ORDER-2022-58 : An informational update regarding the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocation High School district election polling location(s) on January 25, 2022

Transcript (~46 min @ 3:06)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 3:02 Speaker 2: Order 2022-58, an informational update regarding the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Location High School District election polling locations on January 25th, 2022.

▶ 3:18 Leila Migliorelli: I'd like to motion for immediate consideration.

▶ 3:22 Christopher Cinella: This order is before us for immediate consideration. Any objection? seeing none this matter is now before us and if there is no objection i would like to suspend our rules so we can hear from our guests this evening seeing no objection our rules are now suspended

▶ 3:43 Speaker 1: do you have a few folks that are becoming on adam yes sir i'll bring in mr ward hamilton who i'm unable to make a panelist i don't know mr hamilton if you can hear me i don't know what device you're on it doesn't have any kind of notification i see mr superintendent barry i'll make him a panelist i see business manager mr picon i'll make him a panelist i i don't know what mr hamilton is using unfortunately i can't even mute or unmute him which is interesting

▶ 4:21 Christopher Cinella: i'm going to chat him and see if he can log off and log back on okay uh mr picon mr debarry good evening if you'd like to i don't know who wants to go first we're waiting for mr hamilton

▶ 4:33 Speaker 2: i think mr debarry's going to kick it off um thank you again for having us tonight though

▶ 4:41 Speaker 3: hi everybody thank you so actually mr hamilton was going to kick it off can we give him another couple seconds see if you can get on sure thank you also in the meantime i i do have on my desktop a presentation i don't know if you can allow me to share my screen or

▶ 5:04 Christopher Cinella: sure madam clerk is there a way to facilitate sure let me just yep let me just get everything

▶ 5:22 Speaker 1: back in order here thank you yep i'm gonna hand off to mr debarry one second okay you should see

▶ 5:38 Speaker 3: presenter privileges heading your way mr debarry yep i think i got it here all right

▶ 5:49 Speaker 3: oh perfect can everyone see that okay so yes then picture breakout reservation also

▶ 5:55 Speaker 3: um do you see our consultant charles lyons should be getting on i don't know if you see him yet i

▶ 6:07 Speaker 3: don't see him in the room yet okay i know i um it took me a few minutes there was an update of course every time as you all know you try a new software program there's an update so i know i had a update it took a couple minutes so um we can give him another minute or another second sure i'm

▶ 6:24 Speaker 1: able to unmute mr hamilton so he can speak and mr lyons is in the room same deal he's not able to i don't know what device he's using so there's no way to allow him to speak but i'm going to unmute

▶ 6:37 Speaker 3: mr hamilton okay we can get started and um so do you think mr lyons at some point can at least speak or you can't hear anything coming from him i'm going to chat him to tell him to log off and

▶ 6:52 Ward Hamilton: log back on gotcha can you hear us i can hear you can you hear me yes all right so i feel like we went through this a week ago with the uh meeting at the board of registers of voters i guess you

▶ 7:06 Ward Hamilton: can hear me but not see me correct well okay all right well uh i'm sorry for that um so uh thank you for uh for for having us on this evening um i've been serving on the school committee up at the voc for the last year and have been uh absolutely impressed by the work that goes on there the demand uh for the limited number limited number of seats is very high we We have a waiting list and several hundred each year. And that's one of the things that this new building is going to do is it's going to allow us to dramatically increase the capacity, the number of kids that have an opportunity to go to the VOC. As you know, Melrose is only one of 12 member communities and we're on the smaller side as far as representation goes there. The VOC that I should say Northeast serves several communities, including Malden, Chelsea, and Revere, and I would say those are the top three communities. So as a result, Northeast has a very diverse student population, and as we all know right now in our current economy, there are great benefits to getting a career started in the trades or one of the allied crafts that the school offers um so i came in a year ago and there were years of work underway um and and we're at a point now as you know where there's going to be a special vote in a month um and that the 12 communities that the school serves are each going to you know people in those communities are each going to have an opportunity to cast a vote whether in favor of moving the project forward or not. So you've met Mr. DeBerry, our superintendent. We're in very capable hands with him. Jay Picon, our director of finance, who is no stranger to Melrose. And if Mr. Lyons gets on, I'm sure he'll share our wealth and knowledge with us. i can't tell is uh kevin kevin nigro on he just joined okay shall i make him a panelist

