ORDER-2019-81 : Home Rule Petition to Amend Section 3-10 of the Charter of the City of Melrose

Transcript (~19 min @ 20:28)

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

▶ 20:28 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: I'd like to move to remove order 2 0 1 9 dash 8 1 home rule petition to amend section 3 dash 10 of the Charter of the city of Melrose from committee we have a

▶ 20:38 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: motion made by alderman the pregarabedian to remove 2018-81 from the Appropriations Committee second seconded by alderman Mortimer this is yes this is

▶ 20:47 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: just this is the the proposed charter change related to the mayor's term yes

▶ 21:00 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: thank you I'm sorry sir it's being removed from committee right now on

▶ 21:13 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: discussion I'm sorry sir we did do public comment on the order there's a

▶ 21:17 Speaker 6: Motion to suspend the rules.

▶ 21:20 Speaker 7: Motion to suspend the rules.

▶ 21:22 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Second. We have a motion to suspend the rules made by Alderman Wright, seconded, I believe, by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, to allow the member of the public to speak before us in this order on discussion.

▶ 21:35 Peter D. Mortimer: Alderman Mortimer. I would only like to make discussion. I certainly welcome members of the public to come and speak. And we had, I did address the President and the Chair of Appropriations as well as our Clerk of Committees and our City Clerk about this. I want to make it clear that we do everything as transparently as possible in this chamber. And it was my concern that we should have an agenda. The way the system is set up now is a person can come when an order has its first reading at the full board. And then when it first goes to committee, a person, a citizen of Melrose then has another opportunity to come and speak at public participation. At that point, all orders have had two chances to be commented on publicly. But any orders that are hanging, so to speak, in committee are subject to be removed from committee under our rules. I realize how that could appear, and this is why it appears that your request and motions to suspend the rules to allow you to speak, just judging by the body language and the facial expressions around the room, this motion's going to pass. And I certainly want to hear what you have to say about it, but that's just a little issue we have within our rules. And we did talk about it last week, and now the situation has actually come to bear out, but it looks like we're handling it. So you will be able to give us your viewpoint, and we certainly do welcome it. Thank you, Madam President.

▶ 23:22 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: MS. Thank you.

▶ 23:25 Michael P. Zwirko: On discussion, Alderman Zwirko. thank you alderman mortimer for your words on that i just wanted to add for the folks that are not only here present but also at home sometimes we have issues with the calendar and the rules of the open meeting law when agendas need to be published monday being a holiday our committees occurring on thursday of last week didn't allow for 48 hours to occur that's why sometimes we can take orders from committee that aren't on agenda which is what happened here tonight three times over so it it doesn't look good but there's no ill intent and this does happen especially we meet on Mondays and oftentimes Mondays are holidays on our calendar we also had a situation with the election excuse me earlier this month which took away our first meeting and then what that did was it put us to have two meetings back-to-back so the calendar the the working calendar and agenda actually was was condensed furthering exacerbating the issues with agendas under the open meeting law these are blue moons they happen from time to time I'm glad that the rules have been suspended so we can hear the public speak I just wanted to further explain as to why we're at where we're at thank

▶ 24:34 Francis X. Wright Jr.: you madam president thank you I appreciate all the more more all the miserable comments just one note I believe all the miserable might have misspoke I don't believe taking something from committee has anything to do with there being a holiday on Monday we're certainly in the position to always update our agenda and we quite often will take things from committee that are not on the agenda we do allow the public to speak which I don't believe most municipalities across the cities across the state do I don't believe they have public participation but we do we did have did offer two opportunities on this already I'm not saying we shouldn't I sponsored the suspension of the rules however going forward I'm just concerned that if we take things from committee and there isn't a holiday someone's going to believe we violated the open meeting and that's not my opinion thank you any

▶ 25:33 Monica C. Medeiros: further discussion Alderman Medeiros thank you I yeah I'm supportive of opening the rules for speaking you know I think definitely pointed out we had a meeting on Thursday night we discussed this where our agenda had already came out for Tuesday night so I think this didn't make it on the agenda but also I know there was a competing city meeting that night for the Board of Health and so I believe that may have kept some people away to speak the first time so

▶ 26:03 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: thank you thank you further discussion on the motions to spend the rules so we

