{"utterances":[{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-12-09","video_id":61,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee December 9th 2025","meeting_id":5707,"start_sec":92.55,"end_sec":152.5,"similarity":0.873,"text":"Good morning, everyone. Or good afternoon/evening, everyone, and happy holidays. (laughs) It's, um, been a long day. Thank you for having me. And I wanted to stop by and bring greetings from the House of Representatives to acknowledge two of the members who are wrapping up their time and their tenure serving the students and families and educators in Melrose, that would be Chair Dorey Withey and member and Vice Chair, Jen McAndrew. And I wanted to come personally to thank you all for everything that you've done over these last four, eight years. Uh, and your leadership has meant such a, made such a difference in our community. You've also served during an incredibly challenging time for students and families through the pandemic. And did so with grace, integrity, and, uh, uh, and earnest leadership that I'm so grateful for. So, to both of you, I am bringing from the State House, again, citations recognizing your leadership and dedication to the City of Melrose through your work on the Melrose School Committee. And I want to thank Mr., um, Seamus Kelley for suggesting this and making this possible. So thank you all very much.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1145108161#t=92s","page_url":"/video/61"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-10-28","video_id":71,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee October 28th 2025","meeting_id":5646,"start_sec":3394.66,"end_sec":3422.58,"similarity":0.613,"text":"18 years ago I started as a one-to-one power professional, um, for anyone that doesn't know. I went on to teach first grade there kindergarten. Um, I helped get our access and now what we now call access and Student Success Center programming up and running. So that's our, for our students with emotional disabilities. I did that before switching to district wide. So lots of different hats, and now I'm blessed to return as their principal. Um, so lots of different experience across the building.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1131531461#t=3394s","page_url":"/video/71"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-10-28","video_id":71,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee October 28th 2025","meeting_id":5646,"start_sec":3423.38,"end_sec":3745.45,"similarity":0.624,"text":"Um, and honestly, I think that's a lot of what's driving this accelerated improvement plan is we have a lot of incredible things happening in the building, and we wanna continue to really build an engaging learning experience for our students that makes them want to come to school and want to learn. And so that's really the kind of, I would say the, the cusp of this. And I know that you've heard from Ms. Berman and from other principals about how this will eventually lead into a school improvement plan. We know we still have a lot of data diving to do. We know we have a lot of digging in as a staff to do this is I'm a big systems person and this really to me is about building a system that will be ready for that when we, when we need to shift into that. Um, and so, like I said, our goal is to create that daily learning experience where kids, um, are learning to read, are wanting to learn, and that they have a sense of belonging and that they feel safe in our community. Um, we know we have a complex learning environment that gives us curve balls every single day all day long. Um, but that's kind of what we love about the Lincoln, um, is that it isn't like any other school in the district. Um, the two solutions that we've chosen, um, as a school or that we've, we we're kind of pushing towards as a school is to focus on literacy, right? So literacy as we know, is the basis for every bit of learning, right? Um, we need our students to be reading. It's also a place where, if I'm being honest, like we weren't doing terrible at a, as a school. So I think it's a safe place to start to build a system. Now that's not to say it's not without concern. We absolutely have concern, especially when we start to dig into subgroups and looking at that progress or lack of. Um, and that is something that we'll continue to do throughout the year. Um, starting with our November staff meeting, we'll be di or our next staff meeting, which is in November. Um, we'll be really diving into that MCA data and talking about it vertically around why do these skills kind of, um, it isn't just a fifth grade teacher's responsibility to teach comprehension. It starts in kindergarten, and we all build on that every single year. So we'll be really unpacking that and looking at it in relation to that IXL data, which we are getting ongoing and looking at, um, our DIBELS data and all of that. Um, so as I said, it's really about building a system. Um, our teachers are tasked to do so much, right? We know that, and I, I feel like I have to highlight some of the, the, the additional work sometimes that we have to do at the Lincoln having such complex learners. So their common prep time ends up having to go to, um, consults, right? Because we have big team consultations. It ends up going a lot to prep because we have a lot of visuals for the learners in front of us. It sometimes goes to working with their paraprofessionals, things like that. Um, and they don't always have the bandwidth to do the data diving that we need them to do, right? And so one of the solutions that I kind of have proposed for that, or a big piece of that is to implement, um, a tier two time that I am, I'm supporting them, right? And I by no shock to anyone here, love to talk. Um, it's not that I'm not shy. Um, years ago when I was a teacher, there, there were principal assemblies and it was just like this fun engaging time where the principal really focused on building morale and culture and like kind of made it exciting. And I'm really happy to say that last Friday we had our first principal assembly, and I've had two students that I didn't expect to say that I was pretty funny. And one of them said, I should be a YouTube performer. So I'm pretty excited about that. I felt like that was like the ultimate stamp of approval. Um, but what really was the excitement about that day is that teachers got time to work on tier two instruction. So like, what is happening at your teacher table? Which is the most basic form of tier two instruction, right? It is the most powerful form is when a teacher can have that time with a student to really dive into the skills they see that student struggling with in the classroom. So my guidance this year has been to focus on literacy, right? Because it is something that I think my staff as a whole has a strength in, right? I have some incredible teachers back there that teach reading, and one in particular takes pretty much every PD possible. Um, she's giggling right now, um, possible on teaching literacy. Um, and it's really about giving them that time and helping them build the culture around looking at data as a team that isn't always instructed from a district perspective. Um, many of you know, I was a coach for many years. I was a director for many years. I know how to lead data meetings. We know the culture that comes from data meetings or that we, I myself had a part in, in creating, it's not always a safe space for teachers, right? They sometimes need time to talk as a team. We'll still have those benchmark times of the year where I'm involved. I'll still give them feedback and process with them in between. But this is about giving them space and time to have that. So while this year it's around literacy, it could shift to math next year, it could shift to SEL another year. It really is about building that time and about giving me time with students. So we are focusing on, um, using literature when we are in those assemblies. And I'm hoping over time to kind of build that skill again through me as well.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1131531461#t=3423s","page_url":"/video/71"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-10-28","video_id":71,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee October 28th 2025","meeting_id":5646,"start_sec":3746.32,"end_sec":3911.51,"similarity":0.628,"text":"Um, is it okay to shift onto the next solution or do you want me to Okay, so the next solution, I, I do feel like if we're gonna talk about an engaging daily learning experience for our learners, we have to look at attendance at Lincoln. Um, for anyone that hasn't necessarily dove into our attendance data, it's concerning. Um, we had just under 50 students last year identified as chronically absent. Um, I know that's different from the rest of the district. We have some unique situations there, um, that we need to spend the year really unpacking and looking at. I have some hypotheticals, right? I have some predictions. One of them being, um, a great chunk of this is families that travel. So for example, we have almost two weeks off for the midyear or that mid hall that holiday break or the winter break this year. Um, there are so many multilingual families that have already reached out about extending that so they can go back to their home country for a month or longer, right? And that makes sense, but it's also a missed 10 plus days of school. And so I'm regularly brainstorming this with Melanie and with my staff is like, what else can we do to help these learners? But right now, I would say we're in an information gathering space, right? We're really diving into that subgroup data. We're really talking about it as a team. Um, we have a system at the Lincoln that I was able to help build when I was the director of social emotional learning called the triage meeting. We do it every single Monday morning where we talk about like emerging concerns in the building and how we're gonna address them throughout the week. So we've added an attendance check right into the triage meeting. Um, we were able to meet, I'll give an example, yesterday, um, we identified four students that we are already seeing as chronically absent this year. We were able to give reasoning for some of them being like they had COVID and needed to be out. Oh, they were out for a vacation. And we, we know about that. But then there was a couple that we said, these need a follow up. And so we were able to already connect with families. We kind of designated, like one of them was me partnering with the classroom teacher, the other is the nurse. And so we're trying to like, involve not just me, because I think we so often say, well, what are you gonna do? Or what's the principal gonna do? And that's not always the right path. Um, we wanna acknowledge that that sometimes feels punitive to families or to students. And that's not the approach we're trying to take. We're really trying to take that partnering community building, like really seeing where a family's at approach. Um, and again, we're putting it right into a structure so it holds me accountable. It holds them accountable. Um, and again, we're always trying to partner with, with the teacher as well. Um, and so that's kind of where we're at. And I, I know you have the packet. I'm happy to answer any questions, um, that you might have.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1131531461#t=3746s","page_url":"/video/71"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-10-28","video_id":71,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee October 28th 2025","meeting_id":5646,"start_sec":3982.66,"end_sec":4110.91,"similarity":0.624,"text":"That's a really great question. And we did cover this at my first site council meeting. So they've already seen this. They given feedback and they are also starting to kind of be involved in the process. And so I would say it starts there, right? The next step is gonna be, um, we talked about the next PTO meeting, this potentially being something we talk about there. And so I think just trying to come at it, I'm a big fan of p small pockets and not overhauling, right? And so I would say site council is one of them. PTO is another, I I I know you all get my newsletter every week, right? So it, it'll be mentioned in there. And then also just having conversations. I think just being visible with families, letting them know that it's a concern. It's something that we're talking about trying to educate the community, um, on why chronically absent students typically underperform as time goes on. Because I think that people don't always see the impact of the decision of travel, right? So I think it's just also helping families, again, when it comes up, which is helping them understand and not coming at it in that like, why is your child absent so much? It's like, Hey, I wanna help you understand, like, let's talk about this together. Um, I will say like one statistic that, um, and I wanna just be protective of like the student's, um, identity of course. But like one instance of a student, I will say that we had, um, a coming into last year, ending last year, I'll just say over a hundred absences in their career. They have had not won this year. And that I really feel like is such good data on like the, the power of partnership, not just like with me to the family, but the staff with the family. And like one of their teachers is back there that like, it's hard to go slow to go fast. But I think this was a perfect example when we tried to partner, it wasn't met like with the, the strongest response. And so we just took a big step back and said, we're just focusing on small positive interactions this year. That's what we're gonna focus on, is like giving this family small, positive, supportive interactions. And now we have, we're on date, I think 42 First grade Teacher, 4, 2, 4 3. Mm-hmm. Um, and we've had no absences. So I feel like that that's the data I'm looking for, and that's the power I'm looking for and the education right now. Thank you","url":"https://vimeo.com/1131531461#t=3982s","page_url":"/video/71"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-10-28","video_id":71,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee October 28th 2025","meeting_id":5646,"start_sec":4140.16,"end_sec":4237.16,"similarity":0.633,"text":"In relation to attendance. Yeah, yeah. Strategies. So we, we did spend a good atti a good amount of time talking about this last year. It was led by Dr. Turner. We were trying to really just, it's not necessarily just a centralized linking concern. Um, although I, I have looked at the DESI data, I know that ours is more alarming or it just, to me at least it feels that way when I'm looking at it. Um, Mel's the data person. Um, but to me it feels like it is, does feel like a more prevalent concern there. But we do talk about it regularly. The principals and I meet weekly. Attendance is often something that comes up. We did start to try to build more of like a tiered attendance plan last year, but it was really just about unpacking concerns. I have already shared with my internal team, the, the high school kind. It's the high school, but it's really the high school, middle school now attendance tiered plan. 'cause I was part of that a few years ago when they were developing that. Um, and so I would say just keeping in touch. Like it's something that I know I'll, we've been, we've looked at each other's AIPs. It's something I know we all care deeply about it. Just because it's not in their AIPs doesn't mean it's not something that we're all talking about all the time. Um, we all have students that travel that we are all concerned about. We all have students that I think is a product of COVID. They still feel the need to stay home when there's a cold. And we try to, it's hard to tell a family sometimes. Like, it's okay if you have a sniffle or it's okay if you have a cold, a cough, like you can come to school. 'cause we were, we kind of put that in them to not come to school for such a long time. So I think we do regularly talk about that and I think we'll continue to do","url":"https://vimeo.com/1131531461#t=4140s","page_url":"/video/71"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-10-28","video_id":71,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee October 28th 2025","meeting_id":5646,"start_sec":4271.41,"end_sec":4317.16,"similarity":0.65,"text":"Yeah. I think my vision, right? Again, all about building systems. And while I know again that like literacy, our math data looks more concerning, right? But like, I'm gonna focus on literacy for so many reasons, right? Number one being, again, trying to leverage a lot of this, the professional development that we're accessing this year, 14 of our staff members are taking the OG training awesome. For Orton Gillingham, which I'm so ecstatic about. Mm-hmm. Um, I'll give a shout out to my whole entire third grade team, including special ed is take is taking it. I can't wait to see what happens. Um, and so I think it's just really about kind of, um, sorry my brain is so fried tonight. Um, I think it's just really about taking the time to like look at that and, and think deeper about that. But I'm happy to like follow up, just follow up on anything. No,","url":"https://vimeo.com/1131531461#t=4271s","page_url":"/video/71"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-10-28","video_id":71,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee October 28th 2025","meeting_id":5646,"start_sec":4340.91,"end_sec":4396.41,"similarity":0.661,"text":"Absolutely. Absolutely. And then I'm sorry, just to add on, 'cause I know you asked this question. Now it came to me. I think like my goal really is about kind of taking all that unpacking we'll do this year, and that serves the, that serves the development of the school improvement plan, right? Like, so very helpful. The, the data that we're gonna really unpack this year, that's gonna build that school improvement plan. So like, I don't, I don't see our literacy work going away after a year. I think it's really like the exposure in skill building this year in system building. And then next year we're gonna say like, well, how are we gonna implement this? And that won't be done. Just me. Like, that will be done as a team. Same with the attendance. Like this year we're really trying to like unpack the attendance issues and like concerns and just, and we're trying some things out and documenting it and putting it in like in a system that's already working. But it's really gonna be about continuing that work next year, because that's not, it's not gonna be an overnight success. Thank you for bearing with my, um, eight o'clock ring.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1131531461#t=4340s","page_url":"/video/71"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-10-28","video_id":71,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee October 28th 2025","meeting_id":5646,"start_sec":4637.8,"end_sec":4837.8,"similarity":0.63,"text":"Yeah, I'm happy to talk about that. So, just for a little perspective to when I was the director of social emotional learning, that was a big part of my role was, was working with the transition from fifth to sixth. So I would partner with elementary principals, partner with middle school administration, and we would try that transfer. Um, obviously with adjustments in administration, it's, it's, it's, it's revamping, right? It's a work in progress, but I don't think the, the basis of it is gone. Um, I, I have a whole team of people who take that transition so seriously. Um, we've already started identifying students that following the new year, we need to start a transition plan with that would include, and again, every student's so individual that it might include just meeting administration. 