▶ 9:25 Ward Hamilton: if if you could that would be great and i'll and that's that's it from me for now i know that david's gonna gonna put on a presentation just to be clear is this presentation in regards to

▶ 9:33 Christopher Cinella: the order itself as far as the polling locations go no it's it's not but that's something we

▶ 9:42 Speaker 3: absolutely could discuss and keep the presentation short i i didn't prepare on it being a polling location discussion i apologize for that to be clear the order itself is uh as it pertains to the

▶ 9:57 Christopher Cinella: recommendation of a polling location for the vote in melrose all right so okay so chris our

▶ 10:05 Ward Hamilton: Mr. Sinella or President Sinella if you would I think a week ago when I was on with Ms. Foote we talked about this right we talked about what the statute says as far as the district in consult with the board of selectmen which we know means the city council in our case will dictate the date, time, and location of the polling. So in talking to Mr. DeBerry and Mr. Picon before this meeting, early this evening, I think what we need, and I'm not putting words in Mr. DeBerry's mouth. He'll say what he thinks. But I think we need to hear from you, the city council, what your thoughts are because that's the piece that's missing so far.

▶ 11:03 Christopher Cinella: Yeah, you want to continue with this. Brief presentation, and then we can open it up for questions on thoughts on polling locations.

▶ 11:13 Speaker 3: Whatever the will of the committee is that will definitely be fine with that.

▶ 11:22 Speaker 2: Want to go ahead Mr. to vary with.

▶ 11:25 Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. Okay. Thanks so much. And I speaking to Mr Hamilton earlier. I also expressed. Throughout the years, I've been coming to Melrose, you know, prior to last year in person. Since being a principal, so it's over 10 years now, and it's you, you've always as a council and, you know, obviously some of the members aren't here anymore, but have always been gracious and made us feel accepted and made us feel like. We were your other high school, and that's as a public high school, regional high school. That's where we want to be in your mind. So I want to thank you for that. So I will start off, and this is a picture of the current high school, the current northeast, and on the right, you can see the boundary of our land. So up top is where the current school sits, but we also had a lot of land, albeit not the best, you know, the most flat land, but we do own a lot of property, which did give us a little versatility when planning this project. so i i try not to be dramatic but i i do start this presentation as saying that our current school is coming to an end its life um as a school that's over 50 years that was built in the 60s um is definitely nearing the end to be more specific our building systems are feeling and are far beyond their useful life and sorry about that typo do not meet current standards in fact when we had mayor broader and and some of the other town managers and mayors over to northeast in september we actually had to shut the school down because of a propane link leak from a corroded pipe that we lost two days of school during the first week of school happy to say that we did have our meeting in the parking lot while the fire department was clearing the building but it was just it was a an example of what we're dealing with day to day with the systems being so old and so antiquated the building envelope itself um to say again it's poorly insulated is a is an understatement and anybody who believes in energy efficiency which i know we all do would not be happy if they saw some of the numbers that we have many of our classrooms in fact almost every classroom and shop except for one or two are undersized and do not meet desi standards and as you know in a vocational school that that's an extra level of concern when we have welding shops and we have carpentry and we have areas that really need to be spaced out to keep our students safe as a former special ed teacher and director it's very upsetting to know that not only is our building not fully accessible to the handicap it is not even close we don't have um Elevators, the widths of the hallways, the widths of the doorways, everything we have makes it near impossible. And we've lost some great students, handicapped students over the years, because no matter how hard we tried to make it work, it just wasn't going to change. Lastly, we only have one egress going in and out. And over the years, we've had a couple false alarms and we've had a couple evacuations. And if they were ever the real thing, it gives me great anxiety to see the challenges we would have for emergency vehicles to come onto the property and for our students to be able to exit the property in case of an emergency. So why a new school? And we're going to get into this in a couple of slides with Ms. Nigro. but you know first and most importantly is we need a plan that's going to have a 21st century um educational environment and you know that that isn't something that can happen under the current conditions right now as mr wood said we have on average over 800 applicants for 330 spots we are turning students away um in such a large number this would allow us to expand the capacity of the school up to 1600 and possibly and because i don't know what the enrollments are going to look like in a couple years uh except students who really want to be here and not send them back to a school they you don't feel comfortable um that meets their educational profile we also hope to expand the shops in programs to 19 from 16. um as i mentioned earlier the long-term you know deficiencies probably could never be met at this point without it being a new building we we studied 40 options and that's something mr nigro is going to touch upon and we came up with the one we're going to present minimizing disruption was key because where we only have one school we can't relocate students to other schools like a regular city or town can and even if we did have access to an academic environment it wouldn't be possible to relocate shops like auto body and auto tech and you know shops that need large space and different issues that come with that so here's a beautiful picture to kick off mr nigro's portion of the presentation if you can hear me kevin did we lose kevin president snell am i bringing that

