Reauthorization of the revolving fund table for Fiscal Year 2027.

Transcript (~38 min @ 1:18:26)

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

▶ 1:18:24 Devin Romanul: All right. The motion passes. We will move that forward to the next full council meeting. Thank you, director, chief. Appreciate the detailed discussion on procurement and- Thank you all ... all of your commentary. All right. Up next, we have item number 541, Council on Aging joining us this evening. Director Drummond, thank you so much for joining us.

▶ 1:18:50 Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. President, Councilors. Thank you for your time tonight. I acknowledge that I'm speaking to some of you in your first year here, so I don't want to repeat everything that was in my memo, but I'll give you a brief overview of the department and what we do. So ourMission is to connect older adults with programs, resources, and services that help them thrive in the community. We have the Council on Aging office, which comprises of myself, an administrative assistant, social services coordinator, and several drivers who man our transportation program. So our office primarily deals with information and referrals for folks who are looking for resources or to be connected with information. We also run the transportation program, which brings folks to medical destinations outside of Melrose and any location within Melrose. And then we also have the Milano Center, which is the programming hub of our operations. So, they provide fitness programs. We have over 17 different options for folks to choose from, social engagement programs, as well as educational opportunities for older adults in Melrose to take advantage of. My memo was submitted a few weeks ago, so I'd like to give you some updated numbers. As of today, the Milano Center this fiscal year has served 1,241 individuals who have checked in 15,184 times this fiscal year. We have also provided 2,209 rides for Melrose residents, with 574 of those being to medical destinations. So, we hope that the budget before you reflects our commitment to providing great services to older adults in Melrose.

▶ 1:20:57 Devin Romanul: Wonderful. Thank you very much. Up first, I have Councilor Kowal.

▶ 1:21:00 Elizabeth Kowal: Thank you for being here. Pleasure. What you do is so near and dear to my heart, and I am so glad to see you doing all the Memory Cafes. I'll turn it to my mother had dementia, so they were huge for our family. So, thank you. I also have a lot of aging neighbors who are at the Milano Center all the time, and they just rave about it. So, one of the questions I had, you talked about transportation, and this just may be me being new and not knowing how to read the budget, but where is the transportation? I see mileage, but where is transportation accounted for in the budget?

▶ 1:21:33 Speaker 7: Sure. So transportation primarily is under the salaries and wages. Okay. That will go towards our drivers who are on the road five days a week. Okay. Maintenance of vehicles falls to DPW, so we don't have many other expenses. If I do have expenses for windshield wiper fluid or other things that come up during the year, I usually pull from grants or program supplies, which is one of our other line items.

▶ 1:21:58 Elizabeth Kowal: Okay. So if I wanted to see the number for transportation, I could just get in touch with you, and we can-

▶ 1:22:03 Speaker 5: Absolutely. Thank you.

▶ 1:22:06 Devin Romanul: Thank you very much. Other councilors? Councilor Chen.

▶ 1:22:09 Jason Chen: Hello. So the salaries budget increases by 13.4%. Some of that is the drivers that you're adding? Or is there also a head count?

▶ 1:22:17 Speaker 7: That would be primarily for the full-time staff and our social service coordinator, for anticipated salary increases in the next fiscal year.

▶ 1:22:28 Jason Chen: Got it. So that's both. We're increasing all salaries by 13.4%?

▶ 1:22:33 Speaker 7: So, no. So it would be myself, our social services coordinator, the Milano Center manager, which is James Conforti, and the administrative assistant, Diana Ardizzoni.

▶ 1:22:43 Jason Chen: Are we also adding any positions to account for that?

▶ 1:22:46 Speaker 7: We are not, no.

▶ 1:22:51 Jason Chen: I guess I'm asking because it's a large increase in

▶ 1:22:56 Speaker 9: year-over-year salaries that-

▶ 1:22:58 Speaker 7: Sure. It's based on the step and level chart that's set by HR and the unions. Okay. And dependent on employee reviews that are annual.

▶ 1:23:16 Speaker 1: Thank you. Other councilors? Councilor Finocchiaro.