'cause they don't always have a history of trust and administration. It might mean taking a few planned times to meet their counselor. So then that's like a familiar person. Um, we also, we started this about 10 years ago. We continue to do it for students that we know have significant anxiety about middle school. They all have step-up day, but we also do individual visits or, um, like small group visits to the middle school. Um, we too, we've done it from everywhere to like attending a lunch to, um, like helping them like try to get into their lockers to helping them navigate the building. So we've done a different target in so many ways through the years. It's really about like the learners that year and what they're kind of sharing their concerns to be about. Um, we invite often for, um, the staff to come down, especially the Access and Student Success Center staff, because we want them to see the kids that they sometimes present with the biggest balls of anxiety, just kind of like inside of them. Um, but really we invite anyone. Um, a few years ago we were planning lots of different visits for sixth grade team leaders to come down. I would love to work with Jason and Brian and Michelle and Steve again to kind of get that up and running. Um, so I think all of those things will contribute. And again, this is something that I would talk about with all principals and we can talk about like how all kids would benefit from it. Um, but I, I think one of the things that I'm grateful for having that five years of, of that district experience is I don't really have a, it's not a discomfort to pick up and call Jason or it's like, I don't mind just like kind of saying, Hey, they're coming over. Like, what time can I expect them to be? Or like, what time do you want them to be there? Um, it's just a different comfort level. Um, but again, our staff sees the value in that they start working on it very quickly. Um, and I'll even speak to like the preschool to kindergarten transition. Like we had quite a few Franklin learners coming to us this year with complex needs. That process started in, at the midyear, like that wasn't an overnight. Um, we did at least I would say 10 visits there last year to really get to know and get eyes on those learners, um, and get to know their families. And so I would say that it's the same process for fifth to sixth. 'cause I think one thing we don't take for granted is that, um, there's a lot more like, I would say like handholding or closeness with like the coaching that you give a child in elementary school. And that's different in middle school, you know? And so I think that the staff there over the years, they've grown in hearing that. Like we say, come see where the learners are at, not necessarily where you want them to be. Um, and I do think they hear that and they believe in that and they, they are, they're trying to address that.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1131531461#t=4637s","page_url":"/video/71"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":184.56,"end_sec":684.43,"similarity":0.859,"text":"Well, thank you so much, uh, president CLE and all members of the City Council and School Committee, we are so pleased to be with you here tonight. We wanna thank you all for your tireless service on behalf of the city that I call home. Um, and that is in both of our districts. It means a lot to know that you all are thinking critically about the situation here in Melrose, the fiscal outlook. Um, and I am glad to be working with all of you, as I know the senator is to think about solutions at the state and local level, um, to make sure that we're providing the level of services and supports that our residents deserve. So we're here today and we're glad to present you with an overview of the state budget picture. Um, there is in the public record a March 19th, 2025 memorandum that we prepared and shared with the school committee that is available online. And obviously, um, you know, that may have been reviewed by many of you. Obviously since then, the state has completed its budget work for fiscal year 26, which began July 1st. So there are a few updates, but that memo in large part describes how Chapter 70 school funding works. Uh, of course, you all are familiar with the local aid that also comes through in the General Appropriations Act each year. Um, so to just go over that briefly, and as the memo, um, from Mayor G said is now entered into the public record explains, um, we look first at chapter 70, education funding, uh, the primary way in which the state and local governments work together to ensure that every student in the Commonwealth receives adequate funding for an appropriate education. Massachusetts is considered a real, um, be, you know, exemplar in this space, given how we, we make sure that every district does get minimum state aid who accomplish that objective. Uh, many states look to us to consider how they want to address and update their own funding schemes. And as you all know, and as you've heard from us before, the legislature, uh, in 2018 updated the funding formula to more appropriately reflect the costs of things like special education, uh, English language learners, the costs of healthcare insurance. And that was in the Student Opportunity Act. Um, this year when based on Melrose's own ability to, uh, pay for, you know, the local contribution, which is considered based on two factors. One is the property values in a municipality, the other is the income level, uh, of the folks who live here. Uh, Melrose became what is considered a minimum aid community. That means that the state dollars that came to us were based on a per pupil headcount, recognizing that after, uh, the Senator and I completed our work on the memorandum, we both really went, uh, to bat and champion, uh, as high a possible minimum state aid is possible per pupil. And I'm pleased that we hit a historic amount this year at $150 per pupil. So that was my top budget priority when I went before ways and means, knowing that this would be, be imp, you know, critical for Melrose as well as Wakefield. Um, and that results in Melrose receiving $13,285,756 in Chapter 70. Defunding, uh, that budget can continues also to fully fund our universal Free school meals program, which is so critical to many of our students in this district. Um, in addition to increasing the per pupil state aid, um, we also added, obviously the funding for local aid. So that gives you a sort of sense of, um, the lo the local aid was at $6.384 million for Mel for Melrose in fiscal year 26. So in addition to these large buckets of funding, we also, as legislators, like to try to, to bring state revenue back to the district in the form of local earmarks. And so I think you all are aware, um, that we've done a pretty good job of that over the last year and a half. Uh, in the fiscal year 25 budget, the, the earmarks to Melrose were almost 200,000. We passed a fair share amendment, uh, budget in June that the governor signed. This is using revenue from the millionaires tax, which is required to go solely to public education as well as transportation initiatives. And there, the Senator and I, uh, achieved a total of $300,000. That was 125,000 for the Melrose Public Schools supplies and capital improvements, $100,000 for maintenance and repair of MBTA bus stop benches and shelters, and $75,000 for energy efficiency upgrades at Lincoln Melrose High and Memorial, um, Melrose, veterans Memorial Middle School. And then in the fiscal year 26 budget, about which I just spoke, um, there's another $250,000 in earmarks to Melrose, $100,000 for additional school capital improvements, 75,000 for Melrose playing Fields, 50,000 for a Melrose Police Cruiser, and 25,000 for Melrose Police equipment. Of course, in the future, whenever we have budgets, uh, being considered and debated where there is an opportunity for local investments, I'm very confident that the senator and I will propose a number of budget initiatives for Melrose, working closely with the mayor and her administration. And always happy to hear from any of you about things you're seeing on the ground. So, at the same juncture that all of this is happening, I do want to acknowledge that there is significant uncertainty, uh, coming at the federal level. We are seeing unprecedented, uh, rollbacks of appropriated grant funding from Congress. Uh, we are seeing public schools, you know, jockey for the funding that supposedly was coming their way, um, and having to go to court to sort of, uh, debate whether or not, um, that that funding stream will dry up or not. Um, we are seeing assaults on our public health systems, um, and also grant funding really called into question. The state government will do whatever we can, um, to address that, to continue to fund public education through chapter 70, um, to look at our public health system and support our local boards of health. Uh, but of course, just like you in this chamber, we have to pass a balanced budget every year. And there will be no way that we have the capacity to backfill the billions of dollars that are at stake at the federal level. So that brings us to sort of where, why we're here tonight, which is thinking about how this large ecosystem in pacs a city like Melrose, with an override question on the ballot in November 4th. And I recognize that I'm sitting in a room and at a horseshoe where every single person around this table, um, has supported the override because I know you all have done the hard work of looking at where your re our revenues are as a city that is so overwhelmingly residential. Uh, and recognizing that, um, the only way to be able to sort of re restore some of the services that we have had to cut at the state, uh, excuse me, at the school and city level, is to consider new revenue streams. Um, certainly again, we will continue to look for opportunities in the large statewide programs to make sure we're fully investing in them. We will go to bat for our local earmarks. But in a situation like this, I certainly as, um, I think as public support this override because I know there is certainty in raising local tax dollars and knowing those dollars will go specifically and stay at the local level. And that is a way that we can control our own destiny here in the municipality. Um, at the same time, we'll also committed to continue to work with city leadership with all of you to think about additional opportunities for support. Um, my office and Senator Lewis' office will continue to identify grant opportunities every time something comes through, for example, from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, we let Chief Fowler and Chief White know right about that. Uh, if we see a, a grant program coming through from dsi, we'll certainly let, um, acting Superintendent Berman know about that. Um, I, I heard and fielded just by way of example, a quick question about, um, a grant program that came out last session around, um, early literacy tutoring grants. I was really disappointed to see Melrose did not receive one, and that is because the former superintendent did not apply for it. So, um, you know, I know that that will, that will maybe change starting now. And we will as a, you know, a duo, make sure that we're letting our school leadership know about these opportunities and underscoring that we're here to assist in any way we can and, and making sure that Melrose can bring some of those competitive or even formulate a grant dollars back to the city. Um, I'll pause there and let the senator, um, add some important context.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=184s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":1308.95,"end_sec":1312.13,"similarity":0.688,"text":"I would just say I'm unaware of any state that has a reimbursement, um, commitment like that.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=1308s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":1474.86,"end_sec":1485.73,"similarity":0.748,"text":"Well, I think, I think we heard, yes, absolutely they are. And as the senator mentioned, and I've heard this also from Wakefield and Malden, I mean, Melrose is not unique in facing this dynamic. Right? Okay. Yeah.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=1474s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":1597.27,"end_sec":1651.77,"similarity":0.833,"text":"You are right. It's a dynamic, it's a, it's, it's done dynamically keeping in mind sort of what we see as the macro priorities that we have as a commonwealth. Um, that's right. I think actually if you look at how the fair share money has been spent since implementation, more than 50% has actually gone to education and not to transportation. When we had a surplus this year, that surplus that I spoke about, that the governor signed in June, where we had about $300,000 of local earmarks just for Melrose, in addition to then fully funding the special education circuit breaker, for example, we, we, the house for example, looked at how the proportion had gone and saw that we had really put more into education than into public transportation. And so I think that Bill with a surplus maybe at, you know, weighed a little bit more heavily on the transportation side, recognizing all of the deferred maintenance on the MBTA, which is so critical to a city like Melrose, right? So we're not locked into any particular, uh,","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=1597s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":1655.02,"end_sec":1658.77,"similarity":0.749,"text":"We, but we are certainly required to spend them only on public education and public transportation.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=1655s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":1901.52,"end_sec":2082.81,"similarity":0.849,"text":"Sure. So as you probably know, there are two ways that we could adjust Prop two and a half, which as the senator mentioned, was a voter initiative back in the late seventies, early eighties. Um, we, the legislature itself could update that statute, um, or it could be another ballot initiative where a citizen's petition gets going. And so I've explored both options just to better understand and take the temperature of how those would work. Um, there are over 6,000 bills that were filed this session to start out. And hundreds have been filed since not a single one was about addressing prop two and a half. And I think there are a number of reasons for that. But obviously one is that, you know, folks in the legislature are loathed to sort of say, we're gonna raise taxes. Um, you know, and we're gonna do that without voter input. Um, especially when it was the voters who went to the ballot box back in the day and said, this is what we want as a commonwealth wide, you know, sort of limit on property tax growth. We are, you know, I have done some research on this and Massachusetts is not particularly unique in actually having a statute on the books that inre create some sort of levy limit or other type of growth limit on property taxes. We are one of the states that allows for a local option to override it. Not every state does that. So that is sort of interesting to know. Um, it is also the case that some states that have the limits like prop two and a half do index it to inflation. So perhaps short of completely repealing the law, maybe there could be some appetite among our colleagues. And it's something that I am exploring to say, could we update the statutory framework to more be more flexible and recognize macroeconomic realities. I mean, one colleague who is has worked in revenue for a long time, said if we do that at the state, at the legislature, there will be a ballot initiative the next day to repeal what we have done. So the other option would be to have a ground swell of support among advocacy organizations to take on this, this argument. And I look at organized labor as a perfect example, where they've had tremendous success at the ballot box in recent memory for public education, for the fair share amendment. You know, you all sit in front of, you know, and deal with a lot of negotiations with our unionized labor force. So if they would want to get behind something like this that's also has the potential, then everyone here in Melrose can go to the ballot box and vote as whether they wanna adjust it as well. Um, I will say in doing this research, um, I'm sure this is something that you all have discussed and know, well, Melrose is a bit of an outlier when it comes to our property tax scheme. So we are in the bottom 20% for property tax burden relative to our property values in the entire state. If you look at all towns and cities, and we are in the bottom third in property tax burden relative to our income per capita. So we, that's just a fact. You can, you can opine on that as you will, but that is a, a question that is coming up a lot. And there are a couple different ways in which we could think about modifying just the statue. It would not, it will not happen anytime soon.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=1901s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":2466.57,"end_sec":2485.32,"similarity":0.76,"text":"Right? I mean, there is the potential that we will have to course correct in the middle of this fiscal year and pass an updated budget. Mm-hmm. I mean, it's something that you hear in the building depending on how sizable, um, the defunding is of some of these programs that everyone, um, someone in, on every block in Melrose relies on. Right.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=2466s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":2801.99,"end_sec":2903.24,"similarity":0.815,"text":"So my response is also just stream of consciousness. I mean, as you know, there's the Affordable Homes Act that we passed last year, which included historic funding, um, you know, bonding authority for the state to address what is possibly the largest, uh, you know, outside of, of DC now. Um, the largest challenge in our state, which is that we simply don't have enough housing for people and therefore it's incredibly unaffordable. Um, looking at also things like deferred maintenance for our public housing authorities with, you know, million, hundreds, millions of dollars appropriated for them to improve, you know, um, the existing housing that we have. Um, and there is an acknowledgement as well of, you know, the degree to which we want to look for opportunities to encourage transit oriented housing, which ma which Melrose obviously has embraced, uh, you know, within that, in this focus on affordable housing. I think one thing that I know Melrose has taken the lead on as have other communities in this area, are the affordable housing trusts, which I think is a really interesting lever that can be used when these new developments are coming on to think about ways in which to increase that to then make the housing more affordable for other people, inaccessible. Um, so I applaud you all for having that. And I know this administration here in Melrose has really, uh, codified that and really stood up a really important, um, board to oversee those funds. Certainly a lot of this is though at the local level in terms of the negotiations and the conversations that are having with the individual developers thinking about the impact of a new development on the surrounding community and what sort of negotiations can therefore happen around street calming or green space, um, parking, you know, minimums and, um, so that's sort of off the cuff. Um, I don't know if you,","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=2801s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":2920.49,"end_sec":2931.0,"similarity":0.696,"text":"Right? It is one of the ways in which, um, we, we don't account like that is prop two and a half does not impact new growth, right? So it does allow the city to grow its revenue base in that way.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=2920s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":2959.98,"end_sec":2999.27,"similarity":0.831,"text":"Sure. Governor files a budget proposal at the beginning of the year, um, when I was in the governor's administration in Baker's administration. We put a lot of effort into that. Then I came to the legislature and they joke, ah, we get that and then we just go like this and then we do our budget hearings. The house goes first, uh, we pass a budget in April, the Senate follows in May, and then we conference it with the goal of getting it done by the beginning of the fiscal year, which just like here is July 1st. We did actually complete that in June, send it to the governor, she signed it, uh, into law with some vetoes, um, that are pending. We can override her vetos if we would like.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=2959s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":3060.7,"end_sec":3090.7,"similarity":0.767,"text":"It could have been some of both. Yeah. I do recall, like, as the senator was saying, we keep try, you know, as we're moving. So the, the house has the benefit of a few more months of tax revenue to sort of better project where the, you know, the consensus might change a little bit. We might start to feel a little bit more bullish and then the Senate has another month after us to look at a whole nother month of receipt. So yes, some of it could be reapportion and some of it could be, you know, a realization that we have a little bit more, uh, to work with.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=3060s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":3313.97,"end_sec":3336.45,"similarity":0.809,"text":"Same with the charter school. I mean, reimbursement, again, I worked in national education law and policy before I went into state practice. Uh, and I was shocked when I heard that Massachusetts reimburses districts. So we're we double pay basically for a student, um, realizes a, you know, a per pupil amount for, uh, you know, three years decreases over time. But I don't think any other state does that.