An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) to the Election Department (#162) in the amount of $3,000 for a mailing.
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B. (ID # 2026-1178): An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) to the Election Department (#162) in the amount of $3,000 for a mailing. City Clerk Cifuni explained that the Elections Department needs to do a mailing to notify residents about mail-in ballot requests. In order to save money, this would be combined with the census and dog registration material mailing to reach 20,000 voters in a cost-effective manner. Councilor 7 Jamaleddine suggested monitoring the impact of this initiative to determine if it should be repeated in future years. Motion to Recommend made by Councilor Chen Seconded by Councilor Kowal All were in favor and motion passed RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] AYES: Jason Chen, Cal Finocchiaro, Bradley Freeman, Maya Jamaleddine, Elizabeth Kowal, John Obremski, Christopher Park, Devin Romanul, Kim Vandiver NAYS: None ABSENT: Manjula Karamcheti, Ryan Williams VII. ADJOURNMENT Motion to Adjourn by unanimous consent made by Chair Romanul at 9:04 PM Meeting was adjourned 8 CITY OF MELROSE v2024.7 LIVE NEXT YEAR / CURRENT YEAR BUDGET ANALYSIS PROJECTION: 2027 FISCAL YEAR 2027 OPERATING BUDGET
Transcript
▶ 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.
▶ 1:56:09 Devin Romanul: All in favor. All right. Thank you so much. And to save Madam Clerk the indignity of running back and forth and getting more steps in, I motion by unanimous consent to take ID number 20261178 out of order. Mm-hmm. Seeing no objection, we will now hear ID number 20261178, an appropriation from free cash to the elections department 162, in the amount of $3,000 for a mailing.
▶ 1:56:37 Speaker 10: So, like Councilor Vandiver was just bringing up, every other year, the state or the federal government will actually pay for a mailing to go out to all of our registered voters, asking them if they want a mail-in ballot. They'll list the elections that are coming up for that calendar year, and they'll say, "Do you want a mail-in ballot for all elections, September election, November election?" And they check the box, and then a mail-in ballot is sent to them. But that's not every year. It's every other year. So, last year, that didn't happen with the mail. And despite the fact that we put it in the paper, and we had it on the boards, and we put it on our website, and people were still frustrated that they didn't receive that mail-in ballot, and we had to keep explaining to them why, and that they have to request a mail-in ballot. And with the request of a mail-in ballot, they receive their mail-in ballot. And they just don't know that because it kind of throws you off when it changes every other year. So, we're coming into a year of next year that that's not going to happen. We're going to have to make sure that our residents know that if they want that mail-in ballot, for not this November's election, the following November's election, they must request a mail-in ballot. They must fill out the form, and they must either online or send it in. I'm asking for free cash because free cash is only now, during this time period. We do our census and put the whole thing together the second week in December is usually when we do it, and we drop them the last week in December. Everybody gets them between Christmas and New Year's is when everybody starts mailing them. So, what we were thinking is, how can we notify all of our residents about this in the most cost-effective way that would target so many people? We felt that the most cost-effective way would be an additional insert with the census and the dog registration that goes out. This way, 20,000 people are receiving this. All of our registered voters will get this additional piece of paper. We'll have it on a colored, bright piece of paper, and we'll just notify everybody, "If you do want a mail-in ballot, please make sure that you request it this year." Because we're already paying for the postage for the census, that's mandatory, that must be sent out, and the dog registration. So, we're just doing an additional insert. That was the most cost-effective way. That's what this $3,000 is for, and we would be utilizing that $3,000 in December when we send in all of our money to our vendor for the census.
▶ 1:59:08 Speaker 1: Terrific. Any questions?
▶ 1:59:11 Devin Romanul: Councilor Jamaleddine.
▶ 1:59:14 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. This is very good. What I would request or suggest is that we just monitor what the impact of this, if you can report back to us if this actually worked- ... and how, because this is going to let us know if we should use it for next time- Mm-hmm ... and the following year or probably try a different way if it doesn't work.
▶ 1:59:42 Speaker 10: Yeah. Yes, I can do that. You could just do the percentage of how many people turn out, and I guess maybe how many complaints. But yes, I'm hoping that we can be able to track to see if it's going to be cost-effective and effective all around. But it should be. It should be because this community does a really, really good job turning in their census and their dog registrations. They do. Overall, they do. And so, just year over year from the first time that I did it last year, and I did the confirmation cards, which is the second round of people that I have to send postcards to saying, "Hey, FYI, you never turned in your census, so here's a confirmation card. Sign it and turn it in that you still live here, and you still at this address." That number went down significantly from last year. We're not sending out as many the second time around. So, a lot of people are doing a really good job returning their census.
▶ 2:00:34 Speaker 11: Awesome. Thank you. Yep.
▶ 2:00:35 Speaker 1: Up next, Councilor Chen.
▶ 2:00:37 Jason Chen: Okay. Thank you for saving money on this one. Mm-hmm. And I also concur with President Freeman suggestion of if we can move people to electronic answering and bills of everything. I think the statistics are about two-thirds of people prefer to pay bills electronically on their phone in any way possible. So, motion to recommend for approval.
▶ 2:00:57 Devin Romanul: Motion to recommend made by Councilor Chen. Second. Seconded by several people, including Councilor Kowal.
▶ 2:01:06 Speaker 1: On discussion.
▶ 2:01:09 Devin Romanul: Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?
▶ 2:01:11 Speaker 3: Yes. 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.
▶ 2:01:27 Devin Romanul: All right. All in favor. We will move that to the full council for consideration on our next session. Thank you, Madam Clerk.
▶ 2:01:33 Speaker 10: Thank you. Thank you so much.
▶ 2:01:35 Devin Romanul: All right. Up next, appropriations for FY27, ID number 20261208, an appropriation in the amount of $126,652,797 to fund the fiscal year 2027 general operating