▶ 17:34 Christopher Cinella: gentleman in um well i guess my question is back to my original question about the order itself we're supposed to be discussing our poland location so i don't know if we can just get to some questions i do have a queue so we want to take this down i think because

▶ 17:50 Christopher Cinella: that's sort of that's what our order before us this evening is more or less like where we're

▶ 18:00 Speaker 3: going to post the election when i just kind of get to that okay yeah so again whatever the will of the committee is i misunderstood i thought this we had set this up prior to even the um the election discussion so i thought it was a presentation about you know the project itself to inform some of the viewers and people on the committee so i believe we had an order filed

▶ 18:22 Christopher Cinella: prior that we ended up filing so this is this is yeah this is a different this is a different order

▶ 18:37 Speaker 2: okay so we'll go with the questions today okay you did that take that down so we can see everybody

▶ 18:43 Speaker 3: sure thank you let's see stop sharing here we go perfect so just show of hands i have

▶ 18:54 Christopher Cinella: counselor rigoritis and any other counselors with questions so far

▶ 19:01 Jen Grigoraitis: that's a rigorous thank you mr. president and thank you all for being here even those that we can't see or hear I just I just wanted to clarify I think for those that are watching for my colleagues and honestly for myself by saying some stuff out loud because I know what's happening here I don't know if it's ever happened in recent memory that we've had an election across 12 communities related to the vote so i know you guys are certainly building the plane while we're flying it which seems to be a theme of this period in time in general um but just to kind of back up a little bit so this is going to be before all 12 communities that feed into the vote because at least two communities took their elected bodies took an action to vote no that's what triggered this Multi community vote, and I do just want to clarify for the record, because there was an article in our local paper stating. That the Melrose city council had taken a vote on this when we, in fact, have not. This is the 1st time you all have been before us on this matter. So, now you all are looking to call an election under mass general laws, and you're here to try to get some guidance from us. On how to do that within the city of Morris, is that kind of where we're? Yes. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure I understood. So, I think, as it relates, I know the statute requires you all to determine the election location and elections and salaries have been sort of a. Evolving thing over the past couple years because of the pandemic and I. I think we're in a unique position where what we had put in place. In this community for our most recent election expired at the end of this calendar year. I don't think any of us were anticipating an election in January. Um, I would say for me personally, as a city official, and as a school parent, my priority is a location that minimizes the impact to our public schools. They will be in session on the day that you're. Holding the vote, so I think my request to you all would be to communicate with our superintendent about. Per preference, if that's a consolidated location, like we've done in the past in the middle school, or spreading out across all our school buildings, I think there's both. Physical safety concerns, public health concerns that we need to take into account. So that would those would be the things that would be top of mind for me as you determine where to do this. So, I just wanted to share those thoughts and thank you all for being here.

▶ 21:32 Christopher Cinella: Anybody have any other questions do you want to comment on that? Mr. or.

▶ 21:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, and so this is a little different situation than we're dealing with with the, the other 11 cities in town. So, you know, again, I'm a little thrown off. You know, what what we do is we consult with the cities and towns and. Unless something is extreme that we follow suit with your recommendation. So, I think, you know, that part of the, you know, the statute was put in place. In case, say, for example, the city of Boston decides they're going to have 1 polling location for the entire city and the district feels it's unreasonable or vice versa. So it. It's not hasn't been a case where we really are driving around the city. Mero is trying to figure out. You know, where we think you should have your polling locations. Again, it's a consultation, so, you know, whatever this committee feels is appropriate, unless it's something that's really out of bounds. Um, that's what we're more than happy to work with. So, I, you know, I think what we're looking for is your committee to determine. What where the locations are recommended and that we would, um, again.