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=3313s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":3398.86,"end_sec":3427.86,"similarity":0.815,"text":"And I I also wanna be mindful of our time and we could, we could look into that a little bit more. I'm sure the school committee or the school administration get into, keep in mind that that assessment also reflects students who have been at the charter school for a decade. So the idea would be, we would anticipate that that is no, I mean, it's assessment because the money comes to you, but then goes over to the charter school. But by this point in time in year four, presumably the administration has considered, we're not educating that student anymore. Why would we hold onto the state aid?","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=3398s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":3645.05,"end_sec":3654.76,"similarity":0.76,"text":"and take a look at the transportation study, um, and I think it's, it's worth following up on that with you and talking to, talking amongst ourselves. But","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=3645s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":3799.18,"end_sec":3843.47,"similarity":0.795,"text":"I think that's right. We can take a look again at the ecosystem of, I think transportation is the one place where it feels like there, um, is the economies are not quite right. Um, and there may also be some local creativity and maybe some regional effort that could be undertaken at, you know, at this level. Um, but the cost to, to educate, you know, high needs students, um, we were, you know, we were struggling when I was at EOE with making sure that the students were safe in those buildings because we were really underpaying the people who were there to, to serve them and educate them and care for them. Um, it's, you know, we also have a real duty to make sure that we, we provide a quality experience for them. And that does cost quite a bit of money.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=3799s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":3933.58,"end_sec":4033.85,"similarity":0.843,"text":"Well, I mean, again, this is, if speaking to you as one state representative and one commonwealth, I think there are national lenses of, you know, organizations and think tanks across the political spectrum that would have very different answers on this. And far be it from me to try to synthesize it all. I can simply say, and thinking about Melrose and what we are facing right now, I just was interested in exploring a little bit more about how property taxes are assessed in different states and whether or not we are truly an outlier and having something like a prop two and a half. And, you know, my very back of the napkin, uh, review of this with my staff is we're not an outlier. Most states do have something in their state laws that largely came up during the same sort of anti-tax movement that resulted in prop two and a half. So there, there are different ways in which states do it. Um, again, some states tie the property tax limits to inflation, which makes it more dynamic and responsive to what true costs are to provide services. Some states provide are like us and they don't have any consideration for inflation. Um, a few states do allow for a local city or town to bring forward an override opportunity like we're doing here. Many states don't. It's sort of all across the board, but that is just on property taxes. Right. And so, um, as the senator and I have mentioned, there are other ways in which states and, um, and municipalities to a lesser degree perhaps raise revenue. So, um, I'm happy to talk with you more offline about, that's one scan that I've done. Um, but certainly, you know, you'll hear the governor or any governor sort of tell we are number one in this and we're in the top 10 in this. And, um, that's a big question you've asked.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=3933s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":4034.57,"end_sec":4043.95,"similarity":0.694,"text":"And maybe we could work together to build a curriculum at, you know, one of the graduate schools around, uh, Boston to, to present our findings.","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=4034s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2025-09-08","video_id":85,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee  Joint Meeting September 8th 2025","meeting_id":5580,"start_sec":4517.55,"end_sec":4541.05,"similarity":0.839,"text":"And it's, and again, it's based on funded school budget. Yes. The local property values and the resident income levels. And I think, as I said earlier, if you look at all 351 cities and towns, Melrose is in the bottom 20% for property tax burden relative to our value, our property values. And we're in the bottom third in property tax burden relative to our income per capita. Right?","url":"https://vimeo.com/1116953618#t=4517s","page_url":"/video/85"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2024-05-21","video_id":192,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee May 21st 2024","meeting_id":4981,"start_sec":2332.7,"end_sec":2340.45,"similarity":0.607,"text":"to have the help their mentee come see them or help them go see someone that would be beneficial for another two to four hours.","url":"https://vimeo.com/948963888#t=2332s","page_url":"/video/192"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2024-05-21","video_id":192,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee May 21st 2024","meeting_id":4981,"start_sec":2341.7,"end_sec":2363.95,"similarity":0.629,"text":"just hearing that that was very overwhelming to them with lots of added responsibilities. And we've received such positive feedback. It felt like the mentoring relationships really strengthened because that was just a weight that wasn't on them. Um, but that would also come back and be a stressor on our mentors. Um, and for anyone who doesn't know, mentors are required to mentor up to six educators, which I know MS.","url":"https://vimeo.com/948963888#t=2341s","page_url":"/video/192"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2024-05-21","video_id":192,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee May 21st 2024","meeting_id":4981,"start_sec":2428.82,"end_sec":2434.32,"similarity":0.619,"text":"with grant funding that we had to spend on professional development. I feel like it's really important to state","url":"https://vimeo.com/948963888#t=2428s","page_url":"/video/192"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-05-23","video_id":294,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee May 23rd 2023","meeting_id":4514,"start_sec":5861.64,"end_sec":5896.05,"similarity":0.62,"text":"I also wanna highlight that we've been doing a lot of work with Linda Gross from Landmark. Um, she's, we brought her in on the November PD day. That was for all of our middle school and high school staff. So everyone, it was also all of our program staff throughout the district, all of our counselors throughout the district and our special ed staff. And she, um, just went over language-based learning strategies and how to use those in the classroom. She's also someone that we used for one of our half day PD sessions for our power professionals. So all power professionals were able to get a PD on using language-based learning, um, strategies in the classroom. Okay.","url":"https://vimeo.com/829655408#t=5861s","page_url":"/video/294"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-05-23","video_id":294,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee May 23rd 2023","meeting_id":4514,"start_sec":6064.48,"end_sec":6368.29,"similarity":0.619,"text":"All right, so summer, I'm excited about summer. Um, we've really looked at, um, a lot to develop this summer catalog and we're already planning what's gonna happen into the 20 through 24 school year. This is largely driven by data. Um, this is driven by data in terms of kind of numbers we're seeing and just scores we're seeing, but it's also driven by feedback that we're getting both in surveys and just in conversation. Um, so we just to highlight a few things, um, we are offering, I'm very excited about this, a six week American Sign Language course. Um, we filled up in less than 24 hours. It was such an exciting thing to offer to educators. We had originally 20 spaces and I had to call and beg the provider to open it up to 10 more. And she said, okay, fine. Um, and she's building us a packet. She ended up personalizing completely to Melrose. Um, she's building a packet that will, um, be really like school functional language. I talked to her about the needs. I said, we don't have a huge deaf population in Melrose, but we do have a growing non-verbal population. And this is something we really wanna help educators understand is good for all students. It's not just for students that we would typically put into that profile. It's really for all students. She heard me, she loved it. So she's building kind of a resource that all educators that take that course will get. And I'm pretty excited about it. I was actually said that I didn't get to sign up for it. Um, we even have 10 people on a wait list that if we were able to open up a second section or open it again in the fall, um, that they are already ready and willing to like sign up. Um, I also wanna highlight that we were able as a leadership team last summer as part of our three day retreat. We took our whole leadership team to METCO headquarters in Boston. Um, and we were able to tour METCO headquarters, which was, if you have never been and we are METCO district, I you should come this summer. Um, but I honestly cannot recommend enough getting that opportunity to just go see what METCO is all about. I had no idea that Melrose was the last community to ever join, um, the Meco organization. And I think if that's one tiny little fact that I hope everyone hears, I, there's so much more to learn. Um, so we're offering that to 30 educators this summer. Um, we currently have 16 people registered and I do anticipate us filling that. Um, again, if anyone here wants to, I also met yesterday with, um, one of our METCO parents as well as one of our D E I P T O reps who is also, um, on one of the friends of Meco Melrose, um, members as well. And we talked about even, um, collaborating to expand it for them this summer too. Not to join us, but to have their own trip this summer. So we're really trying to give everyone that experience of, of bridging our communities, not just always busing the Boston students to Melrose. We really wanna build that bridge between the two communities. Um, I know Kaia mentioned earlier that Katherine Ritz is coming, so that's really where that professional development for, um, the World Language Department comes in. I mentioned the change the narrative book study. Um, I think some of the other things I just wanna make sure I point out. We're finalizing a PD right now with Bert Whittier, so we're bringing him back this summer. Um, he's amazing to work with and we're just trying to finalize the details. That's why it's not in the catalog yet. And I just wanna say that's something we're always updating once we put it out. It's not finite. Um, I know some of you are on the school email, so you'll see that I'm sending out those updates whenever something is added. Um, we're, and we're also, I think it's exciting to say that we're also sending, um, a team to New York City this summer, um, to engage in just kind of that interdisciplinary experience that Nora talked about. Um, as well as our, we're gonna do more AP training. There's one final training I just wanna highlight before we, I let Jen end it. Um, it's really mine and Mel's baby and I, I think it's something that I'm super proud of and excited about. Um, and you may have seen it in the catalog, so I just really wanna highlight it cuz it seems like a good opportunity to, um, Mel and I have long been PD providers for the district, and while we absolutely love that, it is exhaustive work and I think people get tired of hearing from us to be quite honest. Um, and so we are trying to build really the next set of leaders in Melrose. Um, we don't want, we are not the only people in the room that have an expertise. We know there's lots of other educators here that have a lot to say and a lot for us to learn from as well. And so we are doing a, um, we're calling it like a book study kind of personalized learning to lead PD series. Um, but they're going to start with us on a day in June, um, just learning about adult, adult learning. And we'll be kind of diving into what their interests are and what they think they could lead PD on. And we're gonna really kind of set them up. And then between the two of us, it's, we're only opening it to 20 educators. Um, they'll get assigned to one of us and we'll personally work with each of them one-on-one. And the hope is that they will develop the catalog for next year. Um, we really want, we're hoping, um, that this works out. So we have 14 outta 20 people already registered and ready to go. We've had individual sessions with all of them and we're pretty excited. So,","url":"https://vimeo.com/829655408#t=6064s","page_url":"/video/294"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":1407.43,"end_sec":1663.57,"similarity":0.861,"text":"Really glad to be back in this chamber in person with all of you. I want to thank you each for all the service that you provide to our city. And thank you president greitas and chair Dr. School for having us. So I think the senator provided a very comprehensive overview of the education funding that we're expecting in the fiscal year 24 budget and I'll just round out with some additional topics that we thought might be of interest to you. So one was just to quickly review obviously in each budget bill that comes forward there can be an opportunity for local Investments to be championed by the local delegation. And so I've been very pleased to work closely with Senator Lewis to achieve a lot of funding coming straight back to Melrose and some of our recent budget bills. So this slide just goes over some of the recent earmarks that we've brought back to the city. You may recall on the covid-19 recovery law. We achieved money for the high school elevators 150,000. 75,000 for City Hall to really focus on economic recovery for small businesses and nonprofits and $60,000 for the food drive and our food security infrastructure in the current fiscal year budget that we're living it with we had 75,000 for enhancements to melrose's recreational developments 60,000 for the fire departments fire breathing apparatus. $50,000 for security cameras at the middle school and then toward the end of last session in the fall. We completed an economic development law that included earmarks for the fire department repairs at right outside of our window here as well as from Memorial Hall 150 and 100,000 respectively and a hundred thousand for Place making activities in this email, which I know has been used also for some of the small business ecosystem. And also wanted to highlight a six million dollar investment of State funding for Melrose Wakefield Healthcare a behavioral health facility in Malden. I think like all of you we are worried about supporting those who are in crisis many families are dealing with members who have had some significant Behavioral or mental health issues and we're knowing we know that there's not enough capacity in the system to really provide the level of support and resources necessary. So really thrilled that there's been a site identified in Malden want to thank the senator and the Malden delegation for work on that long before I even started in the state house, but really glad to see the state stepping forward to support. That effort the senator also mentioned that the supplemental budget that the governor just signed yesterday, very exciting. She mentioned that it was a nice first piece of comprehensive legislation for her to put her signature on and this is essentially supplemental budget comes as the year progresses. We've done the fiscal year 23 budget, but then as you know, we see that there are certain needs that are still unaddressed and that we have the revenue to support them. So as a senator mentioned we have rounded out this school year with a universal free School meals, you'll also see that there was just as with this free School Meal program ending at the federal level. There were all so enhanced snap or food stamp benefits that ended I believe in March and so we've tried to sort of help with an off-ramp of that increased benefit for a three-month period by appropriating 132 million dollars for additional emergency SNAP benefits. Also 85 million dollars to family emergency family shelters. We're seeing, you know large numbers a families needing assistance with with Housing and then we've also got 68 million dollars in there for the Early Education and Care Workforce stabilization critically important to keep the workforce compensated as we also think about longer Term Policy reform and a million dollars in public awareness campaign just to support our reproductive Justice and access to health care here in the Commonwealth. We also in the supplemental budget that the governor signed yesterday extended a number of covid flex of pandemic flexibilities, including the hybrid meetings that you referenced earlier glad to see that working in action. So that's extended through the end of March 2025. There are some bills that have been filed the senator I think is a lead sponsor. I'm a co-sponsor that would make this type of meeting permanent to allow for continued remote access and public participation and this gives us the time to really have those move through the committee process and be fully vetted. We also extended in the bill outdoor dining and the cocktails to go for an additional year.","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=1407s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":1664.36,"end_sec":1696.53,"similarity":0.834,"text":"I also would draw your attention to the chapter 90 funding. So this is a big source of interest to municipalities. It's our annual roads and bridges funding bill and the Senate just took it up today. We did it last week in the house. We both agreed on a 200 million dollar appropriation for the chapter 90 program. That's what reimburses cities and towns for maintenance and infrastructure projects. There's a state formula that would determine what each municipality would receive and so you'll see that Melrose would be allocated a little about 514,000.","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=1664s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":1697.38,"end_sec":2101.35,"similarity":0.882,"text":"When the center and I were also thinking about legislation more than 6,600 bills were filed to start the session. And so there are many I think that would be a great interest to all of you but one that we thought we would bring up in the next slide is one followed by some colleagues that relates to creating a municipal and public safety building authority. So the senator reference that we've been looking at the msba which provides State funding, you know, a certain portion of funding for our school buildings. We don't have something comparable for Public Safety buildings. And that is obviously a topic of great interest in Melrose right now. I know that you all are heavily involved and invested and reviewing the options for our Public Safety buildings. So this bill proposes to create an independent Public Authority not unlike the msba that would provide matching funds for local public safety municipal buildings. Now, this is just been filed. So it's very early in the process and you know, it may not be of great value in the immediate term certainly if this starts to Move and pick up steam we might consider ways in which to advocate for there to be if it were stood up for it to sort of be to grandfather in some projects that have already been approved and we can keep you updated on the progress of this legislation interestingly when I looked it up yesterday and reached out to the house sponsored to confirm what I understood. It has been referred to the Secretary of the Commonwealth not to a legislative committee because it's proposing a new Public Service Corporation and the corporation would be funded through the excise tasks on the sale of marijuana. So just wanted to make you aware of this as an interesting proposal that's out there. I'm certain that The Sinner and I be happy to talk about any of the bills that we have filed or others that have been filed and before I turn it over to you. I thought I would just bring up one other thing that often comes up at least with city council, but I think for the school committee, this is particularly important as well over the course of the last years around our department of conservation Recreations oversight of lentils Parkway, which has you know, Often we are communicating and I