▶ 1:23:22 Cal Finocchiaro: Thank you. Thank you for everything that you do. Council on Aging is an amazing place. The Milano Center, my parents, my mother-in-law, they go get their fitness on all the time. Love it. I love all of the events that you do. You just did some creative, make a creative outfit out of a medical, I mean, a pill box or something. Project Runway? Yeah, Project Runway. Anyways, I'm not sure if the percentages changed, but it's like 20% of Melrose is 65 and older or something like that. So- It's close, yeah ... you serve a good portion of our population, and I don't know, it's a great spot for our community, so appreciate it.

▶ 1:24:05 Speaker 1: Other councilors? What is the will of the committee? Councilor Jamaleddine?

▶ 1:24:11 Maya Jamaleddine: Make a motion to move to bottom line.

▶ 1:24:13 Devin Romanul: Second. Motion move to the bottom line by Councilor Jamaleddine, seconded by Councilor Kowal. On discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 1:24:22 Speaker 3: Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Kowal? Yes. Councilor Abremski? Yes. Councilor Park? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes. All in favor.

▶ 1:24:39 Devin Romanul: All right, all in favor. We will move that to the bottom line. Up next, item number 28.11, Council on Aging revolving account. Any additional commentary?

▶ 1:24:48 Speaker 7: No, just that we're seeking the same level as fiscal year '26. This is our kind of money in, money out account. So when we buy large purchases that we know will be reimbursed for from ticket sales. For example, we're going to the Peabody Essex Museum at the beginning of June, so we purchase the tickets upfront, and then the members will pay for their tickets. So all of that comes out of there, as well as our instructor's fees ... fitness instructor fees. Sorry.

▶ 1:25:18 Speaker 1: Wonderful. Any questions? What is the will of the committee?

▶ 1:25:24 Devin Romanul: Motion to approve. Oh, second. President. A motion made to approve by President Freeman, seconded by Councilor Finocchiaro. On discussion. Madam Clerk, will you please call the rule?

▶ 1:25:33 Speaker 3: Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen. Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. Councilor Kowal. Yes. Councilor Abrmski. Yes. Councilor Park. Yes. President Freeman. Yes. Chair Romanul. Yes. All in favor.

▶ 1:25:48 Devin Romanul: All right. All in favor, the motion passes. Thank you so much- Thank you, Councilors ... Director Drummond. Appreciate your time and for all that you do for the city of Melrose. My pleasure. Thank you. All right. Up next, item number 161. City clerk.

▶ 1:26:04 Devin Romanul: Jesus. What am I doing? Joining us this evening- Doing DoorDash? ... City Clerk, Sefuni.

▶ 1:26:19 Speaker 10: Well, I know that I am fortunate enough to work with all of you around this table- ... in some way. But just to give an overview to the public who could be watching, my name is Tanji Sefuni, and I've been working for the community for the last three years, and I've been blessed to be the city clerk for the last year and a half. I oversee elections, city council, Adrienne, the clerk of committees, and the city clerk. In the city clerk's office, we're super, super busy every day, and not one day is like another. We're always dealing with the public. I have to shout out to my assistant city clerk, Linda Reed, my election clerk, James Harris, my senior clerk, Cathy, and Adrienne, for all of their professionalism, their support. I have the best team to work with, so I just wanted to make sure that I shouted out to you because I'm blessed to be working with you. City clerk's office is the official keeper of all the history and records of Melrose. Our mission is to remain dedicated to maintaining and protecting all of our historical records as safely as possible, while servicing the public by providing information in an efficient and timely manner. And I can definitely say that we do so. I attached to my memo the number of transactions that we have done as of the end of April, and there's thousands of them. At this time, I think we have generated $110,030 as of April. And that's between all of the licenses or permits or vital records that we process in a fiscal year. So that's the city clerk's. When you look at the budget for the city clerk's office, nothing is really changing. Everything is basically level funded. I try to run every single department that I oversee like it's my own household, and I'm very, very efficient, and I do shop around. There is something that will stick out to all of you, and that is the increase in the agenda software. That looks like it's going up 79.2%. I didn't have it on my radar originally. And then I was reminded that there was legislation that was passed by the state to make sure that our website is ADA compliant. And so with that, I did send out a memo, but I was on a webinar recently, and with that webinar, it just discussed how detailed our website, everything on our website needs to be ADA compliant. Budgets, agendas, minutes, any PDF, any PowerPoint presentation, plot plans, everything. Bigger cities, they're recommending that they actually hire a full-time ADA compliance officer just to monitor and watch the websites. We're not there. And so I was able to find a company that is under the umbrella of the parent company that we already use for our website, for our public records request, for recreation. We partner with them well. It would seamlessly work with us on the back end of things. So they did provide me with a quote, and that's what's attached here. So that's why it went up significantly from last year to this year. Everything else when it comes to the city council is basically level funded. Some things I actually did go down on as well when it comes to the city council budget. I don't know if you want me to move on, but I know that's what we're talking about right now, so.