▶ 22:59 Speaker 2: Work with you on that. That's let's do it.

▶ 23:04 Robb Stewart: Thank you. Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you everyone for being here. Just simple question. Mr. President. As a recommendation and brought forward to us.

▶ 23:17 Robb Stewart: That's what we're doing tonight and who. Who is responsible for bringing that recommendation forward to the council?

▶ 23:24 Christopher Cinella: That would be the school representative from the book.

▶ 23:31 Robb Stewart: My understanding, so then, Mr president, I feel like we have a little bit of a chicken in the egg here.

▶ 23:34 Speaker 2: Seems like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

▶ 23:39 Robb Stewart: No, Mr president just, um, I'm just a little confused here. That's all. Yeah.

▶ 23:45 Christopher Cinella: Does anybody else have any questions?

▶ 23:52 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Mr. President have any 1 of you reach out to the, um, superintendents. Um, to also get a sense of. Um, you know, if this would work for them during the, um, school time.

▶ 24:16 Maya Jamaleddine: Like, if the election would work by using their facility.

▶ 24:22 Speaker 3: Is that directed at Northeast?

▶ 24:27 Speaker 1: Madam Clerk, did you want to chime in on that? I just want to let Councilor Jamaleddine know that I advise Superintendent Kuchenberger that there would be an election on January 25th and I advised her of the time. At that point, we didn't have, we don't have a location. So, she knows just that. She knows that school will be in session.

▶ 24:46 Maya Jamaleddine: Obviously. Okay. Did we get any answer whether it's going to be an issue, especially that would be a school in session?

▶ 25:00 Speaker 1: It wasn't really a question, or I was just letting her keep, I was updating her as to information that we had at that time.

▶ 25:06 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay, for me, I feel that the appropriate way at this time is to. Communicate with the superintendent, whether this would be an issue to use their facility as previous experience for the community. Using the, the gym at the school was the best. Um, way, if I may say that, um, to use during the election, so I think it would be appropriate. To coordinate with the school before we, we make, we can make any decision or advice.

▶ 25:49 Speaker 4: Mr. President.

▶ 25:52 Speaker 2: Uh, yes, Mr.

▶ 25:54 Ward Hamilton: Okay, um, so I realized this is, uh. confusing and inordinate situation we find ourselves in so i think uh having a little bit of experience on the ground here in melrose and knowing how things work and what we've seen in the last few elections and the dynamics that we're dealing with um let's see we know when we when we when we look at the statute the statute uh indicates that the district needs to direct the municipality or the yeah direct the municipality as to the time location and hours but that we are to first consult with the board of selectmen which in this case is the city council so we're having that consult now and we're asking for input And then at the end of this session, whether it's in real time during the meeting or in some type of memorandum issued tomorrow, we're to direct the municipality based on the feedback or the input that you provide us tonight with what we're supposed to do. The district pays for the election. So the first thought that I would have is, I imagine that having one central location like we've done at the middle school is significantly less expensive than opening all the polling locations. So the first question I would have would be, why would the district want to incur greater expense? So I think from a purely financial standpoint, we wouldn't do that. So we would look to the city council right now to, if there is an objection to that, or if there is a suggestion otherwise, then that's what we'd be looking to hear. If there's a concern from the council that having an election held at a school while school is in session then i think we would look to the council to suggest alternatives um i don't i don't think i i we i don't i don't see it doesn't appear to me that the right next step for the district is to reach out to the schools uh madam clerk would you bring in mr lyons i believe

▶ 28:30 Christopher Cinella: he did want to add i've been cute counselor master counselor Migliorelli coming in now

▶ 28:39 Christopher Cinella: counselor eccles so i'm gonna just have mr lyons speak yeah hi how are you mr chairman mr