want to really commend each of you for how much you care about your constituents and the residents of Melrose and their safety. So I thought I would just provide a quick update on three areas along the parkway that many of you have been involved in one is in the area sort of between the Saugus Town Line and Main Street where there have been there was a fatal crash and a near fatal crash over the last maybe 18 months you all may recall that DCR did a comprehensive audit of that area in the fall. They completed it and I will come in them for having done some modest safety enhancements after completing that audit so they added for static speed limit signs, which you'll see as you Traverse that area. They also put up to radar speed signs, which was personally gratifying to me because I'd been asking for those since 2020 so you will see those on both sides of the road. They've also done some pavement marching talk-ups touch up. Excuse me. That this area has also been included in their Master Parkways plan, which is proposed to be implemented over, you know, a number of decades. They have identified that some of the intersections need a complete redesign. So we'll be focusing on those with them in the future next spot to highlight is the Melrose Street intersection next to our middle and high school facilities. Thank you. All many of you have attended some of those public meetings and been in touch about the progress on that we did get an update this week that they have a 25% plan submitted should have the 25% plan submitted by the end of April and they'll share that with the city for comment the schedule has the project ready to bid in November and based on our request. They were going to work to develop a project web page to make resources available to the public to sort of monitor the progress of that and see any, you know documentation. You may recall we've had a couple as I mentioned public meetings on this and more recently to DCS credit. They went back to the drawing board based on The feedback they had heard and put in almost 40,000 additional dollars to their contractor designer to take a look and make even additional enhancements. So the total value the design contract that that's the work that they've done on the front end of things just to prepare for this larger design is over 230,000. The last estimate for construction was about 1.2 million dollars. So this is a big deal that if we can get to the finish line, that would be really excellent for the safety of our students our Educators and everyone who's working in traversing in that area. Finally. I know that there has been ongoing communication with VCR over the crossing guards. So that's been challenging in many areas. We've heard about work for shortages. It's been hard I believe for DCR just like for the city in some ways to find sufficient crossing guards. I know that there was a vacancy on Vincent Street and I want to thank the city chair drift School our Police Department for thinking about ways to cover that in the short term and Understand there may be some, you know a full-time person there at this point at the same time the city had been picking up the cost of someone at the vintent. I'm Excuse me at the Nelson intersection Nelson Lincoln and I'm grateful that DCR has agreed to reimburse the city completely for that position for the school year as they really should since it's their their Parkway last thing. I'd like to just bring up for you all as well. As for anyone who's watching is that MassHealth which as the senator references are largest portion of you know, the single largest appropriation that we provide in our budget is going to be going through a redetermination shortly. That means for the last three typically anyone on MassHealth annually has to be redetermined to be eligible for that Healthcare benefit during the pandemic that redetermination process was put on hold. It's going to start back up shortly. And so all 2.3 million people who are currently on MassHealth will need to go through the red. Termination for many of them that will be sort of an automatic easy process, but they will be getting notification about that and when we had the budget hearing recent this week with the MassHealth director, they estimate that, you know, two to three hundred thousand people will likely no longer be eligible that will be options for them in terms of maybe through their employer or through the health Connector, but people are maybe starting to reach out to you all as City councilors or school committee members to say. I'm getting something in the mail about being redetermined. I don't know what that means. Feel free to refer them to our offices for help that MassHealth is going to work really hard to for public awareness campaigns and to give people time, but it may come that have confusing for people and so we want to make sure that we're available to support them in that process as needed. So I'll stop there and we look forward to hearing from you.","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=1697s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":2353.68,"end_sec":2480.55,"similarity":0.863,"text":"well, it's a challenging question and a very sobering one as a parent certainly this week or too many weeks and days and to your point Mom's demand action was at the state house yesterday. I was glad to be there with them to sort of build momentum. Although there's plenty of momentum here in Massachusetts to your point, Massachusetts and the continental United States has the lowest rate of gun violence in the country Hawaii beats us but they also are surrounded by a lot of ocean. So it's a little bit easier for them to maintain their borders I suppose so you all may remember that last year toward the end of the US Supreme Court's term. They struck down New York's gun safety legislation their laws, Massachusetts laws were very similar and So to avoid illegal challenge here we acted very quickly in the legislature the house and the Senate to make sure that we cleaned up what we needed to clean up while maintaining the level of rigor that we believe is really important and necessary to keep our community safe. At the same time that was you know, very toward the end of our session. So, you know legislature often. Someone said today moves like molasses. We were quite Nimble on that and at the same time recognized that there's more to be done speaker Mariano shared at that time that this was a priority of his to take a closer look at our entire gun legislation and come back this session with even more comprehensive work to be done. For example, perhaps on what it takes to get a license the type of Education and Training you need to undertake before you are granted one the house Judiciary chair Michael Day, who's the rep over in Stoneham is leading a listening session around the state right now. He's done two of them so far. I think they're hoping to do up to eight to ten and they're noticing them as they find Space. They're doing all the the four corners of the Commonwealth to hear from folks as they work to craft some legislation, but I anticipate the house will take that up perhaps even this calendar year and I'm certainly share your sentiments about it and want to be a supportive as possible and keeping our communities as safe as we can.","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=2353s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":3073.09,"end_sec":3136.09,"similarity":0.842,"text":"pieces of legislation. We completed toward the end of last session and I wasn't in the legislature when? The legalization occurred and the initial sort of statutory framework was put into place but my sense from talking with colleagues who were there and as the the chairs of that committee who presented the bill explained it the spirit of the law had not anticipated that it would sort of be an ongoing financial obligation from a dispensary to continue to provide funding to a municipality and that in many places the small business owner or the business owner was finding that the negotiation leverage was really challenging and so that I think the idea behind the law initially had been this was sort of a one-time sort of agreement and a financial Arrangement that it wasn't supposed to go on into perpetuity. And so this was cleaning up the statutory language to accomplish the intent of the legislation from its Inception. I","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=3073s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":3154.48,"end_sec":3160.11,"similarity":0.754,"text":"And to any community that has you know, legal business operations, right? Yeah. Yeah,","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=3154s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":3634.82,"end_sec":3672.31,"similarity":0.83,"text":"and you know, some of this can be done at the policy level or by msba board itself. For example at their December meeting what they increase the per square footage reimbursement rate by a little bit. They might also be able to look back at what they allow what's considered allowable expenses within a project what they cover what they don't cover some of it will also potentially need to be adjusted and state statute, and I know that we are looking at that and considering if there are you know things we need to modernize in our laws in addition to just give them more of a on-ramp to expand their you know, their","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=3634s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":3672.94,"end_sec":3676.32,"similarity":0.647,"text":"the proportion which they're they're providing funding for the localities.","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=3672s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":3717.49,"end_sec":3797.49,"similarity":0.847,"text":"big question. I mean that's sort of macroeconomics almost. I mean one thing that you're seeing among the governor and now both leaders in the two Chambers is an interest in tax reform for example permanent tax reform sort of acknowledging that for many people in an inflationary economy costs have gone up things, you know, the grocery bills are high or what have you so there are a number of things floating around about sort of how do we translate these revenues that we're getting and can we sort of give some back to every you know, family whether it's your child tax credit, you know reforming there's conversation about a state tax or capital gains tax. So I think that's all sort of unfolding at the same time. It's part of it's part of this this large pie and this question of sort of where is the best place to invest and is and you're now hearing I think from all three the student president I think is already on the in the governor and now Speaker this morning indicated an interest in sort of going back. We had passed a pretty comprehensive tax reform budget or plan in July of last year and then realized what the 62f that 3 billion dollars need to be remitted back. And so that's sort of you know, everyone sort of stopped and said wait a second. So now we're going to take another look at that. So that's part","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=3717s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":4084.45,"end_sec":4230.23,"similarity":0.864,"text":"and clear and it's been heard by I would imagine almost all of my colleagues in the house. I'm a member of a number of caucuses including the progressive caucus and we put together our list of budget priorities last year. For example, we spoke and I was spokesperson on Early Child Care and Early Education and this year we did a ranking system again, and this one came out on the top too. So this isn't really a progressive issue but it's just hitting all districts just like Melrose and so you're seeing I think that's going to be very much a testament when we're trying to pick out priorities as an entire body that you're having bipartisan agreement, you know agreement within parties from different types of districts that everyone is really concerned about the impact of this 14 person increase and you know to be fair to OSD, I mean it was An enormous increase compared to year over year at the same time chapter 7 and 66 schools the folks who work there are doing God's work and really supporting some of our most high-intensive need students. And so they were certainly not being paid commiserate with what they needed, you know with the value of their work. And so I expect that that is in part what OSD acknowledged and also I expect that those schools are having difficulty retaining quality staff. And so but at the same time we hear you that this is you know unpredict what's not predicted. It's an incredibly steep increase and so I'm hearing from colleagues all over the state who are equally concerned and think of this as a top priority to really advocate for when we're going to the house Ways and Means chair to talk about what we'd like to see in the house budget and so we'll certainly keep you posted on that and follow. So the timeline, is that the Friday before the Wednesday For that our April vacation, they'll be a housewise amuse will put forth It's proposal we'll have about 48 hours to file amendments that will be due by the end of the day on Friday before April vacation. Nah, then for April vacation, they'll be pulling together all those amendments up to two close to 2,000 amendments will have been filed. They'll be figuring out into which buckets they go and then the Monday after April vacation the house will begin it's week of budget hearing or rather session to vote on a final bill and then it will head over to the Senate.","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=4084s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-30","video_id":318,"video_title":"Melrose City Council and School Committee Joint Meeting March 30th 2023","meeting_id":4423,"start_sec":4231.02,"end_sec":4245.4,"similarity":0.851,"text":"Okay, so once that's all done and I you know get a little bit of sleep. I'll be happy to send you all and email to let you know what what if Whitney thing we were able to do in that piece of legislation on this issue as well as others that have come up tonight. We support your propitious efforts","url":"https://vimeo.com/813391928#t=4231s","page_url":"/video/318"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2023-03-28","video_id":319,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee March 28th 2023","meeting_id":4420,"start_sec":10832.68,"end_sec":10838.28,"similarity":0.603,"text":"in doing so we would be supporting student health and safety because","url":"https://vimeo.com/812668236#t=10832s","page_url":"/video/319"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-08-15","video_id":389,"video_title":"Melrose City Council Meeting August 15th 2022","meeting_id":4120,"start_sec":1926.74,"end_sec":1935.74,"similarity":0.768,"text":"Thank you mayor Broder and thank you City councilors president self are having us here tonight to counselors Grigoraitis and makeliarelli for filing your resolution in","url":"https://vimeo.com/739836436#t=1926s","page_url":"/video/389"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-08-15","video_id":389,"video_title":"Melrose City Council Meeting August 15th 2022","meeting_id":4120,"start_sec":1936.99,"end_sec":1938.99,"similarity":0.661,"text":"my relatively short time as a","url":"https://vimeo.com/739836436#t=1936s","page_url":"/video/389"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-08-15","video_id":389,"video_title":"Melrose City Council Meeting August 15th 2022","meeting_id":4120,"start_sec":1939.24,"end_sec":1944.49,"similarity":0.693,"text":"state representative. It's been my pleasure to partner with you all and residents here in Melrose on a number of MBTA issues","url":"https://vimeo.com/739836436#t=1939s","page_url":"/video/389"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-08-15","video_id":389,"video_title":"Melrose City Council Meeting August 15th 2022","meeting_id":4120,"start_sec":1945.49,"end_sec":1972.24,"similarity":0.811,"text":"that we've had whether that was the proposal to close Cedar Park Commuter Rail station, which we successfully thwarted to shut down an entire bus line, which we had reduced service, but at least it still is running things going on in Wakefield. Similarly. It's really a testament to a good State local partnership that we can have these conversations and think creatively and with real sense of urgency about ways in which we can try to improve","url":"https://vimeo.com/739836436#t=1945s","page_url":"/video/389"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-08-15","video_id":389,"video_title":"Melrose City Council Meeting August 15th 2022","meeting_id":4120,"start_sec":1972.74,"end_sec":2066.99,"similarity":0.836,"text":"a process but it is you can't understand how devastating this is going to be for our region over the next 30 days. So as the mayor indicated this complete Shut down of the Orange Line begins at 9 pm this Friday evening service is anticipated to resume the morning of September 19th. It's that's a Monday and we as legislators have been sort of caught off guard just like everyone else about the imminence of this closure and have been working as quickly as we can with our offices to push back on, you know, the MBTA to understand better. It's lack of communication and notice on this the timing of it and how it is planning to really mitigate the disastrous impact. This is going to have on so many residents and families. Senator Lewis and I are offices joined the MBTA last week to really better assess out the plan for this closure and the MBT has committed just as it has apparently with the local Mayors to weekly meetings with the legislators. I'm certainly committed to pushing out all the information I get. Dates in terms of service shifts enhanced service, which hopefully could come on board through social media on my email newsletters, you know just as the Mayors it sounds like work together to request more Innovative thinking I similarly when the news broke spoke with the MBTA Deputy Chief of Staff about a need for express service on buses","url":"https://vimeo.com/739836436#t=1972s","page_url":"/video/389"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-08-15","video_id":389,"video_title":"Melrose City Council Meeting August 15th 2022","meeting_id":4120,"start_sec":2067.49,"end_sec":2313.49,"similarity":0.831,"text":"down to Boston. We've heard that that has been declined at this time. Also suggesting ways in which to make commuter rail service more enhanced it is the case that the commuter rail will continue to stop at all three locations here in Melrose. It will also stop at Oak Grove and at Malden Center in some ways. That means that our little portion of the orange line is going to be better service in some of our neighbors to the South so you will still be able to go to those stations rather than jumping on the more frequent orange you will Have access to the commuter rail, the commuter rail will not you will not pay a commuter rail price. So it all stops in Melrose as well as up in Wakefield and even into Redding you will need to just show your Charlie card or your Charlie ticket that will cover the cost of your ride into into Boston. So the mean while as the mayor suggested, there will be shuttle buses running at every Orange Line stop into Boston into Haymarket in Government Center the goal for the MBTA is to use these 90 days to accelerate significant safety issues that were highlighted most recently in the federal non-compliance findings the situation when the orange line catching on fire over the Mystic River and people jumping into the river underscores how dire the situation really is and the degree to which it's just not safe to keep the rails open right now, which is why we're why the mutate is indicating that it needs to close for this month, so they are Anticipating addressing many of the safety findings of the federal government. You may recall that there have been a plan to shut down service at Oak Grove or the the tea service in Oak Grove and Malden Center and Wellington, I believe and have shuttle buses running and if my memory serves from July 29th to August 28th, because they were going to be doing significant work at the Wellington Station. So, you know, they're going to be able to do that was a schedule closure. They're going to be working on the Wellington Station during this month as well and they're indicating that by closing down the line for this full month. They'll be able to essentially take on the work that would otherwise take five years to complete over weekends and off hours. But you know as the mayor said you can't underscore or minimize how disruptive this will be to individuals who absolutely rely on the orange line to to meet their basic daily needs so I know that you know my other These in the state house and I will be pressing the MBTA to provide ongoing proactive information to