▶ 1:30:06 Devin Romanul: We'll stick with the clerk for the moment.

▶ 1:30:08 Speaker 10: Yeah. Did I say city council? I'm sorry if I did. I meant to say city clerk. I apologize. City clerk.

▶ 1:30:14 Devin Romanul: That's quite all right. Up first I have Councilor Jamaleddine.

▶ 1:30:17 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Hello. Hi. It's so good to see you at this place tonight. Yeah, in that corner. Would you be able to provide numbers in terms of how much would be if we hire, not that I am advocating to hire someone, but what would be if we hire a professional to manage the websites, an ADA manager, and how much we are paying for a company?

▶ 1:30:47 Speaker 10: Well, right now, I personally don't manage the website. I think earlier, I think the mayor or somebody had mentioned, I only am responsible for the web pages that I oversee for those three different departments. That's all based out of the mayor's office. I rolled this into my budget because I manage so many of the moving docs that are on our website. Posting all of our meetings, agendas. People will come to me for attachments, and so I'm loading all that. So I just felt like it made more sense to have that software rolled into my budgetI don't know what a full-time person would be, but I can't even imagine. The number would be pretty large, because then you also have to include benefits and retirement and such, right, if it's a full-time person. We're not there. We don't have the population. We don't have the number of documents. I did have this company assess our existing website and provide us with a grade on where we currently are. Mm. And we're not where we need to be. I also got the total number of documents that I need to get up to speed, and we're talking thousands. But I don't think that that would call for a full-time person. I think having the software would suffice, and that would be a good way for us to be able to manage what we have already on our website and what we're going to be doing moving forward.

▶ 1:32:16 Maya Jamaleddine: Yeah. So just to clarify, it's more to compare what we would be paying versus what we are going to pay right now for the software. Okay. But also, I know that Tom Dalton is the one managing all the websites. Correct. You're more talking specifically about managing documents, moving, saving, and all the other stuff. Correct. How did we do it in the past- We didn't ... before you?

▶ 1:32:52 Speaker 10: We didn't. We didn't have them. Our website has a little icon at the bottom right-hand corner where it will allow somebody to view it at a larger font. It's very minimal of what it does. This actually takes the documents, the actual PDFs- Mm-hmm ... and they make them ADA compliant. Mm. There's a little button that will be at the top that will take it from readable to whatever it needs to be- Mm-hmm ... for that person who can't read or can't hear. Awesome. And so that's a lot of coding and stuff . Yeah. That's nothing that we would know how to do. Yeah. But this software would do it for us on the back end, and it- ... connects with our website.

▶ 1:33:35 Maya Jamaleddine: So just to be clear, we're not paying per service as much as we're paying for the software itself. And then it's yearly payment? Mm-hmm. Okay. It's a yearly payment. And every year we have to renew it.

▶ 1:33:56 Speaker 10: Correct, like we do our website, and next request in this actual, I think it's called iView, what we use already as a little... That icon that we have on the website to make it so it's ADA compliant. Yeah. It's all under that same umbrella of CivicPlus. Okay.

▶ 1:34:13 Maya Jamaleddine: Mm-hmm. And I'm very excited about this. This is amazing for our city and the community as well. What are we going to expect now if we have this software? Well... I'm sorry. I'm asking a lot of information.