▶ 28:50 Speaker 5: president i'm well let me uh let me try to clarify as best i can i understand uh and and i'm actually helping the district with this process uh i was a local selectman actually in a town of ollington for like 25 years and worked with msda on three projects when i was at cheshing tech for 28 years here's the situation and uh the district was required to go out and ask all the communities for either acceptance or rejection of a vote that the district took to incur the debt that they voted to do so on September 9th. And the communities that either didn't take any action, and Meadows was one of those three, or the communities that took action either accepted or rejected the action the school committed. And that's consistent with a law called Chapter 71, Section 16D of the Mass General was uh most of the town meetings voted near unanimously for this project as did the city council in winthrop and the city council in wogan and uh and the rationale for the for the project and i know that's not on the agenda but the fact is the district can only accept 41 percent of all its applicants it's the it's the most highly sought vocational district in the state it has the greatest waiting list and it's actually one of the best districts in the state in terms of a melting pot. It has students, 50 percent of the kids come from Malden, Riviera, Chelsea, the remaining 50 percent come from nine communities including Melrose. Melrose sends about 44 students out of the 1,281 going there. It received back on August 25th or so the largest grant in the state's history from the massacred building authority 141 million dollars to lessen the fiscal burden on the communities and so two communities one community the city of chelsea and i've written a paper about their fiscal situation uh expressed rejection once that happened it triggers an election under the same statute chapter 71 and it goes to section 16n That statute specifically dictates the phone. The school committee decides the date of the election and the number of hours it has to be uniform throughout the district. And the hours are either 48 school committee. Decided the hours would be 7. there have been 2 meetings with the clerks. There was a letter written to the policy makers in the towns of November 18th. Indicating the need to hold an election, but they didn't want to do it precipitously without involving the city clerks and the town clerks. The statute also requires that. The polling locations shall be done in consultation. With the elected body in the community, whether that be a city council, town council or board select. that's the purpose and i think you're right mr chairman that's the purpose for tonight's decision most of the communities in the district are a lot of them holding the election in one location uh the city of wood will be holding it at city hall uh the mayor revere and selection department will be holding it in one location uh in chelsea uh the city managers indicated in three locations in malden we met with the city mayor the other day he indicated one location the uh the challenge is is that the district needs that location from each of the communities in order to inform the electorate 20 days prior to the election of where the voting will be if it's different from a normal city election or a town election they have to send a postcard to all of the homes within the region or within the community indicating where the election will be so i don't want to go into the rationale for the i don't think you want to hear that tonight there are other times we can we can provide that but what we really need tonight is a recommendation and we asked you city clerk in two different meetings uh to give us a recommendation where would you like us to hold the election uh need not be in a school uh it's not going to be in a school in most of the major cities uh it could be one location or it could be the same number of locations that you have normally in a municipal election that decision doesn't want to be done in a vacuum that decision wants to be done in consultation with the respective body that the statute requires which is you and so uh the sooner we can hear your input uh the better we can select the location and move on with this election which is required from the statute once one community rejects uh the uh the bonding authorization of the school committee i hope that clarifies and

▶ 34:19 Shawn M. MacMaster: i appreciate you letting me in thank you council mcmaster thank you mr president and thank uh you to the representatives of uh northeast uh check for for being here mr hamilton asked excuse me answered the question that i was going to ask about who assumes uh the cost so that's been uh answered i i think this might be a question for mr lyons is it from what you say it doesn't have to be a school location but you if i heard you correctly you said something about a postcard is Is that sent if the location is different than the prior location or standard locations? Did I understand that correctly?

▶ 34:59 Speaker 5: Yes, you're absolutely right and we pay for that as well. Okay, Mr. Mr. has been working with the secretary of state's office and with all of the clerks in the districts. And can further explain what steps the district is taking to to make sure that we're in full compliance.

▶ 35:20 Shawn M. MacMaster: I would stay long okay and does thank you for that and does the recommendation for a location have to be a specific location or could it be more general like a municipal building but not a school could could a recommendation be something to that effect as opposed to a particular building or or a

▶ 35:41 Speaker 5: particular school we need we need the location not specifically where it is to notify the voters or where the location would be. So we need an address.

▶ 35:54 Shawn M. MacMaster: Yeah, I think that's all I have at this time. Thank you.

▶ 35:57 Speaker 2: Councillor Migliorelli. Thank you, Mr. President.

