ORDER-2021-18 : Appointment of Emily Minton of 33 Waverly Place., to the Melrose Commission on Women

Transcript (~10 min @ 7:46)

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▶ 7:07 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Perhaps if the Mayor is ready and the second candidate is ready, we could perhaps move on to the second candidate. If not, I'm happy to, based on the Mayor's representation and perhaps based on remarks that we all make related to Ms. Dwyer's resume, I'd be comfortable voting on that tonight if we are unable to get her on. but I think if you're comfortable, Mr. Chairman, and the committee doesn't object, perhaps we move on to the next candidate to see if Ms. Dwyer can get on. If not, perhaps we could speak to her nomination and certainly would not want to hold up the appointment of Ms. Dwyer this evening. I'll defer to Claire and my fellow committee members.

▶ 7:53 Jack Eccles: So without objection, we can move on to Order 2021-18. dash 18 um order 2021-18 appointment of emily minton of 33 waverly place to the melrose commission on women um mr mayor if you'd like to uh give a little background on this one

▶ 8:13 Paul Brodeur: thank you mr chairman i would be delighted to so um emily minton and her family came to melrose in 2008 and to review the letter that she submitted, you'll understand why she is an excellent candidate for the service on the Commission on Women. She has been in private industry in areas where women don't necessarily have a big footprint and has had remarkable success. She has done significant work, particularly around advocacy for pay equity, uh which is continuing work as we all know um throughout the country and here in massachusetts even though we have very strong laws um around around pay equity uh i think that that um that experience that background um certainly her knowledge of hr and the workforce brings an important dimension to the work of the commission and i'm looking forward to your favorable

▶ 9:15 Jack Eccles: recommendation of her candidacy thank you thank you mr mayor you can turn it over to you

▶ 9:21 Speaker 4: miss minton thanks for coming thank you so much can you all hear me okay great um so thank you so much to the committee and to the mayor um as the mayor said my husband and i have lived in melrose for almost 12 years and we're the proud parents of two girls we have our oldest starting seventh grade at the middle school next week and our youngest starting third grade at the winthrop and you know particularly over the last decade i've been just so impressed by the amazing growth and evolution of the city and melrose is an amazing community and i've had the opportunity to contribute to initiatives primarily thus far around melrose schools so i helped co-chair the winthrop pto enrichment committee volunteered in the schools for many years and helped advocate for the successful tax override campaign in 2019. Throughout my career, I've also been fortunate to work for organizations that do employ significant numbers of female employees. However, as the mayor said, I was in many cases one of only a few females on the leadership team. In my last external professional gig, I joined a company called Shorelight Education as the eighth employee and help the organization navigate extreme domestic and international growth as the head of hr throughout i always made sure women's voices were heard and represented including things like instituting benefits around paid family leave as well as creating and leading a women's group which also created a first annual global volunteer event some of the other initiatives included increasing the number of female students that accessed our programs and creating spaces for for women to focus on their health and well-being. As the mayor said, we also were one of the early adopters of Boston's 100% Talent Compact, which is an employer pledge to take concrete, measurable steps toward closing gender gaps in wages, as well as representation in their organizations. And I led our company's efforts on equal pay and represented the organization at several events with the Boston Workforce Council and Boston's Mayor, Marty Walsh. After many years of working a demanding job a global organization, I made a really difficult decision to leave the corporate world and prioritize my family. Right now, I'm very fortunate to partner with several organizations as a consultant, which allows me to continue to stay engaged in the field, but also provide a better work-life balance. I feel like I intimately understand the struggles many working mothers face, and I'm really passionate about the commission's mission. So I'd love the opportunity to partner with other women in Melrose who are passionate about these same issues that impact women and girls and continue advocating for equity for women thank you very much for your consideration

▶ 12:07 Shawn M. MacMaster: thank you thank you mr kevin thank you for being here tonight thank you for stepping up and being willing to volunteer um on the women's commission uh it's always nice to see award five a resident um being nominated i appreciate mayor broder's uh work there's been a number of um great nominees put forth over uh the course of his administration so far uh from uh from ward five so i appreciate that mayor um miss benton if you can maybe talk a little bit about how your uh hr experience as shorelight um lends itself to uh your future work on uh the commission specifically with respect to some of the hr related uh issues on which you've worked the mayor referenced and so did you pay equity but maybe sexual harassment other types of salient issues that come up in the HR world and maybe how you might draw from that experience in raising

▶ 13:09 Speaker 4: awareness or responding to issues in notice sure I mean sadly when you've had many years in HR you've sort of seen the gamut so I have experienced all of those things you know having to go through sexual harassment investigations you building benefit packages from scratch um looking at pay equity um from you know across an organization thinking about how to diversify leadership teams um so i think you know hopefully i have experience in a lot of different areas that i can you know draw from as well as resources um externally um and i think you know hric is a partner to organize to all different parts of the organization so um you know i look forward to partnering with other commissioners both on the women's commission and potentially other commissions as well as leadership within melrose to draw from resources and advocate for women

▶ 14:09 Shawn M. MacMaster: excellent thank you i'm excited to speak perhaps in terms of perhaps engaging our immigrants who do live uh in the community uh based on the the global reach of uh the organization where you know you spent a considerable amount of time but perhaps some of uh that work uh you know will be takeaways that you can apply here towards interacting with uh you know young people from foreign countries and uh you know engagement recruitment and whatnot and perhaps ensuring that um you know their voice is being heard um you know in the city and uh that we're working with them uh as a commission and over time you know there's representation as well so i'm looking forward to seeing perhaps what you might be able to uh to bring in that area as well and i'm pleased to uh support your your uh nomination uh tonight thank you uh vice chair jamali i would like to

▶ 15:15 Maya Jamaleddine: thank you emily for stepping up and um to serve our community um it's uh such an impressive um resume and recommendation letter so thank you so much and i'm looking forward to see uh what

▶ 15:38 Jen Grigoraitis: your term is gonna bring thank you chairman eccles and thank you ms minton for being here

▶ 15:49 Jen Grigoraitis: I have had the pleasure of working with Emily on many school-related initiatives since we both have children at the Winthrop School and have seen the dedication and precision that she brings to everything that she puts together. And I also have the opportunity of knowing her in a professional capacity. Her consulting company has a contract with my employer, so I'm regularly able to see the skills that she brings to her job in working on HR.

▶ 16:15 Jen Grigoraitis: So, I'm incredibly excited to have her joining the commission, I believe, due to the fact that we have a pre existing professional relationship. I will abstain from voting, but I wholeheartedly support this recommendation. Thank you.

▶ 16:24 Speaker 5: Vice chair, I would move a motion to recommend.

▶ 16:37 Shawn M. MacMaster: Point of information, I just want to be clear. Do we, do we have a quorum?

▶ 16:43 Jack Eccles: So, my understanding is that it's 3 of 5. If, if, you know, if president. Has an extension that I checked with Christian prior. So, 3 or 5, we do have a quorum for that.

▶ 17:02 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you for clarifying Mr. chairman. I'll 2nd, the motion at this time.

▶ 17:07 Jack Eccles: Thank you. Motion made by Vice Chair Jamaleddine, seconded by Councilor McMaster. Madam Clerk?

▶ 17:14 Speaker 1: Chair Eccles? Yes. Vice Chair Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. President Grigoraitis abstains. That was three yes.

▶ 17:27 Jack Eccles: Congratulations, Ms. Midten. You'll be voted on at the next full council meeting.

▶ 17:33 Speaker 5: Thank you. Thank you very much.

▶ 17:36 Jack Eccles: I think we can go back to order 2021 dash 17. I believe it's joined and we'll be able to hear from.