individuals about how best to navigate this. The tea already has put out a writer's guide to planning ahead. It's a tool that you can look at it provides information about the different stops along the orange line and what type of access will be available during the next month. There is a helpful grid that shows you the hours and time of the various Commuter Rail trains that will be running. They're also indicating that they'll update the if I recall it something like the fine My Ride app. I used to use it myself when I was commuting daily on the orange line. So presumably you can put in where you're starting and where you're going and it will provide you with some options, you know for how you can reach your destination and the time that you need it to be there. So those are things that we can continue to press on to make sure those are working. Well, we need better signage up at the stations and multiple languages to let people know. That this is happening and where they can go to get information and I would say to counselor Migliorelli's question earlier in terms of what people can do. I think reaching out to our offices to any of us would be appropriate. We'd be happy to hear from you and elevate your impressions your experiences and your concerns and get back to you with more information. And I you know, I'm here to support our our constituents and to work with all of you to think about ways to press the MBTA to continue to do better. So I'll turn it over now to Senator Lewis.","url":"https://vimeo.com/739836436#t=2067s","page_url":"/video/389"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-08-15","video_id":389,"video_title":"Melrose City Council Meeting August 15th 2022","meeting_id":4120,"start_sec":3655.82,"end_sec":3774.73,"similarity":0.844,"text":"And I would just add her underscore. Something that I think has been said about the importance of ongoing analysis as this is happening where I'm going to be along with all my colleagues. I'm sure pressing the MBTA to be rigorous and collecting both anecdotal and quantitative data about what is happening and press them to be dynamic throughout these 30 days to the degree that we can deploy additional services to a bus line or continue to press for you know, more dedicated bus lane service. I think it's really important not to suggest that we can't continue to improve even Within These 30 days and look for those opportunities driven by data and experience because it's really important. You know, I it's such the case that often decisions happen because of the immediacy of a need. So in this case, I keep thinking about that orange line and the fire and I think it's honestly remarkable that No one got injured at that moment in time. And so I can see people in this the center office saying it but there but for the grace of God someone could have died and we we can't guarantee that that might not happen again next week. And so we have it's an imperative that we shut it down at the same time. As you know, the example that the senator provided or that counselor jamaladian is referencing with her own profession. There are people who are going to have their own health at risk because of the this shutdown. So it's critical that we not only you know, sort of put out information as we're getting it from the MBT. But really, press the agency to be as rigorous as possible and reacting to data as it receives it and and being dynamic in shifting resources deploying things differently saying that nothing is said in stone and that we can continue to look for improvements throughout these 30 days.","url":"https://vimeo.com/739836436#t=3655s","page_url":"/video/389"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-06-14","video_id":403,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee June 14th 2022","meeting_id":4065,"start_sec":2534.66,"end_sec":2566.56,"similarity":0.61,"text":"We also wanted to highlight as a strength that we've worked very hard from a K-12 lens to be purchasing and supplying materials. This is through grants through different creative funding that Dr. Adams is always so great at finding and with we're trying to really focus on amplifying diverse voices and we're continuously coming back to which voices are being left out. Which voices are. We, you know amplifying well and what can we do better in and so those are questions that we've we've gotten better at asking","url":"https://vimeo.com/720492853#t=2534s","page_url":"/video/403"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-06-14","video_id":403,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee June 14th 2022","meeting_id":4065,"start_sec":2567.46,"end_sec":2597.9,"similarity":0.617,"text":"And then just another strength is that we're also continuously trying to connect this back to personalized learning in one of the ways that we've been able to do that is really connecting our social emotional learning and social studies, which I know Tim and I see as is very interrelated, but we're trying to make that known to others as well. And then also just really re-envisioning our units to be learner driven. So it's not always the teacher teaching but students are really diving into the learning themselves and we're guiding them.","url":"https://vimeo.com/720492853#t=2567s","page_url":"/video/403"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-06-14","video_id":403,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee June 14th 2022","meeting_id":4065,"start_sec":2613.61,"end_sec":2622.67,"similarity":0.614,"text":"been able to see that the materials and lessons that we are providing for students are our Civic they're engaged civically, right? They're","url":"https://vimeo.com/720492853#t=2613s","page_url":"/video/403"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-06-14","video_id":403,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee June 14th 2022","meeting_id":4065,"start_sec":2623.55,"end_sec":2631.4,"similarity":0.605,"text":"they're inquiry Beast. They're using historical thinking skills and that they are ready for civic action, which I know mayor will appreciate we've also","url":"https://vimeo.com/720492853#t=2623s","page_url":"/video/403"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-06-14","video_id":403,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee June 14th 2022","meeting_id":4065,"start_sec":2633.16,"end_sec":2648.04,"similarity":0.602,"text":"done a great job. I think with some challenge courses at both the middle school and high school an example of that would be our environmental justice class for sixth graders. And then we have also in grade 6 through 12 developed common assessments.","url":"https://vimeo.com/720492853#t=2633s","page_url":"/video/403"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-06-14","video_id":403,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee June 14th 2022","meeting_id":4065,"start_sec":9067.46,"end_sec":9115.42,"similarity":0.601,"text":"And then just an example of what this looks like in practice. So in an example of Equitable and inclusive instruction, this is an open Syed example, so for our grade seven students, they were researching a question. How does buying a candy bar affect the Iranian population? And as you can see this curriculum starts with a question just students asking questions. It gets them to develop models it gets them to analyze and interpret data and have them investigate and so ultimately as a result of this students were able to gain a better understanding of the complexity of an environmental problem. And so just to highlight this will be something that they're using over the next three years in grade 6 through 8.","url":"https://vimeo.com/720492853#t=9067s","page_url":"/video/403"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-06-09","video_id":401,"video_title":"Lynn Fells Parkway at Melrose Street Public Information Meeting June 9th 2022","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":3357.86,"end_sec":3458.59,"similarity":0.848,"text":"I okay. This is a this is state representative Caitlin pergier obedient. Thank you for putting together this third public forum to receive feedback from Melrose residents. I just want to again thank the mayor and his team and Senator Lewis for working really hard to ensure that we had a coordinated effort and we're providing timely information to folks and I'm glad that so many are able to join tonight and we'll be able to provide feedback understanding that this is a meeting that is intended to present to the community the the general plan moving forward. I do encourage GCR to consider the really informed feedback that you're receiving to see if there are additional safety mitigation elements that you can add in and it can complement the general thrust of this proposal and I'd also encourage you to provide and I think Jeff you would suggested this Would be included in the remarks some sense of timeline for everyone so that we can sort of level set and understand what comes next and when we would actually start to see some level of construction occurring and what the goal would be for completion of a project and I'll restate my interest and also a landing page during the course of this project so that people can see updates as they occur and even often perhaps to a notification system. That was very helpful as we've discussed before with the MBTA and the rail replacement project. And so would love to see that kind of communication effort once this is up and moving a little as well. Thank you again.","url":"https://vimeo.com/721503086#t=3357s","page_url":"/video/401"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-02-15","video_id":446,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee February 15th 2022","meeting_id":3895,"start_sec":1073.3,"end_sec":1633.82,"similarity":0.761,"text":"Thank you, Chair McAndrew and members of the school committee and Superintendent Kuchenberger. It's very lovely to be with you, I think, for the first time in this role in person. And it's nice to be back in the chamber with Senator Lewis. I want to echo his genuine gratitude for the work that you all are doing and the service and leadership that you have demonstrated during such a challenging time. I speak both as someone who has worked professionally in education for almost my entire career. and also as a district parent I am every day aware of what a tremendous effort it takes at each school and I'm grateful that you all are working on behalf of our educators and our students like the senator I'll go over just a few legislative updates and also share a bit about one of the priority bills that I'm so thrilled has a good amount of momentum and I'm also happy to speak briefly about the mascot conversation that is happening in the city so in addition to the really exciting news about the full implementation of a year two of six of the Student Opportunity Act and I wanted to thank the senator for his leadership on that bill as Education Committee chair I was working in the executive branch at the time and was really grateful also to have a small part to play in that but it's really a great credit to him and the legislative colleagues who got that to the finish line he the senator also mentioned just Just on Saturday, Governor Baker signed into law a $101 million spending bill, which largely goes to providing mitigation strategies and efforts in our continued COVID-19 recovery efforts. So that would include significant funding for high quality masks in our schools at $25 million, another $50 million for testing at K-12 schools with $5 million targeted to increase youth vaccination rates. I'm very grateful and was glad to support this bill in the House and its real attention on our K-12 school settings as well as our early education settings. You all also are probably familiar with the $4 billion COVID-19 recovery law that the governor signed in December. This was sort of a once in a lifetime level of investment drawing from our ARPA dollars that are at the state level as well as state surplus funding. And I was really honored to take the floor of the House for my inaugural address to raise up the $10 million of investment that I had secured for special education students who turned 22 during the pandemic, many of whom were unable to access some of their special education services because of safety concerns, and I'm really grateful for the superintendent and her leadership team for meeting with me to talk about that issue, and grateful that it was in the final legislation. That legislation also included an earmark for Melrose that the Senator and I secured for the high school elevators of $150,000 to assist with some upgrades that are very important for accessibility. And to the Senator's point, we always welcome your feedback on needs that you may have as we prepare for this fiscal year 23 budget process as well. I'm really excited to hear about a lot of the really good legislation that the Education Committee has reported out favorably. And one bill that the Senator referenced is H-127, the Student and Educator Data Privacy Act. This is a bill that I filed at the beginning of last session, drawing on my experience as an education attorney for over a decade, working in the space of federal regulations, FERPA, the Federal Student Privacy Act, and also monitoring states that were updating their own state laws around data privacy. So when I was a seventh grade teacher, all of my students' records were stored in a manila envelope in a file cabinet as a parent I can and as all parents these days know most of our students are creating a massive data footprint on a daily basis really and so our state laws have not update been updated during this digitalization of data and now we're really in the minority 45 states over the last decade of updated their state laws and so I filed this bill with a colleague who was chair of the Higher Education Committee last session and We're so thrilled to have the Senator's support as well as House Chair Peish. And I'm really hopeful that we'll get it to the finish line this year and happy to be in touch with any of you if you'd like to add support or have questions about that. Essentially within the law, it will update our definitions to acknowledge digitalization of data, define third-party operators who are receiving student data for K-12 purposes. It will codify in law guardrails around how those providers can use our students' data to appropriately support educators in the classroom while prohibiting certain activities like targeted advertising or creating a student profile that will retain in perpetuity, requiring return of all data or destruction of it when it's no longer necessary for the purposes of the contract. The bill would also have DESE establish a position to support district implementation of these requirements with a chief privacy officer and regulations and technical assistance and guidance to ensure that there's a level of consistency and just add leverage to your negotiations with third-party vendors when you're looking to provide the most robust learning environment for our students. And finally, it would ask that all districts as well identify someone who would be responsible for keeping an eye on privacy and ensuring that educators are mindful of these decision points as they look for creative content to provide to their students and also allow families to collaborate by knowing more about the types of third-party vendors with which a district is contracting. Happy to be in touch again about any of that. I'd also like to just note, thinking about a few of the things that Senator Lewis mentioned, the issue of early education care is also deeply important to me. As you know, I have a three-year-old and have been involved and supported a lot of the work of the Department of Early Education and Care in my previous professional role. And so I had a really robust community conversation that you can find on YouTube with a panel of early education experts, including a former EEC commissioner, talking about the growing momentum at both the federal and state level on this issue and really thrilled that the legislature saw fit to establish this special task force to study these issues. You also may know that I've done some podcasts and I've been pleased to see here Ruby and Morgan, who were two of my guests on a recent podcast series to hear more about the high school student experience during COVID. And also recently was able to meet with Carrie Berman, Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Personnel Services and the Administrator for Counseling and Student Services for grades six through 12, Lindsey Dobbins, to talk about all the leadership of the schools and social emotional learning. That'll be coming out soon. It was a great collaborative conversation with counterparts in the Malden Public Schools and such important work in both districts happening. Additionally, you all may be aware that we're still working with DCR on the intersection at Melrose and Linfels Parkway. So I was really grateful to be working hand in hand with the mayor and the senator to get DCR last year to put together several, I think two virtual community conversations where they took feedback in the first conversation about the concerns that so many residents and families and students have about accessing the middle school and the high school. They took that feedback, they did their own engineering analysis. And then in May, we met again virtually and they presented four conceptual options for us and heard feedback again. Well, we're already now in February. And so over the course of that interim, both of us have reached out, our offices have reached out to inquire about the status. And then the mayor sent a letter, very good letter this month again asking it now at this point the newest acting commissioner for an update and we do have confirmation that they are meeting Monday February 28th with the Crystal Street residents who asked for a separate meeting because some of them were unaware of these very well-noticed public meetings and so to DCRS credit they're trying to you know include them and there's nothing new that will be presented it'll be the same four concepts we all heard about in may and i'm certain that thereafter with city hall with you all with the senator will try to keep a lot of pressure on dcr to to move forward because i know how important it is for the safety of our our city to really get that updated um finally on the mascot issue i also want to commend principal merrill and this body for engaging in a very deliberative process seeking public input multiple times through various modalities to consider a new mascot for the high school. I co-sponsored the bill that Senator Lewis referenced in the House and it's now in the Senate as he mentioned an act prohibiting the use of Native American mascots by public schools in the Commonwealth. I was pleased that it received a favorable committee review in July of last year and if it's passed it will require the Board of Elementary and secondary education to issue regulations that ban public schools from using an","url":"https://vimeo.com/678000193#t=1073s","page_url":"/video/446"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-02-15","video_id":446,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee February 15th 2022","meeting_id":3895,"start_sec":1635.14,"end_sec":1662.75,"similarity":0.737,"text":"athletic team name mascot or logo that use that names refers to represents or is associated with Native Americans that is very broad language and I just think you know that Melrose has an opportunity here to own this process proactively and to identify a new high school mascot that has no history of bigotry in the city and so I would like to be on the record as well as supporting this process and and the identification of a new mascot so thank you very well thank","url":"https://vimeo.com/678000193#t=1635s","page_url":"/video/446"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2022-02-15","video_id":446,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee February 15th 2022","meeting_id":3895,"start_sec":1725.3,"end_sec":1760.55,"similarity":0.74,"text":"law right now and so far as you know FERPA or state law would say an education record which includes records that a student creates has certain privacy expectations the only the challenge is that our state law you know hasn't been updated to acknowledge that there is a lot of digital data now and that a lot of the ways in which it is disclosed to third parties is digitally it's not that I as a teacher I'm handing over you know physical papers to someone to take a look and hand back to me in fact it's really done through software","url":"https://vimeo.com/678000193#t=1725s","page_url":"/video/446"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-27","video_id":562,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee April 27th 2021","meeting_id":3544,"start_sec":222.25,"end_sec":487.25,"similarity":0.853,"text":"It's really