▶ 35:59 Leila Migliorelli: I think part of the issue here is that the order before us is an informational order, which means that we are provided with information and we vote to place on file. We're not structured in a position right now to take a vote on the location of the election. And I'm not quite sure why that is, is it seems like this is the. The Northeast measure tech school is here to hear that from us, but we. But, like, legislatively can't do that right now. I mean, we can all opine on what might be the best location, but we don't really have the information and the statistics to know. What is best? I mean, we middle school pulling location has worked out for the. the um reasons that mr hamilton stated but perhaps school um being in session creates an issue so um if someone maybe could speak about the i mean the nature of the informational order here is

▶ 36:56 Speaker 2: just a place on file i think the reason why um this is an informational order is because the um the vote the decision on the actual location actually isn't a it doesn't rely on you it basically we rely on your expertise to tell us what the recommendation is then we would uh the district goes ahead and sets the location so i think that's where the confusion is and kristen you can you can correct me if if i'm wrong in this law says in consultation with the

▶ 37:26 Speaker 5: elected body correct you can you can debate what consultation means i think what the district's position is if you want to have seven polls if you normally have seven polling locations during an election we're not going to disagree but if you would like to have it at one location to sign to save cost ib covid the number of people who will be participating in this election normally is very small uh in the multiple uh schools that have run these types of elections uh and so uh your recommendation uh uh madam counselor uh even though you might not be able to vote tonight the timeliness of getting response back maybe through you through your town clerk in a timely manner is critical so we can print the postcards and we've already received back i think recommendations from nine of the 12 communities we're pretty close to that and so we're simply waiting for you to make that make that recommendation just to piggyback to mr

▶ 38:32 Speaker 1: picon and mr lines i was in both of those clerk meetings and as i stated in both of those meetings the city clerk cannot unilaterally decide the location of the vote it is up to the district committee after consulting with the body that they have before them now or previous to this meeting

▶ 38:54 Speaker 1: to get some input yeah so councilman the right at your point there is no vote for you it's just Providing information for the district representative to go back to the school committee and make a decision, but. To council and McMaster's point, it can be in a municipal building. If that is what the counselor and the school committee. Based on the input from the school committee, I'm sorry from the council.

▶ 39:16 Leila Migliorelli: Brings back, I just, it isn't a very unusual that we don't usually get asked questions in a council. We're not usually in the position of providing information here. I mean, that's not. Our role, um.

▶ 39:29 Speaker 5: Your opinion by statute is not only required. But it's valued by the school district. No further questions. Mr. President.

▶ 39:44 Jack Eccles: Thank you. Mr. President. Um, I guess my 1st question would be for Mr lions. Not to take the queue from other municipalities, but. What is this process been for locating polling locations for. The other communities that you may have already discussed with either the town. The board of select, um, then, or the city council.

▶ 40:12 Speaker 5: For the cities well, in reverse case, and in, uh. Maldon's case, and in the, um. There was a recommendation from the mayor, the mayor points, the election office is there. And the decision was to have in 1 location.

▶ 40:30 Jack Eccles: So, the city council and reviewer or more than it was the.

▶ 40:35 Speaker 5: The board, yeah, because it comes down to the, the political entity that normally. Whether it be the mayor of the city council. And that's the recommendation we received from those 2 latch communities. In woman, I believe it was the mayor of the city council. Selected that as recommended by as recommended by its stock or city clerk. Jay, can you talk about the others?

▶ 41:03 Speaker 2: Mr. yes, I can. So, there are other the other communities, which ones did you just mentioned? You mentioned Chelsea and revere.

▶ 41:12 Speaker 5: Chelsea revere Malden and Uber.

▶ 41:15 Speaker 2: So, I've already heard back from reading reading is having, they're not changing their polling. They only have 1 polling location. Anyways. It's just an interesting it's an interesting. Scenario we're going through, because I understand the situation where. You know, we, we don't want to come to you and say. We're going to put it in the middle school, because that might not be what's best for you. So. You, as the city council members know your city better than anyone. You know, what location is is going to be most advantageous. You know, the logistics of everything, so we could, we could easily say that. Um, or pick a location, but we, we don't want to inconvenience. Our members, we want to, we don't want to give the best recommendation to what's going to fit logistically.

▶ 42:19 Speaker 4: Best in your city sounds good and coming away from tonight.