▶ 26:09 Speaker 6: may hear from a member of the public aye any opposed we are under suspension of

▶ 26:17 Speaker 8: roles please feel free to come forward thank you so I'm Lee Schlenker resident of Melrose about 19 years live in Ward 1 on our Street I I was indeed at the other meeting at the Board of Health where they were discussing their view of CBD oil and prohibiting its sale in the city which I think should be broadly available at places like liquor stores and vitamin shops and perhaps under locking key but that's another topic but that's something so I didn't have an opportunity to speak when this was brought up in in committee before so I appreciate the opportunity now and I I see this proposed change as one that would be beneficial for the city I think it's peculiar obscure to have if we have appointed mayor and the situation where a previous mayor leaves office in one of several possible ways that we don't have a normal transition after an election a couple months until January for standard transitions to to take place I know in the Charter it says then the new mayor comes in right away after an election I'm not sure that serves our city well it probably was written with the intent of well if we have an appointed mayor we should get someone who's been elected in as soon as possible but I'm not sure that's practical to just shuffle people out right away and have a new person come in there are potentially unforeseen situations where there is recounts or disputes or what-have-you a normal transition from Election Day the first week in November until the first week in January it's pretty standard and affords the city the appropriate transition that we would have in any normal circumstance and we should I think be treating this as a normal situation I know it's being proposed now just as we're getting towards that election it could appear as if there's ill intent but as Alderman Zwirko said of the previous issue about the agenda there you know sometimes things happen and there's not ill intent I truly believe here there's not ill intent the current mayor wants to stick it out for another two months or anyone else in in town is trying to prevent a newly elected person to come in or not we have an appointed mayor because our previous mayor left for another job it's just the way it is and we should afford the city the opportunity to have a normal transition so that we can have normal business in a normal way not only in this situation for this time because maybe it can't be changed as quickly but in general that's what would protect our city best as well we're not talking about the appointed mayor being a criminal who's being impeached and has to be rushed out of office the appointed mayor is someone from your body here who has been appointed by all of you also elected officials and is serving with the best intent of the city whatever that may be that you all chose either for policy or politics or whatever reason you know we have situations where there are when President Nixon left office under dubious circumstances we had an appointed vice president at the time who was elected by a small district in Michigan who then became president and when he lost the election to Jimmy Carter Jimmy Carter didn't come up in November of 76 and say okay I'll take it from here because you were just appointed there's a standard inauguration and affords the country the standard transition and everything that has to go on and why should the city of Melrose be any different now I know it's in the Charter the way it is and so there's certain ways in which the Charter needs to be amended and approved by the general court and you can say that the Charter was approved by the voters so the voters should be able to weigh in here but you know you've just made some other change to propose changes to the Charter you did previously when we had a vacancy here and you're proposing that now so there are changes that you can make you know or if it really needs to be done by the voters, you can take the proposed changes and send them to general court now and then have them on the ballot in November. And either it'll go into effect and we'll have the transition right away at that point or it won't. But I think every effort should be made maybe by you just all doing the amendment here and sending it on because it's the wise thing to do because the way it's written now doesn't serve the city well. And I think we should just normalize it so that when there's an election, we get a normal transition like any other situation and I don't think there's any ill intent and you know you can like or dislike various current elected officials or not or whatever but is it's just an attempt to standardize the Charter and I think that would serve

▶ 31:08 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: us best thank you thank you be sure to sign in thank you very much we have

▶ 31:19 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: members of the public which can speak seeing none we have a motion to sorry but we have a motion to close public comment made by alderman wright second second by alderman Letter garabedian all in favor aye aye any opposed this period of public comment is now closed we do have a motion on the floor made and seconded to remove order 2018-81 from committee on discussion of this order alderman

▶ 31:50 Francis X. Wright Jr.: right myself over 2019 80 versus this 2019 80 81 as I started out I did speak

▶ 32:01 Francis X. Wright Jr.: with the mayor and I thought the presentation of this and the filing of this could have been handled better we all make mistakes and but as the gentleman just said I still think it's in the best interest of the city and he kind of stole my thunder but I'm concerned that without the customary November December transition period that department heads will believe that they lack any security come November and I'm afraid what that could mean for the city