▶ 1:34:32 Speaker 10: No, it's totally fine. If we decided to go with this company, they were willing to work with us. They said it would take about two weeks for us to get up and running. They would go through all of the documentation that we already have in our system and get all of that up to speed, and then anything moving forward that I put up on the website, it would automatically get that ADA compliant moving forward. And so I could have this probably ready by mid-June. They're not charging us for this fiscal year, but they would already get us up and running this fiscal year. So by the time that we get into the new fiscal year, we would be in full compliance. I do want to note that the state is telling us that we don't have to be in full compliance until next year. There are about 20 communities in the Commonwealth that are already there. Mm-hmm. So it is something we have to do. Actually, we don't even have a choice. We have to do this. So it's just the like, "Let's just get this going at some point." Yeah. So yeah.

▶ 1:35:38 Maya Jamaleddine: And for those that will benefit big time from this resource- Mm-hmm ... it will be with documents and what else? Like documents for, let's say, city council agenda and stuff. Mm-hmm. But if you can-

▶ 1:35:57 Speaker 10: Agenda, minutes, plot plans, any sort of attachment that we put on to the website. Currently, right now, they could maybe read some of the data entry of the text of the webpage. But all of those attachments, they're not able to- ... depending on what their disability is, they're not able to understand what they are. But they would with this software.

▶ 1:36:24 Maya Jamaleddine: Applications and forms.

▶ 1:36:26 Speaker 10: Everything. It codes it all. Okay. It literally codes it all.

▶ 1:36:30 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you so much. Yes. That's amazing.

▶ 1:36:32 Speaker 10: And I'd be happy to send all of you the link too, so you can actually watch the three-minute webinar. It's pretty fascinating what it can do. That's great.

▶ 1:36:40 Speaker 11: Yeah. Thank you.

▶ 1:36:40 Speaker 10: Yes, for sure.

▶ 1:36:41 Devin Romanul: Thank you so much. So yeah, do please feel free to forward. That'd be great. Yes, for sure. Up next, I have Councilor Park.

▶ 1:36:48 Speaker 2: Thank you. Tanji, I am familiar with the ADA software and the compliancy that we have to move forward with. My question to you is, the cost moving forward, essentially the 18,000, is that going to be a fixed recurring cost, or is that-

▶ 1:37:08 Speaker 10: It's not 18 for this. This software is not 18. There's other things that I have to pay for in that agenda item. Oh, okay. Okay. Because I have to pay for all of our minutes in our... Like the software that we do for all of our minutes and all of our agenda, and all that has a cost. That's called CivicClerkSo there's that. The quote that I think... Well, I did send it to all of you, but-

▶ 1:37:33 Speaker 2: With the Agenda Soft was 17,915. Am I misreading something? I thought that was just-

▶ 1:37:40 Speaker 10: No. Yeah. The quote that I had received for this particular stuff that I'm talking about is $8,871. And so the line item that you're looking at doesn't just include... It includes this new doc- Well, I don't want to say it out loud, but what this would be and what we're already paying for the software where we do all of the agendas and minutes, which is called Civic Clerk. Okay. I pay for that out of this particular line item.

▶ 1:38:15 Speaker 2: Okay. Got it. Thank you for the clarification. So is that number going to remain static moving forward or because we are making that transition, because there's presumably a lot of documents that need to be converted- Mm-hmm ... is that cost higher or is this a fixed... What is the pricing model on that sort of subscription? Is it a yearly basis regardless that we're going to be paying or is it dynamic in the sense of how much volume and content you're going to be putting through?

▶ 1:38:46 Speaker 10: What it says over here is that this would be an amendment to the website contract, so it would be an amendment to the website. So prorated. I know you're building your contract.

▶ 1:39:01 Speaker 10: We could always work, and I know the mayor has actually done this with them and told them that we do want to sit down with them because we want to begin to start building out some discounts because we are adding on more software under their umbrella that we can really utilize. And so with that, we want to start seeing tiered discounts for some of the things that we're using, right? Because there's so many underneath there, and I know that they did do that for our website, for instance. The number there, when I had put in for $10,000 for the agenda software, what I had noticed is that they actually gave us a reduced amount, and it was for two years, and actually that contract expires December of 2026 for our website. So when I had requested the $10,000 last year, I thought it was already going to be up and I was going to have to pay for it. But then when I looked at the contract, I wasn't involved when they had done all this, I inherited this. When I looked at it, I was like, "Oh, it looks like they actually worked with us and gave us two years at that rate." So again, with this particular number, that's the number for how many records that we have, and I can go back and I can ask if that number would be going up if there's going to be more, but obviously they know where there's going to be more. That's the whole purpose of this whole thing is that- Right ... it's always going to be building. Right. And- And I understand what you're saying about a cap of some sort, and then maybe there's going to be an additional layer of costs- Right ... when you get to a certain amount.

