resolution to discuss changes to overtime policy in the Building Department. He brought up reports of changes to the chain of command between the Building Department and the Fire Department in how inspectors are called upon and made available in incidents relating to building structures that occur after business hours. He was seeking clarity on new protocols and raising concerns that have been voiced by some members of the Building and Fire Departments. The Mayor and members of her administration were attending the meeting remotely and a long discussion ensued detailing the new protocol chain for who is called upon for inspection/escalation when incidents occur after business hours, including the contingency plan/backup decision-makers. This topic also included discussion about personnel practices, including how timesheets for hourly Building Department employees were introduced last year.

These topics are not under the jurisdiction of the City Council, but I am glad that we could provide a forum for this discussion, as it seems like these concerns will be best resolved if the City Administration and relevant personnel continue to communicate further about them. 

Ultimately the Councilor’s A-Paper (original resolution) on this matter, urging that the Mayor wholesale “reinstate past practice,” failed but a B-Paper by myself (“Be it Resolved that the Administration submit a report detailing new overtime policies within the Building Department; as well as a report on current policies relating to Building Department and Fire Department hierarchy of oversight and decision-making on incidents involving Building structures after business hours”) went forward, along with a motion to receive written answer to the questions Councilor Scarpelli and others brought up during the discussion. 

We approved the signs special permit for the Bank of America at the Meadow Glen Mall. 

We approved a common vic license for the establishment The Establishment, which will open up where the Porch used to be. 

Councilor Scarpelli had two other resolutions for tonight which he tabled to the next meeting due to the late hour.