▶ 32:43 Francis X. Wright Jr.: because I was in that position once and I saw a lot of people doing what they thought was in the best interest of their families in the months leading up to an election and we have a lot of great staff here and I I don't know what's going to happen with this I'd love to see it pass in some form but if it doesn't what I would like to see is I would at least like to know that the candidates for mayor commit not to make any senior staff decisions through the first week of January this would allow the present staff to assist the incoming mayor in learning about the day-to-day operations of the city and the administration of the mayor's office there's a issue of continuity here there's an issue of these staff members wanting to have a chance to get to know the administration and prove their worth I think I'm unaware of anyone in this staff who isn't hard-working and they're all incredibly intelligent and I hate to see them in limbo thinking that come the second or third week of November decisions could be made that might affect them and their careers and their families so for that reason alone a transition period is helpful but how

▶ 34:18 Francis X. Wright Jr.: that occurs is up to this body I'll vote in support of what the mayor proposed even though again I've explained to her that I think it could have been handled better but I'm not gonna buy into all these conspiracy theories that I've heard and read and complaints that I about that and let and cut off my nose to cut off the city's nose to spite its face so I for one will support it and if it doesn't pass I hope there's some expression of desire to if the mayor leaves that everyone else will be allowed some transition period to allow for the education of the incoming mayor and his or her staff thank you thank you

▶ 35:07 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: any further discussion on my future Thank You

▶ 35:12 Manisha Bewtra: Joe woman um I concur with mr. Schlinger and alderman Rita as everyone around the table this horseshoe who was here on Thursday may remember I so we had a motion to not recommend and I opposed the motion to not recommend which meant I supported the amendment the amended language I believe that a smooth transition from the current administration to the next one makes a lot of sense and even if this charter change were not to go through the legislature in time for us to benefit in 2019 I understood the perspective of why this would be a good change to make I think ultimately comes down to my respect for those who are doing the work inside City Hall and I I agree the process could have been better I think what kind of troubles me is that I think we all agreed the process could have been handled a bit differently and yet I also heard my colleagues saying that we agreed that the intention was not nefarious even if the optics were bad furthermore I think one of the

▶ 36:34 Manisha Bewtra: particular concerns that came up with regards to the particular timing of this and Mayor Inferno's role in this that helped allay my concerns regarding those optics were that she's not in the pension system and she's not taking health care so from a cost perspective this would be a cost-neutral proposal with regards to this particular mayor at this particular time as I mentioned also

▶ 37:03 Manisha Bewtra: also being a candidate myself i i recognize sort of the all-around awkwardness of having a position one way or the other i i like alderman Wright proposal regarding maybe some sort of in-between step regarding senior staff changes waiting until january i think that makes a lot of sense but ultimately i would have supported the amendment if we could when we make our further motions just kind of clarify I guess parliamentary procedure because I think not recommended and opposed feels a little confusing and I'm not completely certain how we're moving forward but I want to make sure that I had the opportunity to state my position thank

▶ 37:58 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: you thank you a further discussion the motion has been made in seconded to remove this order from committee all in favor opposed opposed to remove the

▶ 38:11 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: order from committee just clarifying on that one so the order pad that motion passes the order is before you from the appropriations committee where it came to us with a recommendation that it ought not pass so I would make a motion

▶ 38:24 Speaker 9: to place the order on file we have a motion made by alderman Letter

▶ 38:28 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Garabedian to place the order on file second seconded by Alderman's work oh is there any discussion now to clarify a motion in favor of placing this order on file would not pet the order would not pass as written we call the roll please

▶ 38:53 Speaker 6: other than butra what are we voting on at this point you're voting on the

▶ 38:56 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: motion to place it on file so a yes vote would be to place this order on file and that order would not pass a no vote would be to keep it before us and in

▶ 39:08 Speaker 3: play. Alderman Bewtra? No. Alderman Boisselle? No. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian? Yes.

▶ 39:15 Speaker 3: Alderman McMaster? No. Alderman Medeiros? Yes. Alderman Mortimer? Yes. Alderman

▶ 39:29 Speaker 3: Tremontosi? Yes. Alderman Wright? No. Alderman Zwirko? Yes. President Lemmerman? Yes.

▶ 39:34 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Six yes. Motion to place the order on file passes.

▶ 39:41 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Moving on to reports under Rule 53 from any committees or boards.