nice to be with you and at the outset, I definitely want to acknowledge you Superintendent Kuchenberger and each school committee member and all the administrators and staff for the incredible work. undertaken during this incredibly challenging time on behalf of our students and educators. As you know, I'm a parent in the district, and so I can personally thank you for your efforts. They're making a real difference for families and for our teachers. So we're here to talk about the budget. And as you know, earlier this month, the House and Senate Ways and Means Committees announced an agreement on local aid for fiscal year 2022. The fiscal year begins at the state level as at the local on July 1st. The agreement, as announced, funds the first of six years of the Student Opportunity Act with full implementation by fiscal year 2027. The governor's budget proposal, which was released in January, would have funded the SOA at a one-seventh interval, so this legislative approach puts us on a faster timeline to full implementation. Through the Local Aid Agreement, the state will be funding Chapter 70 at its highest level at 5.503 billion dollars an increase of nearly 220 million dollars overall over fiscal year 2021. a legislative agreement between the two chambers early in the state budget process and as a state representative this is my first time actually in a typical budget process but to have the local leader agreement here with us now in early april is helpful for predictability and certainty sometimes budgeting can stretch into June or even early July as the two chambers negotiate over various things so now we sort of know what we're working with as we develop our local budgets at the same time as you've seen the increase in chapter 70 funding and Melrose's cherry sheet are quite modest this is because we've used the October 1st 2020 enrollment numbers for the funding formula and Melrose's was down at that point roughly to roughly 100 students from the year before which makes melrose a minimum aid community this fiscal year that's also the case actually for my the entire district that i represent for malden and wakefield as well and when i talk to the senator i believe all six of his municipalities and his district likewise have faced similar enrollment challenges which results in limiting minimum aid statewide as you know there's been an enrollment decline of about 33 or 34 000 students the school year so when i've met with house ways and means leadership about the budget i've emphasized my expectation that we're going to see an increase in a return to pretty much full enrollment this fall and suggested that we consider the fall 2020 numbers somewhat artificially low so given this concern the legislature has created or is going to create through the budget a 40 million dollar enrollment reserve fund the largest of its kind to help stabilize school districts to the degree they see enrollment increases next school year in the fall. I have heard a willingness from House leadership to revisit the sufficiency of that reserve once we have the October 1st numbers this coming fall. And then on top of that, because we're expecting a more typical enrollment number in the fall, that number will be used to determine the fiscal year 23 state aid. And I think it's quite likely that Melrose would see a healthy bump in Chapter 70 funding at that point. And hopefully that will bear out as potentially i'll be back with you and senator lewis as well this time next year um federally as you know and i you've all been discussing melrose is going to receive nearly 1.6 million dollars by the three tranches of the esser funding and with more than a million coming uh in the most recent tranche from the american rescue plan so this is a part and separate from the nearly 8.2 million dollars the city is receiving in the municipal program also through the american rescue plan and the senator and i can discuss with you the possibility of taking some portion of this final challenge as a bridge to the coming years of implementation of the student opportunity act which will be based on full enrollment um and thinking about using some of this money again as a bridge for some fiscally prudent longer term investments um so is the senator with us um or still not i was gonna i guess not so um well he we had talked about sort","url":"https://vimeo.com/542859068#t=222s","page_url":"/video/562"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-27","video_id":562,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee April 27th 2021","meeting_id":3544,"start_sec":489.6,"end_sec":504.23,"similarity":0.853,"text":"of him providing a little bit more context but i could pause there and um we could open it up to questions i know i'd love to hear from you all your perspectives and thoughts questions um and","url":"https://vimeo.com/542859068#t=489s","page_url":"/video/562"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-27","video_id":562,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee April 27th 2021","meeting_id":3544,"start_sec":554.67,"end_sec":573.42,"similarity":0.832,"text":"know um where that has landed yet it's a great it's yes um that's right there was an amendment filed i co-sponsored it um you know we had a meeting about the education amendments I'm almost certain that unfortunately that didn't get included, but I'll go back and double check on the math and I can be in touch.","url":"https://vimeo.com/542859068#t=554s","page_url":"/video/562"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-27","video_id":562,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee April 27th 2021","meeting_id":3544,"start_sec":1370.6,"end_sec":1520.8,"similarity":0.84,"text":"I'd certainly echo that sentiment. The Senator, Mayor, and I were on an event yesterday sort of highlighting the leadership of Melrose in environmental policy and sustainability, and it's definitely the case that there are many things that Melrose public schools are also leading on, and being able to sort of use exemplars at the local level to press for state policy shifts or investments is really, I think, effective when you're working you know, within the constructs of a building of a lot of different people with their own priorities and, as the Senator mentioned, many bills on the table. One that comes to mind based on what's just happened on the House side with the budget is there's a bill that I filed with former higher education chair Jeff Roy, who's now chair of the Energy Committee, focused on college and high school programs and providing greater commonwealth-wide access for all kids in high school for AP, for dual enrollment, for early college programs, and so forth. And I was thrilled yesterday that an amendment that we put forward to the budget increased funding for the early college programs by an additional $1.3 million above and beyond what we'd already put in. So that bill may have some legs. It's got support from a number of equity focused organizations, as well as some sort of more research policy groups. So that's 1 that comes to mind 1 other 1 that I'm excited about that. I filed sort of a refile, but with a lot of updates is around student data privacy and I added some provisions around teacher privacy. I want to make sure that districts feel like they have the resources and the support from the state and the leverage to be able to negotiate strongly with vendors over the types of protections they put in place for our kids and for our educators in terms of what they're collecting and how they're using it. And this year couldn't be more important as evidence for the fact that there's a lot of digital data that wasn't anticipated when we first wrote the laws that we currently have in place for student data privacy. That bill has been filed a couple of times in the past, as I mentioned, the one that I three filed is more expansive, but it got a favorable review from the education committee last year. And I think just COVID ground that to a halt. So I'm hoping maybe that the education or actually it's been assigned to a different committee, but I'm hoping we might get it back to education or even if not, then that committee could move it sort of quickly, but that might have some legs as well. I would hope so.","url":"https://vimeo.com/542859068#t=1370s","page_url":"/video/562"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-27","video_id":562,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee April 27th 2021","meeting_id":3544,"start_sec":1571.47,"end_sec":1626.9,"similarity":0.853,"text":"Well, I can start, and admittedly, I don't have a front seat at the table on these conversations. I'm reading what you're reading as well, that we are exceeding expectations in terms of some revenue streams. Of course, at the same time, at a state level, we've seen great need, right? And that's still very much the case. We still have significant numbers of people in unemployment. We still have huge challenges on food security, on housing security. There are also needs that didn't exist that we're mindful of. So that's why I think it was prudent in fiscal year 21, as well as in the budget that we're working on right now, to draw down some of the reserves we've had in the rainy day fund, that this is a singular time a once in a century kind of pandemic um but but with you know so","url":"https://vimeo.com/542859068#t=1571s","page_url":"/video/562"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-27","video_id":562,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee April 27th 2021","meeting_id":3544,"start_sec":1627.52,"end_sec":1669.89,"similarity":0.832,"text":"grateful that um with our strong massachusetts delegation in congress and a new administration we've been able to get you know the kinds of relief that we're talking about with the esser funding for the district and with the municipal relief on the city side that's hugely important um because obviously as you know we have to pass a balanced budget as at the state level as does the local level um so having a federal support is really critical for being able um to feel a little bit more confident about you know some of the addressing some of the initial challenges and fallout from the pandemic and then also thinking more long term about some sustainable investments","url":"https://vimeo.com/542859068#t=1627s","page_url":"/video/562"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-27","video_id":562,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee April 27th 2021","meeting_id":3544,"start_sec":1863.1,"end_sec":1922.76,"similarity":0.842,"text":"well yeah i just echo that both of those are important issues for me um i've co-sponsored the healthy youth act um thank you so much for your leadership on that and your time at the house um it's got really good lead sponsors this year so you know hopefully that bodes well for it um similarly on the career technical education side the senator and i refiled a bill that you led on in previous sessions related to support for those schools and really centralizing and highlighting them at desi um and you know i'm i'm thinking also of our meetings in the last year with northeast which as you may know is working on a new school building and so that's something to you know be mindful of at the local level because we'll be assessed a certain amount of the cost for that project it's based on student enrollment um you know some we're not one of the major sending districts um compared to some of the others um but that will be um they're there in the process of um of going through the msba process right now excellent thank you thank you","url":"https://vimeo.com/542859068#t=1863s","page_url":"/video/562"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-26","video_id":566,"video_title":"Tackling Climate Change in Massachusetts April 26th 2021","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":173.93,"end_sec":396.3,"similarity":0.863,"text":"As you all know, I took office about a year ago in March 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic necessarily interrupted a lot of legislative progress and process for countless bills. So it's a real testament to Massachusetts and the legislature that momentum on this bill did not waver. Instead, over the course of eight months, I was able to vote on the bill four times, each vote a resounding yes. And of course, in that same timeframe, evidence like California's record setting fire year, the extreme winter storms in Texas just underscored the imperative that we take action now. So with a senator, I'm just so proud of the Commonwealth's bold new climate law that meets our moment and is the first major update to the 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act. In this district and in Melrose, addressing our climate crisis has been a top priority. And so this legislation, as you referenced, includes a multitude of important provisions to help us to take on this existential crisis. And just before I turn to some of the specifics of the bill, I do want to acknowledge the city of Melrose's leadership in focusing so intentionally in a mission-oriented way on the ways in which local government can lead in this space. We've seen it just in the last week over the course of Earth Week and all the events that you put together. You're helping to create exemplars that inform state policy and certainly deepen my understanding of the issues. So I'm really grateful to Mayor Broder and Martha for your work here. And I'd also like to thank many residents in the district who are environmental advocates and experts and have served as resources to me when reviewing the climate policies. So let me just talk about a few of the provisions of the legislation. And, you know, it's it's a quite a hefty bill, so I won't get into all of them. But as you referenced, it's a roadmap bill. So it sets a statewide net zero limit on green gas, excuse me, on greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, mandating emission limits every five years as well as sublimits for transportation, buildings and other sectors of the economy. And to help us get to this overarching goal, we increased the renewable portfolio standard by 3% each year from 2025 to 2029, which will result in us being 40% renewable energy by 2030. We create for the first time a greenhouse gas emission standard for municipal lighting plants, and both the Senator and I have been in touch with Wakefield's Light Department during this time and as recently as last week. For renewable energy, we require an additional 2,400 megawatts of offshore wind, which increases our total authorization to 5,600 megawatts. We prioritize equitable access to state solar programs for low-income communities and provide solar incentives for businesses. We set benchmarks for the adoption of clean energy technologies, including electric vehicles, charging stations. Great work last week on the rollout of a number of pole-mounted charging stations here in Melrose, solar technology, energy storage, heat pumps, etc. One other thing I really am appreciative in the bill is codifying the concept of environmental justice, recognizing that the costs of climate change in terms of health and well-being are not borne equally across our state, based on decisions historically about where we site certain plants, where we put down certain roads. And so we've defined environmental justice populations and provided tools and protections for affected neighborhoods. So I might pause there. And, you know, there's many other provisions I could discuss, but I'll see what questions people have. And the Senator may also have","url":"https://vimeo.com/542416670#t=173s","page_url":"/video/566"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-26","video_id":566,"video_title":"Tackling Climate Change in Massachusetts April 26th 2021","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":1551.1,"end_sec":1852.35,"similarity":0.87,"text":"Sure. So that was really helpful to hear the Senator list off every bill that I'm quite familiar with and I'm pleased to be supporting also. And in addition to being a member of the Zero Waste Caucus and very grateful for the Senator for helping to spearhead that and serve as a co-chair, it's been a really nice group to join in terms of just being able to focus on sustainability practices and policies and meet with experts in the field to sort of talk through a lot of these challenges and potential solutions. Beyond that, I've also been named to the Telecommunications Utilities and Energy Commission, so TUE. And at the end of last year, I made a professional New Year's resolution to learn more about energy because it just is at the intersection of so many of the things we're talking about tonight. So to be on TUE is very exciting to me, climate resiliency being a big issue in our district. So I've had the pleasure to date of meeting with the Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary for the state. Last week, I joined the House Chair and other members to tour a battery energy storage system that helps reduce demand during critical peak times when electricity is most expensive and may have a higher environmental impact. I'm really looking forward to serving on this committee where some of the bills that we're talking about tonight have been assigned and where we'll also just have an opportunity to engage on a lot of these issues. So for the current session, maybe I'll just mention a few of the bills that I'll be championing. You know, there are all these important themes that we've discussed tonight with respect to zero waste, consumer protection, public health, transportation, transformation, toxic chemical reduction, and job creation. On that last one, you know, one thing that was mentioned by the mayor and the senator was how there's also, you know, a real workforce development piece to this. And in fact, the new law does establish a $12 million annual funding for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center that's going to create pathways to clean energy jobs for folks who have been displaced and for others in important communities. A bill that's been filed this year would similarly establish a green infrastructure fund. It would raise these funds by a bond, a bonding program, as well as eliminating a pollution fee loophole that's used by out-of-state fossil fuel importers. And that would support investments in transit, housing, renewable energy, and research to help reduce emissions. And a significant amount of attention in the bill is paid to workforce development and green jobs for displaced workers. Another bill that comes to mind that's in the zero waste realm is one that would create a commission to develop incentives and policies within the state to promote robust and comprehensive markets for waste reduction through the support of reuse, repurposing, refilling, and recycling industries. So this will help to address, this commission would help to address this growing waste issue that is really burdening our cities and towns, what the Senator mentioned a little bit ago. I think the bottle bill is one that I'll just emphasize again. I know the Senator spoke to this. We've seen that bottle deposits are really an effective strategy for recycling beverage containers. and so much of what we try to recycle in curbside programs ends up not being recyclable because of contamination so our bottle bill hasn't been updated since it became a law 40 years ago and this bill would expand the deposit to cover water bottles nips which we've talked about with at some length in melrose for example on the city council um vitamin drinks and other containers i would also raise the deposit from five to ten cents uh maybe one more uh that i'll mention um what i appreciate about more than 6 000 bills that have been filed is that you can find bills that are quite comprehensive in scope and some that are more targeted but really present an interesting concept so one example would be a pilot program related to how we raise funds for safe and reliable transportation so the pilot program would be done with volunteers and it would assess owners of of motor vehicles, a user fee based on the number of miles traveled on roads in the state as a possible alternative to fuel taxes. So you'll have about 1,000, at least 1,000 volunteers in the Commonwealth who represent drivers of trucks, passenger, and commercial vehicles, and they'll have on the board vehicle mileage counting equipment added to their vehicles. And again, this is all done through volunteers. And this program would allow us to test the reliability and ease of use and cost of this type of program and enable MassDOT or DOT to refund these volunteers the fuel taxes they do pay or otherwise compensate them. So those are a few to give you a sense of the kinds of work that's going to be continuing in this session and I'll continue to champion these bills as well as those associated with costs related to municipal recycling, building codes, a climate