ORDER-2020-124 : Appointment of Joseph Phillips, 1 Hillside Ave., to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2023.

Transcript (~10 min @ 3:48)

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

▶ 3:36 Speaker 1: yes vice chair Jamaleddine yes councillor mcmaster councillor mcnaught yes councillor Migliorelli

▶ 3:52 Jack Eccles: yes president Grigoraitis yes five yes awesome and the first item on tonight's agenda is order 2020-124 appointment of joseph phillips phillips one hillside after the human rights commission for a three-year term said term to expire on the last day of february 2023. i think we have the mayor mike stenkovich and mr phillips himself we do i think um mr chair if you entertain a

▶ 4:16 Speaker 2: motion to suspend the rules yes motion to suspend the rules second motion to suspend the rules made

▶ 4:20 Jack Eccles: by President Grigoraitis, seconded by Vice Chair Jamaleddine. Now, I'm clear.

▶ 4:25 Speaker 1: Chair Eccles? Yes. Vice Chair Jamaleddine? Yes. Councillor McMaster? Councillor McNaught? Yes. Councillor Migliorelli? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Five yes. Okay, I will bring in Mr. Staples, and I will bring in Mayor Broder, and I will find Mr. Phillips and bring him in. All right, we should be coming in at this minute.

▶ 4:57 Speaker 5: Am I up, Mr. Chairman?

▶ 4:59 Jack Eccles: All right, so I think the order we've been going in is Mayor Brunner, Mike, and then the nominees. So, Mayor Brunner, if you want to kick things off.

▶ 5:08 Paul Brodeur: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be before you today. If I could take a second to do a quick shout out to the Melrose Police and Fire, as well as the faculty and staff at Melrose High School. I just had the opportunity to come back from The first ever in the history of Melrose rolling rally for our senior class, and I suspect based on the reaction, it is going to quickly become an annual tradition. It was very, very well done. Outstanding support from the community. That having been said, thank you for your indulgence here to offer for your consideration, Joseph Phillips for nomination to the Human Rights Commission. I know Mr. Phillips and his wife for some time and their son and they are delightful members of the community and have always been extremely engaged. You have some paperwork for Mr. Phillips before you so you know that he has a long and distinguished career in financial services including as part of his work helping minority brokers get more involved and able to advance in the business. He has also been uh involved with the melrose alliance against violence as a walk committee member for several years and also works um which is where volunteers for pathways of lynn as the president of their board of directors which does a lot of work with um work-related skill building and helping folks that in that way i couldn't think of a better person um to fill out the fill out the membership on the human rights commission so appreciate your consideration

▶ 6:54 Jack Eccles: uh mike uh would you like to say a few words um thanks for having me um just to echo on the

▶ 7:01 Speaker 3: mayor's comments um i'm excited to have um joseph on board um i feel like we um with a lot of our

▶ 7:09 Speaker 3: department commissioners we lost some um financial expertise and as we were kind of gearing up towards fundraising and marketing. I think Joseph fills that role very well. I've spoken to Joseph once or twice and we had a Zoom call and of all the things that we spoke about, I'm most excited that he understands the commitments to the commission and wholeheartedly accepts them and I expect him to be bringing a diverse viewpoint and I welcome his passion and his comments and his viewpoints to our commission i think he'll be a great addition thank you uh mr phelps would you

▶ 7:57 Speaker 6: like to say a few words sure thank you mr chairman um i am honored to be nominated to this position the commission here in milrose i very much look forward to participating in in helping the community at many different levels and trying to do what we can as a commission to try to others with just access and just being able to participate in this social contract that we call the United States of America and at a finer point, Melrose. I look forward to working with everyone and I'm excited to take part in this endeavor. Thank you.

▶ 8:54 Speaker 3: Thank you. Any councilors wishing to speak?

▶ 8:58 Jack Eccles: Vice-Chair Zimaldi.

▶ 9:03 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you Chairman and welcome to our virtual meeting. Mayor Bruder, Chair Stankiewicz, and Naminie Phillips, thank you so much for stepping up to this role. It's definitely a very important role in our community, and I applaud you for willing to step in and doing this. What is, I think we met once during a community forums and I was taken by your thoughts and I appreciate the experiences that you've shared. What is one of the things that you feel you wanted to focus on improving in our community?

▶ 9:53 Speaker 6: One of the things I'd like to lend a hand to is just I think at the most basic level, it's communication and inclusion, okay? And it's just that from the outside, Melrose is kind of put-offish, right, because it's Melrose. um and you know i think that it would help help us as a community to be able to communicate to people within the community and people outside of the community that we're approachable we are welcoming and that you know we're a community that wants to be inclusive so that would be one of the one of my focuses

▶ 10:42 Maya Jamaleddine: That's a great thing to do, and I think we definitely need it in our community. What is one of the ideas that you feel we can accomplish this?

▶ 10:54 Speaker 6: One of the ideas that I think that would help us to accomplish this would be to just, as we do, as I've seen as being part of the MAVE committee, is that we get involved in the community. okay to have meetings and and to uh facilitate ideas and stuff but we need to hit the ground we need to be amongst the people that we're hoping to impact we can't just do it from afar

▶ 11:27 Maya Jamaleddine: you have to be on the ground true i agree with you thank you so much and good luck

▶ 11:40 Leila Migliorelli: thank you uh councilman thank you chairman um thank you mr phillips um for coming i'm i'm happy that you're taking this next step and getting more involved in the community. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Phillips while door knocking during the campaign

▶ 11:51 Speaker 1: and I'm glad you were able to attend the event. I think that you met Councilor Jamaleddine at

▶ 11:58 Leila Migliorelli: and I know the Human Rights Commission was a valuable experience for me and I'm hoping it'll be the same for you. So I look forward to approving your nomination. Thank you.

▶ 12:09 Speaker 6: Thank you.

▶ 12:12 Speaker 3: Councilor McNaught.

▶ 12:15 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Chair Stankovich. And Mr. Phillips, thank you for being here. I just want to say I wholeheartedly endorse you. I think Mr. Mayor and Mrs. Stankovich and the Commission have made a fine choice in you. And I echo Councilor Jamaleddine words. I met you at the same event that she referred to in the summer and was equally as impressed as she was. So I look forward to supporting your candidacy for the Commission.

▶ 12:50 Jen Grigoraitis: thank you thank you I'll just echo the words of my fellow councillors and with that make a motion to recommend for passage second motion to recommend for

▶ 12:57 Jack Eccles: passage from President Gareda seconded by Vice Chair Jamaleddine Madam Clerk

▶ 13:09 Speaker 1: you're on mute Chair Eccles yes Vice Chair Jamaleddine yes Councilor McMaster? Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes.

▶ 13:26 Jack Eccles: Five yes. Congratulations Mr. Phillips. Thank you Mr. Segevich for being here and Mr. Mayor I think you're sticking around for a little bit. Thank you both I will