▶ 42:24 Jack Eccles: If you heard 3 or 4 of us recommend a polling place. And no 1 dissent, and then no formal vote be taken. Would you consider that. A consultation, and then select the polling place that was discussed.

▶ 42:43 Jack Eccles: I believe so. Yes. Cool. Um, well, we've had the last few elections at the middle school. Um, the, the single polling place. Um, I think it's worked out quite well. I would like to see the selection be there. Um, if any other counselors. Don't, um, I'd like if they could make it known if that would be considered a consultation.

▶ 43:04 Speaker 4: That's all for me, Mr. president also.

▶ 43:09 John N. Tramontozzi: Well, thank you, Mr. president and thank you members of. The vocational school for coming in and presenting. Look at I get it if 20 days, any 20 days to notify the public of this election, which is scheduled for January 25th. So, that doesn't give them much time, so they're doing their due diligence and requesting an informal discussion with the city council here. So. I'm going to suggest something and ultimately. Then the vocational school is going to the school district is going to make a decision. We don't want to place it and that's that ultimately the mayor can can weigh in and decide what he feels is best for the city in consultation with the superintendent of the schools. I get that they promise the schools want as little destruction to the school day as possible. So, I see 1 of 2 places in the city hall, the middle school, when we've had our elections in the past. The past couple of years, and I appreciate the council echoes on a suggestion, and I'm going to follow that and I'm going to suggest. That we hold this election at the middle school where we've held held in 1 location. It's the least disruptive. And it's the best location for for this special election to occur. And so, if in fact, this is an informational meeting for recommendations, that would be my recommendation and I think it's just. You know, move on and let's get this going. Thank you, Mr. President. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

▶ 45:08 Mark Garipay: Thank you, Mr. President. Councilor Eccles and Councilor Tremont, those are both kind of took my thunder on that. And I agree. I mean, we have to, we have to make a decision or we have to give a recommendation to them or to the Council. Or they're going to come back with one that some people aren't going to be happy with. I think when it comes down to it Not everyone's going to be happy with this location is going to be, but we're, we're under tight time constraints and I agree with consular Eccles and that the middle school is probably the best place to get this election done. I don't know. We don't know what. We were going to be in too much. Right? So it does give us a little bit more space. Um, so I'm all for keeping this. This for this election, my recommendation would be the middle school.

▶ 46:07 Speaker 5: Thank you. Hopefully, we can move this for some McMaster.

▶ 46:14 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you. Mr. President, I think council echoes got the consultation started. I appreciate that. And I think just so that the school district understands and that the public understands constantly makes a good point. There's a procedural hiccup and that we. Although we could be in a position as a council to make recommendation as the will of this council, we can't tonight because the order, the order is an informational order. So, I think, and I don't want to speak for council, but as I understand the point that she, she made is that we just can't unilaterally tonight. make a motion and and have that on the floor and vote on it as a recommendation from the council because that would have had to have been something that was filed as a as an order and uh for which public notice uh was given so i appreciate councilman Migliorelli mentioning that and i think the public just needs to under stand that it's not that we're indecisive but what we have before us is an informational order where the school district is consulting with us i think Council Eccles got us off of that consultation and I don't disagree with anything else that any of my colleagues have said. Thank you. Councillor Stewart. Thank you Mr. President.

▶ 47:29 Robb Stewart: Councillor McMaster has just said what I was going to, what I was just thinking. So I'd just like to reiterate his point that I think this again is informational in nature and it'd be hard to move forward with any kind of recommendation thank you mr president

▶ 47:51 Christopher Cinella: anybody else have any other questions comments seeing none what is the will

▶ 48:04 Robb Stewart: council on this water mr president i have to make a motion to place this on file

▶ 48:07 Christopher Cinella: second motion made by council stewart to place this order on file seconded by councillor

▶ 48:16 Speaker 2: gregaritis any discussion seeing none madam clerk if you could please call the roll

▶ 48:20 Speaker 1: Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor

▶ 48:40 Speaker 1: Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. President

▶ 48:51 Christopher Cinella: Yes, and yes, that's what it was placed on file. Thank you gentlemen. And happy holidays to you. Thank you very much.

▶ 49:00 Speaker 2: Thank you next order resolution 2021 dash 7. A resolution honoring city Councillor John ward 1.