resilient NBTA, protecting electric right payer is something you we've talked about in the past so it's a quick rundown","url":"https://vimeo.com/542416670#t=1551s","page_url":"/video/566"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-26","video_id":566,"video_title":"Tackling Climate Change in Massachusetts April 26th 2021","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":2387.95,"end_sec":2484.18,"similarity":0.852,"text":"echo all of that and say this this question sort of drives at how there are multiple ways in which we're moving to a new normal where we are moving toward electrification so part of it is around what can government policy do to support these shifts because they're so important for our long-term goals so things like the rebates things like making infrastructure possible to make people feel confident that this is an option for them for longer travel for example there's also just the science so you know as we set policy in place in these goals it encourages research and development to help us meet them and it sort of spurs that level of innovation which also then drives you know the private actors in the marketplace where we're seeing every day a new car company announcing that it plans to go fully electric by a certain time i think maybe honda came out last week with something along these lines right so all of these interplaying together will necessarily have to make it manageable for the average family including someone like yours Truly, who is still driving a car she purchased, you know, over 10 years ago. But I think the state recognizes that what's important is to try to, at the moment in time where your car is no longer the one that you want, and you're ready to replace it with something else. And for everyone, that's different. Some people, I think, are less inclined to keep a car running for 10 years. But, you know, at that point, we want to try to ensure that state policy, that, you know, markets, market actors are creating an option for you um that makes it reasonable to really move toward an electric","url":"https://vimeo.com/542416670#t=2387s","page_url":"/video/566"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-26","video_id":566,"video_title":"Tackling Climate Change in Massachusetts April 26th 2021","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":2686.34,"end_sec":2784.11,"similarity":0.848,"text":"response i mean i can start um but you know i think it would be nice to you know build off of each other so there is for example this commitment to the workforce development um energy clean energy center that i that i mentioned um you know that's really related to workforce development but so not directly to municipalities i think the large in large part some of this is the complementary work we do on our annual budget every year so we have identified and expanded the responsibilities for some of our state agencies that are granting authorities to municipalities to oversee any number of programs that support really important you know full you know employees at the municipal level or projects capital projects that occur so you know in the the houseways and means budget that we are deliberating on and debating this this uh week i'm kind of looking at my other screen to to see if I'm going to be called back into session for some votes, you'll see expanded, authorized, directed funding to the different EEA agencies that are responsible for carrying out the climate bill responsibilities, right? And so, as Ellen probably knows from her important work on PedBike, where we've gotten some really great state grants over the course of the last year to do some innovative things, you know, we're going to see, we've expanded the responsibilities, as you were mentioning, Martha, of a number of state agencies that now need to issue new rules and regulations and put out policies. And part of that is going to dictate how they are then supporting municipalities in meeting many of the goals that are set out in the law.","url":"https://vimeo.com/542416670#t=2686s","page_url":"/video/566"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2021-04-26","video_id":566,"video_title":"Tackling Climate Change in Massachusetts April 26th 2021","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":3189.2,"end_sec":3263.06,"similarity":0.838,"text":"state to be a leader in this area. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'll just echo what the mayor and senator have shared on this point um and also just um recognize there is a lot of work going on in the vocational technical education space that you know that has been going on for a while it's sort of um had a rebirth of attention at the state level and also the federal level um where we're really recognizing that a lot of the careers that these schools prepare students for are high paying and really high satisfying um so you know one thing that we've i've seen a lot of work done in my time at the executive office of education in my previous role was an intentional intentional work to really connect voc tech schools with workforce groups at a regional level to talk about where we could see job growth and where there was going to be demand for a new employees so certainly if we're you know now the south shore is aware um you know that we we're investing in more wind um and that's also a huge priority in the houseways and means bill that just got released this week you know i would expect that all of our vocational technical schools are you know taking stock of that talking with their workforce groups chambers of commerce and so","url":"https://vimeo.com/542416670#t=3189s","page_url":"/video/566"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-11-24","video_id":665,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee November 24th 2020","meeting_id":3333,"start_sec":122.53,"end_sec":356.45,"similarity":0.871,"text":"And, of course, you feel free to re, forward what I know you've already sent us. He said he was having an error message, trying to join. Okay. Okay, so while we handle the business of zoom public meetings, which we're all unfortunately, very familiar with, I'm glad to be with you tonight. It's nice to see all of you. I hope everyone's doing well. Your families also. And thank you so much for all of the work that you've been putting in this year. I think it was President Carriere said the hardest job he ever had was being on a school board and he didn't do it during a pandemic. So I'm really appreciative for all of your hard work and your effort on behalf of the students in Melrose. So, as we wait for my colleague, Jason, Senator Lewis to join us, I'm happy to kick things off to just give you a summary of the budget process and where we are in terms of what the house has done. Hopefully, then he'll be able to join and give you a flavor of the Senate side. And then, of course, we can talk about any questions that you have. So, as I think many of, you know, this has been a very challenging year from a budget perspective, including because of concerns with revenue. But I'm pleased to report that despite those significant fiscal challenges caused by the pandemic, the House passed a budget for fiscal year 21 this month, and it would demonstrate a very strong commitment, I think, to K-12 education. So, 1 year ago, of course, as, you know, we were celebrating the passage of the student opportunity act, which updated our state's funding formula and that's referred to as, you know, chapter 70, because that's the chapter of the general law, where you find the formula for student funding. So, that that act was passed to ensure that our formula was updated to reflect the cost of adequate resources to provide a high quality education to all students in the Commonwealth. The pandemic has temporarily impeded a full first-year implementation, but the House budget avoids any significant cuts to education funding and, in fact, increases Chapter 70 funding by $108 million for a total of $5.28 billion in the Chapter 70 formula. So we're also going to work to get back on track over the course of the Student Opportunity Act seven-year implementation schedule, and I know leadership in the House and the Senate that are very committed to that. Additionally, you'll find in the house budget that we allocated $53 million to a new line item, one that is responsive to the pandemic. And so that's for one-time enrollment-based grants to districts that can be used for any number of things. So it could be for onsite learning or remote learning, for PPE, for other expenses, including technology and software or mental health supports. So that's a really important investment we've added to our bill and then you'll see as you go through the different line items within the DESE umbrella the house budget increases funding for among other things the METCO program career technical education programs charter school reimbursement and after school and out of school grants so those are some that I would note as being increases but again there were no you know, large cuts in the House bill. So we did that a couple weeks ago and then the Senate completed its budget bill last week. And so now there is a conference committee of three senators and three representatives that will be working out any differences. My understanding is it's not, they're not as far apart as they might be in certain years. I think it was a more streamlined process. So hopefully we'll either get a bill, a consensus bill, to the governor's desk this week or perhaps because of the holiday next week. And then we'll see what his review does and go from","url":"https://vimeo.com/483801500#t=122s","page_url":"/video/665"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-11-24","video_id":665,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee November 24th 2020","meeting_id":3333,"start_sec":1144.15,"end_sec":1181.31,"similarity":0.811,"text":"I'll just add that I know the chair of that, the House chair of the Joint Committee on Education, so Senator Lewis's counterpart, I've been in touch with Representative or Chair Paish about this concern, because I'm sure you've been grappling with it, both in your role. he and then as well perhaps from some of the residents in melrose i have heard from them as well about this as they were making choices um for the school year so she's very it's very much been on her radar for week for months um so i know that she'll work closely with the senator to think about how to appropriately account for that in the in the next fiscal year thank you both very much","url":"https://vimeo.com/483801500#t=1144s","page_url":"/video/665"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-11-24","video_id":665,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee November 24th 2020","meeting_id":3333,"start_sec":1463.5,"end_sec":1532.16,"similarity":0.761,"text":"Yes, I don't really, I don't have anything to add, honestly. I mean, I concur with both of your sentiments and concerns in the prioritization of trying to continue to enhance our testing infrastructure. You know, we're seeing very promising updates about the vaccines, but we're still going to be living with the disease for, you know, months to come. And so, continuing to enhance our ability and access to these types of tests to the surveillance testing certainly should be a is a priority. But I'm not aware of any immediately or in the short term forthcoming news about a big sort of increase in that. I would just also add to your first point, committee member, Ms. Andrew, that, in fact, I think the numbers that the senator was citing, about half of the students who are accounting for that decrease of almost 40,000 students across the state, half of those are attributed to pre-K and kindergarten students. So what we are seeing here in Melrose is true across the board, I think.","url":"https://vimeo.com/483801500#t=1463s","page_url":"/video/665"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-11-24","video_id":665,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee November 24th 2020","meeting_id":3333,"start_sec":1819.28,"end_sec":1917.65,"similarity":0.809,"text":"out there. And I would just add that while it's certainly the case that this is an interplay of federal requirements and state law requirements. And so, you know, there is a little bit of a wait and see. But we did demonstrate, you know, in the past year that we were pretty quick and able to push through some reform at the state level to provide that moratorium for the year. So I think we can act quickly when we get, you know, more information from a Biden administration. The other thing is, even if we just, you know, determine that we want to or we have to administer the assessment, there is some level of ability at the state level to consider the due process rights of students, for example, and ensure that we're considering the high-stakes nature of the assessment, for example, to your point. I'm sorry, I always want to say counselor because, you know, from being on the city council, but missed a sound. So that's something I think my colleagues are very, you know, thoughtful about, you know, and so it is the case that, you know, it's a graduation requirement. There are multiple years in which a student can take it. I'm sure that DESE is looking at the data to see, you know, which students, you know, how many students we're talking about and uh the degree to which we need to perhaps consider some additional accommodations and support uh because students certainly should not be penalized um for a pandemic when it comes to to reaching their graduation milestones","url":"https://vimeo.com/483801500#t=1819s","page_url":"/video/665"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-11-24","video_id":665,"video_title":"Melrose School Committee November 24th 2020","meeting_id":3333,"start_sec":1988.73,"end_sec":2013.34,"similarity":0.743,"text":"Thank you, Mayor Broder, for the letter that you were able to send out to the MBTA very quickly, and we're pleased to continue to work with you on that. Of course, as you know, there's a public meeting, I believe, a week from tonight, and so hopefully folks from Melrose, the school committee members, city councilors can join. There'll be an opportunity to provide comment","url":"https://vimeo.com/483801500#t=1988s","page_url":"/video/665"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-11-16","video_id":671,"video_title":"Melrose City Council November 16th 2020","meeting_id":3320,"start_sec":6279.56,"end_sec":6555.57,"similarity":0.786,"text":"cuts on our community great i believe the senator is here as well um so he may just be it took me a minute to figure out the um video setting for this but um it's nice to see you all i hope everyone's well um and i enjoy getting to spend time with you but i wish it were for um a topic other than this one so i want to start out by just thanking you for your partnership on this issue um the senator and i both became aware of these proposals at the beginning of last week when the mbta provided a briefing for legislators uh in relation to a significant budget shortfall that it faces due to the pandemic um of greater than half a billion dollars and so um as i think most members of our community now know and as you all obviously do um there are proposals now on the table specific proposals related to service reductions and eliminations across the mbta system which serves nearly 80 communities in the boston area including melrose some system-wide proposals include a reduction in hours so for example the commuter rail would no longer run on the weekends all trains would stop after midnight similarly buses i believe would stop after midnight And then there would be longer times between, for example, the Orange Line cars. So we'd see sort of everyone would bear that equally across the MBTA. But then the MBTA also has proposed specific elimination of six commuter rail stations and 25 bus routes. And remarkably, three of these are all in Melrose. So we have the Cedar Park commuter rail station that would be proposed to be closed, as well as our 31 excuse me our 131 and our 136 bus routes the 136 also serves wakefield and reading to our north um so these were of course a great concern to all of us and so i'm i'm really glad that you all are showing such uh concerted and coordinated leadership in terms of uh contacting the mbta to voice your concerns in opposition to this proposal uh you probably i believe i shared with you last week and i um and i know both the senator and i have shared publicly a letter that we wrote together and sent to the general manager last friday i believe similarly identifying our concerns with this proposal um i mean essentially roughly 10 percent of the closures of buses and commuter rail stations are in melrose despite the fact that we are just one of about 80 communities being served by the system um so you know we've also done a lot of work directly with city hall uh mayor broder uh the um city planner gaffey we've been on a call together talking about um opportunities to voice our concerns i've also been in touch with melrose wakefield hospital and they put together a letter that they also sent to the mbta at the end of last week I'm noting the impact that this would have on serving their patient population as well as their workforce, which also rely on bus and commuter rail for commuting. I've been in touch with our largest nursing home employers. You will not be surprised that many of those workforces as well use the buses coming north from the cities where the men and women who work in our nursing home facilities may live they rely on the buses to get to work um so i believe at least a couple of the nursing homes are also putting together letters um of course as well the mbta will be doing um virtual meetings so they'll have um and they've done it both by the system-wide as well as divided every community into different regions and so melrose falls in region nine there will be a specific virtual meeting um on our region i believe it's the first monday in december on that evening i signed up to speak at that uh i would expect others um you know could as well um and we're going to continue to push out information to the community the web pages i'm sure you all are aware is mbta.com forging dash ahead and there is a there is a place there where anyone can send in a comment about these proposals and also sign up to attend these virtual meetings so i'll pause there um and see if the senator has anything he'd like to add um and then of course we can continue we can answer any questions you might have or hear from you about additional thoughts about our strategy for for addressing this um proposal thank you representative","url":"https://vimeo.com/480953852#t=6279s","page_url":"/video/671"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-11-16","video_id":671,"video_title":"Melrose City Council November 16th 2020","meeting_id":3320,"start_sec":7091.59,"end_sec":7152.45,"similarity":0.776,"text":"right in terms of the december vote and i i recall that from the presentation and perhaps there are some details that remain outstanding on this that the uh the actual implementation of these reductions and elimination are sort of staggered over time i believe some may not even come up fully online until the spring for example which sort of underscores the point um that the senator was making about the timing of this being problematic um because in addition we've gotten some really promising news both today and last week in terms of the vaccine um prognosis and so there is some hope that we will start um to be able to combat the virus that way as well such that people may be able to start feeling more confident um you know returning to a more normal schedule come spring just as some of these buses and um and then the cedar park stop might no longer be available to them. Thank you. Sure. Anyone else wishing to","url":"https://vimeo.com/480953852#t=7091s","page_url":"/video/671"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":0.02,"end_sec":267.57,"similarity":0.893,"text":"I think we could get started and if more people join I'll do my best to to notice them and admit them in. I want to thank everybody very much for being here with me tonight. I'm State Representative Kate Lipper-Garabedian and I'm really honored and appreciative of the panelists who've agreed to join us to have an important conversation around criminal justice during COVID-19. I want to thank those of you in the community who expressed interest in this conversation and submitted some really great in advance. One thing I want to flag for you at the outset is that the House Broadcasting Service is going to record the presentations tonight, just so that folks who are unable to participate and join us today can use the information down the road. If you are at all uncomfortable with that, first of all, my understanding is you won't be part of the broadcast. They're going to be looking only at the speakers and the