▶ 1:40:39 Speaker 2: Because where I'm going with this is that, I, and I've spoken to Jason about this, Councilor Jason, and Adrienne too, to some extent- Yeah ... about really trying to flush out the meetings, putting them where they're more accessible in terms of the votes, what was on the agenda, how people voted, and if we're going to be putting out something that can be potentially hundreds of pages, how is that going to affect this particular price for the ADA, and is that something we have to factor in moving forward?

▶ 1:41:09 Speaker 10: Not that... No. Not that I know of, no. You're talking about the agendas and minutes. That's Civic Clerk. Mm-hmm. The Civic Clerk? Yeah. Yeah. The Civic Clerk is definitely more affordable than Minute Track that we were using. It's a little bit more user-friendly maybe for the end user. I personally feel like it's still in its infancy stage when it comes to us working on it and building agendas and minutes. I think there's a lot more that they can do with this software, but it's what we have and we're in a contract with them now, so. And it's definitely more affordable than what we were doing. I can say that. That's all I can say. Okay. I wasn't really involved in all of the detail and the negotiations when it comes to this. It wasn't me, it was the mayor's office. I just kind of... Because agendas and minutes falls in my department, that's the reason why I just retained the costs and had to build out the dashboard. Okay. But I didn't really have anything to do with the details of the contract.

▶ 1:42:24 Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 1:42:27 Devin Romanul: All right. Up next I have Councilor Ferraquio.

▶ 1:42:29 Speaker 10: Thank you.

▶ 1:42:31 Cal Finocchiaro: So one of the best parts of budget season is we get department heads in front of us, and it's a good time to thank people. So I know I'm not asking a question, but I just want to say thank you because you've done an excellent job, Adrienne, James. I don't know everybody that's what falls under your purview. But you guys are so organized and run our meetings so efficiently and all the meeting minutes and the emails. So really appreciate what you guys do. So thank you.

▶ 1:43:00 Speaker 10: Thank you very much.

▶ 1:43:01 Speaker 1: Councilor Chen.

▶ 1:43:03 Jason Chen: Thank you. I think I have no issue with the extra software to be ADA compliant. We've had a discussion briefly, and also with Tom Dalton, about how to use AI in municipal websites, and they do a lot for city clerks to automate the day-to-day work, not to replace anyone, but to make your work more efficient. And these software bundles are pretty inexpensive. It's $6,000 for a ... a front end and internal use for unlimited number of users. So it'll be more a question for IT, but this could make a lot of your day-to-day burdensome tasks- Mm-hmm ... more efficient. Yeah. And they offer full minutes tracking, dictation. They can give first responses to people that you can then check and say, "Yes, that is the correct record," and then just hit send. So- Mm-hmm ... with that, I propose to move to the bottom line.

▶ 1:43:54 Devin Romanul: Second. Motion made to move to the bottom line by Councilor Chen, seconded by Councilor Finocchiaro. On discussion, President Freeman.

▶ 1:44:01 Bradley Freeman: Just want to know quickly, just for the record, I know you and I have had conversations before about the census process that you have to go through, and the- Yeah ... steps that it takes to involve residents responding. And whether it's built into the FY27 budget or looking ahead to FY28, I'd really encourage your office to look at a electronic submission for the census process. I know some other cities and towns use CR codes and allow residents, particularly those who are not making any changes to their census, to note that online. And I think it would help save money down the road, because you wouldn't be sending out as many reminders to residents who don't respond immediately. Mm-hmm. So whether that's built into the FY27 or talking FY28 and free cash, would love to continue working with your office on that.

▶ 1:44:42 Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you, President Freeman. Any others?

▶ 1:44:45 Speaker 10: I was going to bring that up, but it was going to be under elections. But- Fair enough ... thank you. We did talk about it.

▶ 1:44:51 Devin Romanul: I like the coming attractions. All right. Seeing no other commentary, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 1:44:57 Speaker 3: Yes. Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? No. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Kowal? Yes. Councilor Abremski? Yes. Councilor Park? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes.