presentations, but you're also welcome to turn off your video at any time if that's more comfortable to you so I think Becca with that you can probably record on our end as well and we can get started so the idea for this first community conversation really generated out of some different communications that I had from constituents from the very beginning when I was sworn in just about six months ago through a few weeks ago just questions of concern about our incarcerated population during COVID-19 and the public health ramifications for those those persons as well as more recently some interest around a particular situation that involved the bail system and so I reached out to some of the content experts who are here to talk with us tonight and they kindly offered to put this together with me so so that we could explore some of the questions around the different government agencies that administer our criminal laws and so forth. So that includes obviously our local police departments, our prosecutor's offices and our houses of correction. We only have an hour tonight and based on the questions that you all provided, I know you're really thinking critically about criminal justice as well as its intersection with many other areas of public interest. For example, we're at a moment in time where there is significant attention and conversation happening in our local communities at the state level and nationally around law enforcement. And there's absolutely a critical intersection between law enforcement protocols and our criminal justice system. But for the purposes of tonight, I just say that we'll mostly be focusing on criminal justice and the application of our laws in that situation or in that paradigm and not on law enforcement because we just don't have the time. But that doesn't mean we can't have another conversation. It's certainly the case that I've been in lots of conversations with you over email and the phone and so forth about law enforcement. And obviously there's been a lot of attention on that in my role as a state rep, and I've been communicating about that in my newsletters. But as you'll see, and as it was phrased in the registration form that you all filled out, we're gonna look a lot at questions around pre-incarceration pre-conviction considerations uh the incarcerated population how we're moving to for decarceration efforts and then continuity of care when folks re-enter um uh our communities um so you know if we don't get to all the questions that were asked ahead of time um please know that we will follow up with you um and you're also as questions come to you that we may not be able to get to tonight you're welcome to put them in the chat function to me i'll create a record and make sure that we follow as well. So again, thank you for being here tonight. And I think we'll turn now to some introductions from our panelists. So I'm very pleased to be joined tonight by Melrose Police Chief Michael Lyle, the Middlesex District Attorney Marion Ryan, and the Middlesex Sheriff Peter Katuzian. And I think what we could do is just start before we turn over to our conversation topics with just a little introduction from each of you, maybe talking a little bit about your professional background and the work that your agency undertakes in the criminal justice system and then I think we'd all be interested to hear a little bit about how COVID is impacting the work that you're doing in serving our communities so maybe we'll start tonight with Chief Lyle and hear from you a","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=0s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":268.71,"end_sec":272.42,"similarity":0.709,"text":"little bit and you'll need to unmute yourself now. How's that for a sound test?","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=268s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":893.34,"end_sec":952.72,"similarity":0.893,"text":"D.A. Ryan. That's a really helpful overview, and it's true that in many different spaces, obviously COVID has been incredibly disruptive and traumatic, but there have been some lessons learned that we can probably apply even moving forward once we're past this period um and it's good to hear a little bit about the things you're thinking about in that vein um my last guest uh tonight is our middlesex district uh sheriff peter katushin and as the da mentioned uh the three panelists have had a lot of time to to work together i'm a little newer in this community but as the sheriff and i uh discussed earlier on i'm very happy to be part of his armenian community I don't know how often you all join a community conversation where half of the panelists have Armenian last names, but you're in one tonight. So, Sheriff, feel free to sort of just introduce yourself, talk a little bit about your professional background and the work that you've been focused on during COVID-19. And thank you again for being here.","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=893s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":1329.21,"end_sec":1434.71,"similarity":0.879,"text":"very much representative thank you sheriff um and your comments as well as the other guests just made me think that certainly after this uh conversation tonight my office will follow up with all the attendees um and share with you any resources that have been mentioned in terms of where to go to see some of the um the initiatives uh that each of our guests has described i think that'd be really helpful for everyone um so with that let's turn to the topics of conversation that were largely driven by the um the questions that you all asked ahead of time so we've broken i've broken this out into three different sections we'll talk a little bit about considerations that occur before someone is incarcerated before they're convicted uh then we'll turn to questions around uh decarceration and programming and supports for folks who are in our houses of correction and then we'll close out with continuity of care thinking about how we're supporting individuals and the community upon reentry and what are some next steps and in fact uh you've already you know each of you and your discussion sort of teed up some of the the bigger conversations that are having we're having in the next steps so in the first topic uh just around pre-incarceration and pre-conviction um you know at the outset as someone potentially enters the criminal justice system, there's this decision point about how do we address a behavior when a police officer is called to an incident or a department becomes aware of something happening in the community. So, Chief, I'd love to start with you and just talk about ways in which your department is attuned to this issue and how you think about whether or not there are ways to sort of minimize minimize incarceration, to de-escalate situations. So if you could speak to that, I think that would","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=1329s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":1437.08,"end_sec":1442.45,"similarity":0.823,"text":"be great. And you're going to have to unmute yourself. I know, I was guilty of that earlier.","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=1437s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":1691.61,"end_sec":1745.98,"similarity":0.842,"text":"Great. Thanks very much, Chief. And I wonder if either the DEA or the Sheriff want to add anything, including, you know, I think the Chief is speaking a little bit about, you know, on the ground practice and sort of protocols in terms of how the police officers would engage, you know, residents or others in a situation. I think in addition to sort of the practices that we have, there are also the policies that are established at a statutory level or regulatory level. And so, for example, Massachusetts, you know, passed a pretty robust criminal justice reform effort that also sort of was attuned to this idea of decriminalization and trying to, you know, be really attuned to concerns about over-criminalization and overpopulation in our criminal justice system. So I don't know if you want to add anything to what our Chief Lyle has","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=1691s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":2095.64,"end_sec":2104.14,"similarity":0.832,"text":"briefly on this i'm mindful of our time and want to make sure we get to some of the other great questions we were asked ahead of time thank you yep i understand kate and quite honestly i've got","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=2095s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":2259.14,"end_sec":2328.14,"similarity":0.83,"text":"Great. Thank you. One thing that you bring up, Chief Justice Ganston, thank you for those sentiments, and I'm sorry for your personal loss as well. One of the things that he did, in keeping with your sentiments here, was ask for a study that Harvard Law School just completed and released last week that takes a close look at racial disparities in the Massachusetts prisons and in the criminal justice system, showing that Black and Hispanic or Latino people are incarcerated at higher rates than white people and are given longer sentences. And so understandably, we're going to be looking at that research really closely. I'm sure all your offices are really poring over it right now. You know, I'm wondering what data do your agencies currently collect and examine related to questions about racial disparities? And I think you've already sort of touched on that a little bit, Ryan, just a few minutes ago, talking about going back five years. But just interested in any thoughts you have, initial impressions of that study and the work that you're doing to consider, you know, responding to it, respond to that issue.","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=2259s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":2409.39,"end_sec":2432.14,"similarity":0.789,"text":"on that spiral. That's great. And I think that's exactly right. You know, I saw that a lot of it comes down to some of the initial charging decisions. But to your point, if it's a second offense or a third offense, the initial charting decision is something of a misnomer. There was a charging decision that preceded this one um so sorry were you going to say something sheriff","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=2409s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":2679.55,"end_sec":2728.05,"similarity":0.857,"text":"very mindful of that in our programs. That's great. I'm going to move us on just in a, I don't know if our panelists have hard stops, but we are not even halfway through our first of three topics. So maybe will turn quickly DA to the bail system and if you could just provide a general you know few minute overview I know that's clearly not enough time but it's certainly something that folks in the Melrose area have reached out about just in terms of how it works in terms of making determinations around pre-trial options including requiring bail or seeking a dangerousness hearing to the degree it's possible for you to just touch on the differences between a bail magistrate and a bail commissioner and the qualifications to become one and who determines a fair amount of bail, feel free to weave that in. And if we can't get to that tonight, we can obviously follow up","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=2679s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":2905.55,"end_sec":2927.05,"similarity":0.854,"text":"the differences in bail. Thank you. And one thing that you helped educate me about with respect to the dangerousness hearing opportunity is that the law is very prescriptive in terms of what types of offenses that you're charged with committing can actually allow for a dangerousness hearing. It's spelled out in the statute. Yes, thank you. That's right. So lots of times","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=2905s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":2958.55,"end_sec":2974.8,"similarity":0.824,"text":"dangerousness sure um out of a respect for the other questions and topics that people are interested in i'm going to move on but there were definitely other questions around bail maybe that i'll just um you know put to you to be thinking about and you're always respect oh one second","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=2958s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":3100.17,"end_sec":3162.05,"similarity":0.838,"text":"okay thank you and the topics or the the specific questions that we weren't able to get to tonight but just for your offices particularly um maybe DA Ryan's to be thinking about I'm sure you're hearing questions about it is the Massachusetts Bail Fund, which understandably has been thinking about its role in the wake of the George Floyd murder. And to your point, the identification that the bail system has a disparate impact on folks of limited means and a concern that it's long been used inappropriately to keep people who simply just don't have the means to be in the community from being in the community, even though they might pose no risk. But of course, in the current environment where I understand the bail fund has been more involved in helping folks get bail. It maybe changes the dynamics. And there have been questions in Melrose just about its role. And I don't know if you want to speak briefly to that, but I also know we have a lot more to get to. So I'm okay to go ahead. All right. I'll just do one sentence. I mean,","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=3100s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":3195.8,"end_sec":3300.05,"similarity":0.843,"text":"making that assessment great thank you all right let's move on to our second topic of three just around incarceration considerations so you know early on in my tenure I signed on to a letter in early April with a number of House and Senate colleagues to the governor just asking for real attention on our incarcerated population recognizing that they based on their living situations were at heightened risk for kovat and certainly we've seen that play out in some places around the country. And then in, you know, later in that spring, the House and the Senate agreed on some legislation that the governor signed around reporting requirements with COVID-19 and included houses of corrections in some of those requirements. So the bill is Chapter 93 of the Acts of 2020. It requires houses of correction to report aggregate positive cases and mortalities of both the incarcerated population and the staff of prisons. And also to look at the total number of residents per facility and how each resident is being held. So are they in a single cell? Are they being settled with one other person? Are they being settled with two or more folks? And there's a weekly report that is being provided on that. And most of this, I think, can be found through DPH's website. So Sherrod, you talked a lot about this, DAU as well. your offices were really proactive on this point as you pointed out at the very beginning of the pandemic i know you spoke with a caucus that i'm a member of early on and you know it was really encouraging to hear how attuned you were to some of these concerns um and you've already really spoken i think largely to the data and the progress we've made in decarceration but if there's anything else you'd want to add at this point that we haven't covered today i wanted to","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=3195s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":3467.31,"end_sec":3500.68,"similarity":0.815,"text":"one other question that came up from a several attendees was around and you've spoken a little bit about one of the specialty programs that you offer to your residents but around you know the programming and resources that are available and I'm assuming that's been even more challenging in some ways during COVID-19 because many of these might be volunteer driven and so sort of interested to hear from you about how you're trying to support um folks who are incarcerated with um some of those programs that maybe rely typically on people coming to visit in person","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=3467s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":3634.43,"end_sec":3739.18,"similarity":0.848,"text":"significant benefit to their re-entry as well that's great and actually that tees us up nicely for our last section of the conversation tonight um and just i'll pause really quickly say this i'm learning so much and i think everyone here probably is so i certainly look forward to continuing to deepen my understanding of these issues and i'm really grateful for your thoughtfulness on them just around continuity of care so we've talked a little bit about folks entering the criminal justice system how we might de-escalate in the field how we might divert uh before we get to um you know entering them into the system we've talked some about incarceration during colvin and some supports that exist and how that's been impacted but now as we turn toward sort of re-entering the community and supporting the individual uh as well as you know the community and its safety um sheriff i think it's really helpful to hear a little bit of some of those initiatives. You know, my office has helped out families who have had family members who are reentering. And certainly during COVID, it's even more challenging to think about things like housing or finding a job. So if you want to speak a little bit about that, and I think I'd also love as you know, when I am able to send out some more information to attendees and others, you know, having some of those resources, I'll include them certainly in the email. But I would thank your office for being really available to me when I was trying to help folks navigate that. One targeted question around some of the supports that are available is the degree to which you talked about, medical assistance, housing, the young adult offenders. There's another one just around job skills and job training. You know, are there opportunities to sort of assist inmates with thinking about skilled apprenticeship programs before they leave? Just talking generally about reentry would be really useful at this time.","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=3634s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":3922.68,"end_sec":3959.68,"similarity":0.857,"text":"into their communities as well. That's great. I mean, one thing that your comments make me think of, and I appreciated the point about social connections and, you know, who are you going to be with upon release? I mean, what are healthy options for you? It's how critical it can be to have families invested as well. And that's certainly what I've seen in my limited time in this role is how critical that can be, but also how difficult it can sometimes be in light of privacy laws, perhaps, or other things. But, you know, are you sort of attuned as well to the folks on the outside who may, you know, be responsible, who may need to be the advocates and sort of","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=3922s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":4096.69,"end_sec":4141.8,"similarity":0.832,"text":"maybe in light of time we'll just turn to sort of some thoughts about next steps um and you know what supports can we continue to look for from, you know, whether it's at a federal level, a state level, a local level, around sort of minimizing incarceration, moving towards decarceration, and then supporting folks who move through the system and return to our communities. Maren, or DA Ryan, you spoke a little bit about restorative justice. I know that's something that all of you all are focusing on, but maybe if you could each take a moment or two just to sort of reflect on the conversation tonight. Any last thoughts about, you know, what we've discussed or next steps? I think we'd all love to hear from you one last time. And there you go.","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=4096s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":4296.94,"end_sec":4313.01,"similarity":0.824,"text":"thank you thank you chief and I've just put up the slide that has our contact information and if folks aren't able to view it right now I'll include our contact information in the follow-up email that I'll send out with some of","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=4296s","page_url":"/video/700"},{"person":"lipper-garabedian-kate","date":"2020-09-15","video_id":700,"video_title":"Community Conversation on Criminal Justice during COVID-19: September 15th, 2020","meeting_id":null,"start_sec":4501.05,"end_sec":4503.8,"similarity":0.669,"text":"thank you very much for hosting this. Well, you're very welcome. Oh, sorry. Go ahead,","url":"https://vimeo.com/461582897#t=4501s","page_url":"/video/700"}],"next_cursor":"u|2020-09-15|700|4501.05"}