▶ 1:45:13 Devin Romanul: All in favor. All right. All in favor, we'll move that to the bottom line. Thank you so much. Up next, number 162, election registrar. Take it away.

▶ 1:45:21 Speaker 10: Which one is next? Elections?

▶ 1:45:22 Devin Romanul: Oh, 162. Elections, right?

▶ 1:45:24 Speaker 10: Elections registrar. Okay, great. So I had the privilege to work with all of you over the last nine months and to board four new people. We've been working really closely, looking at all of our policies and procedures when it comes to elections. James is new. I'm fairly new at this. I've been able to lean on some phenomenal people that you have in this community who just love elections and love the city of Melrose, and they have so much knowledge. And they sign up with the volunteer program, and I probably had four to five people last year, from the senior volunteer program, that helped me out throughout the year. That's how I was able to meet Adrian, actually, coming on and helping me with the census, organizing my office, helping me with early voting, helping me on election day. It was also a great way to bring down overall costs by using all of the senior volunteers as well. So I really appreciate all of them. And we've tried to make sure that everybody is using all of the campaign financing online now instead of manually submitting in all of their campaign financing. We try to make sure that we push out all information that we're getting from the state as soon as we get it to make all of your lives easier with the campaign process, and then with the onboarding process, and then with the filing after the election. And I'm very happy with how everything went in the November election. I hope you all are as well. We were very, very happy with our turnout that we had this year. We had a really, really good number, I think I have it somewhere here, on how many people we had turn out for early voting. Thousands, and obviously, the mail-in ballots were very successful, and then we had a good turnout the day of. So everything went really smooth sailing. We worked really closely with the board of registers. We meet with them on a monthly basis. And we're already starting to plan out everything that we need to do for the primaries and November election. So we have a lot of people. I would say about 90% of the people have already come back to us and told us that they want to work both elections again, for both the September and November. So our numbers are looking good for the poll workers. And I think basically when it comes to the budget, everything, again, is just basically level funded. I know that we are having two elections this year versus the one that I had last year, but with it being a state and federal election, they pay for a lot of the print of the ballots, and they front a lot of the costs. Obviously, we didn't have that for the November election. It was just a local election. So we have to front all of the costs when it comes to that stuff. So our costs are not going to be as high for this one.

▶ 1:48:27 Speaker 10: And like President Freeman said, we did talk about the census. I did last year incorporate a line item for an email address and a cell phone. I would say less than a third of the people actually even put their email or their cell phone down, and a lot of our demographics still want to hand-deliver their census to us. They don't even want to put it in the mail. So I totally understand what you say about trying to send all that out with the emails or a QR code. I would love to be able to do something like that, too. But right now, we also need our state database to actually even capture email addresses, which they don't even capture that. So I'm capturing the email address because once I get that census, if I have questions on something, I'm able to email them and I'm able to ask them the question or invite them to come in. But I have no place to put that when I collect that information in the state database, because they don't collect that information. So I wouldn't be able to do any sort of mass mailing or anything from that database because they don't collect it. It's more of an internal thing right now.

▶ 1:49:38 Devin Romanul: Terrific. Up first I have Councilor Park.

▶ 1:49:40 Speaker 2: Thank you. Let me just start off by saying that every time I've voted in Melrose, I've always been impressed by the seamless way everything moves forward. You can get in, get out really quickly. There's no lines. There have been times where I've been guilty of not registering, and that process has been actually very smooth as well. Coming from a point also where I was running for office, I found being on the stands or the grounds to be pleasant, and also noticing how smooth the operations worked from that standpoint as well. So I really commend what was going on in the back. It's like a military operation, and I see that there isn't any increase on any of the funds that you've requested, so I make a motion to move to the bottom line.

▶ 1:50:33 Devin Romanul: Motion to move- Second ... to the bottom line made by Councilor Chen, seconded by Councilor Finocchiaro. On discussion, I have Vice Chair Vanderberg.

▶ 1:50:40 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. The discussion about the census options for that just made me think of possibly an idea you can consider. If we do have a large number of people who want to come down here in person and hand in their census, I wonder if, before we do mailing, which costs money for the envelopes and the time, the postage, if we could do a round of letting people know a stack of censuses is available at the office, come on in, fill it in in person, put it in the drop box. We knock out 1,000 people that way, and then we do a round of mailing with whoever's left. That might save a little bit of cost. You'd have to think about how that fits into your operation, but- Yeah

▶ 1:51:21 Speaker 10: ... just a suggestion. I just don't know what the turnout would really be. It's so important to get a good turnout- Mm-hmm ... and have accurate information. And the information that is being printed on that census is being printed from the database, so it's going to be pretty much accurate. Your responsibility as a resident is to look at it and say, "It all looks good," sign it, and return it. You might have a change. Maybe somebody's passed, maybe somebody has moved. It's your responsibility to do that. To have somebody come in and remember that off the top of their head, I don't know how accurate some of it might be, if they're going to remember all the details. I do know there's one community, because President Freeman and I spoke about this, and I did reach out, and I did do some research, and I do know that there's a community in the Cape that currently is just on their census saying, "If there are absolutely no changes to your census, you can submit in your request stating there are no changes," and they can electronically sign it. There is one community that's doing that, and I would like to reach out to them to see what their success rate was on that. And if there are, they have to print it, and they have to make the changes, and they have to mail it in. I was told that there was one from the vendor that we're currently using. So I'm curious to see what that community gets back for data. But like we discussed, it could be something that we're definitely going to work on and look at for the future, because it would make our lives so much easier as well.

▶ 1:52:53 Kimberly Vandiver: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I know with the last election cycle, too, the at home ballots that get mailed out, those are even more so than the census because there's a whole process around checks and balances and-

▶ 1:53:07 Speaker 10: I'll get to that when you ask me- ... so forth and whatnot ... when the order comes up for the mailing.

▶ 1:53:10 Kimberly Vandiver: Anytime we can- The mailing ... streamline the mailing processes, I think is a good thing for time, and cost, and everything, so. Yep. Yeah. But I appreciate that you're on it and you're considering it.

▶ 1:53:21 Speaker 10: Yep. I agree.

▶ 1:53:22 Devin Romanul: Terrific. Any other questions on discussion? All right. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 1:53:30 Speaker 3: Vice Chair Vanderberg? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Kowal? Yes. Councilor Abremski? Yes. Councilor Park? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes. All in favor.

▶ 1:53:45 Devin Romanul: All in favor. We will move that item to the bottom line. Thank you so much. And last but not least in our departmental budget presentations this evening is number 112, City Council.

▶ 1:53:54 Speaker 10: City Council, here we are. Again, I have the pleasure of working with all of you, and you're all extremely professional. You're all very attentive. Your communication with Adrian and I are great, and we really love working with all of you. And it's been a pleasure onboarding Councilor Chen, Councilor Kowal, Councilor Park, President Freeman. I highlighted a couple of things. We've rolled out over 10 ordinances in the year. We've worked closely with all of you to do that, food truck, dog leash, dwelling units. There's a bunch of you in this room that also helped me come up with all the new applications that we needed to roll out for these licenses, so I've worked closely with a lot of you on that. When it comes to our budget, everything is basically level funded, with the exception of advertising. With so many of those poll petitions that we had last year, and we had so many poll petitions, we have to front all of that money for those legal ads. All of that has to get in front. And we do ask for that money back, but it takes a while for that money to come back. And when that money comes back, it doesn't go back into this line item. It goes back into the general fund. Mm. It's not set up as a revolving fund. The other thing is, is that you have to pay for hearings, any sort of like our water and sewer rate hearing, setting the tax classification, our operating budget. All of those things, you need to pay for that print and all that advertising. So that number went up because that number was way too low.

▶ 1:55:35 Devin Romanul: All right. Any questions?What

▶ 1:55:39 Speaker 1: is the will of the committee?

▶ 1:55:42 Speaker 8: President Freeman. Motion to move to the bottom line.

▶ 1:55:44 Devin Romanul: Second. Motion to move to the bottom line made by President Freeman, seconded by Vice Chair Vandiver. On discussion. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 1:55:53 Speaker 3: Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Kowal? Councilor Abramsky? Yes. Councilor Park? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes. All in favor.