← City Council · 2026-06-15 · City Council Meeting 6/15/26
Resolution Affirming Accountability, Transparency and Respect for the Will of the Voters Sponsored by Cal Finocchiaro
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
1. (ID # 2026-1381): Resolution Affirming Accountability, Transparency and Respect for the Will of the Voters Sponsored by Cal Finocchiaro Motion for Immediate Consideration made by Councilor Finocchiaro Seconded by Councilor Chen All were in favor and motion passed Councilor Karamcheti joined the meeting via remote attendance at 8:47 PM The council discussed a resolution regarding the voter mandated state legislative audit, with Councilor Finocchiaro introducing the motion and several members speaking in support of increased transparency in state government. Councilor Finocchiaro read the document and supporting letter, which is attached to these minutes, and Councilor Romanul shared comments at the beginning also. Councilor Jamaleddine is in support of the audit but expressed concerns about the auditor's capacity to conduct comprehensive audits of everyone in a fair manner, and not to have the auditor pick and choose who is audited to her specific agenda. She is concerned about the auditor's ability to audit all legislators equally, suggesting a potential for bias. Councilor Chen highlighted specific transparency issues with the legislature's current audit process, and commented that the current formula of pay for legislators is set by leadership, is unclear, and could lead to corruption. Councilor Karamcheti expressed support for the resolution, stating that it's a non-partisan issue and emphasized the need for accessible information to constituents. Councilor Finocchiaro clarified that the resolution aims to support voter demands for transparency. Motion to Place on File made by Councilor Williams Seconded by Councilor Romanul Motion passed 10-1 RESULTS: ACCEPTED AYES: Jason Chen, Cal Finocchiaro, Bradley Freeman, Manjula Karamcheti, Elizabeth Kowal, John Obremski, Christopher Park, Devin Romanul, Kim Vandiver, Ryan Williams NAYS: Maya Jamaleddine C. Licenses
(ID # 2026-1381): Resolution Affirming Accountability, Transparency and Respect for the Will of the Voters Good morning, President Freeman and members of the City Council. On November 5, 2024, almost twelve thousand Melrose voters (11,656 or 67.31% of votes cast) called for the State Legislature to submit to oversight by the State Auditor. The issue of auditing the Massachusetts Legislature has overwhelming bipartisan support among the public and outside watchdog groups, and I urge you to vote to affirm the resolution. Massachusetts has historically been the only state where the legislature, the judiciary, and the governor's office are simultaneously exempt from state public records laws. While eight other states exempt their legislatures in some capacity, our sweeping multi-branch exemption is unique. Also, Massachusetts ranks last among the 49 states that require Statements of Financial Interests in terms of making that information easily accessible to the public. It's difficult to believe that a state as progressive and advanced as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would be so backwards when it comes to matters of government transparency, especially when one considers all of the other metrics in which we rank so high. It's time to stop the "spin," end the charade, and clean the proverbial house. Thank you for your continued servi
Transcript
▶ 23:51 Speaker 1: ID number 2026-1381, resolution affirming accountability, transparency, and respect for the will of the voters, sponsored by Cal Finocchiaro.
▶ 24:05 Cal Finocchiaro: Thank you. I would like to make a motion for immediate consideration.
▶ 24:08 Bradley Freeman: Second. There's a motion for immediate consideration made by Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Chen. On discussion?
▶ 24:15 Speaker 4: Seeing none. Madam Clerk?
▶ 24:16 Speaker 1: Councilor Chen? Point of order. Are we voting for the resolution right now? No.
▶ 24:22 Speaker 4: Oh, we're voting for the motion to consider tonight. Yes.
▶ 24:26 Speaker 1: Yes. Okay. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Maladin? Yes. Is Councilor Carm Shady on?
▶ 24:31 Bradley Freeman: She is joining momentarily. She's on, yeah.
▶ 24:33 Speaker 1: Okay. Councilor Kowal? Yes. Councilor Bremsky? Yes. Councilor Park? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Okay, the motion passes.
▶ 24:45 Bradley Freeman: The motion passes. That resolution is now up for consideration.
▶ 24:49 Cal Finocchiaro: Thank you. Just want to say a statement before I read. I apologize, my voice is not working well tonight, so I'll try to do my best. Good evening, President Freeman, fellow councilors, and members in the chamber. I'm in support of this resolution because I believe accountability should not depend on what office someone holds or how much power they possess. In November 2024, the people of Massachusetts spoke clearly. By an overwhelming margin, they voted to authorize a state auditor to audit the legislature. The voters of Melrose joined that majority. Yet earlier this month, the legislature passed a bill that will significantly limit or prevent the audit voters approved. Our own state representative voted in favor of that legislation. Reasonable people can disagree about the legal arguments surrounding the issue. What is harder to dispute is the message it sends when government appears to resist the oversight that voters overwhelmingly endorsed. Independent audits are not punishment. They are a standard tool used throughout government, as we do here in Melrose, to promote transparency and responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. I will also note that when I introduced an earlier version of this resolution, I was encouraged to withdraw it because of concerns that speaking out on this issue could jeopardize state funding for our community. Whether those concerns were well-founded or not, I found it troubling that a discussion about accountability could be accompanied by fears of political consequences. At its core, this resolution is about a simple principle. Government derives its authority from the people, and when voters speak so clearly, the decision deserves respect. So I respectfully ask for your support tonight. Thank you.
▶ 26:23 Bradley Freeman: Thank you, Councilor Finocchiaro. I'd like to note for the record that Councilor Carm Shady has joined virtually. All right, next up, Councilor Romanul.
▶ 26:30 Devin Romanul: Good evening. I want to thank my colleague for filing this order. Anyone, any member of the public who comes to our budget hearings or watches them online or follows us on social media, sees the painstaking detail that we go through to form our municipal budgets, the painstaking detail that manifests itself in the spreadsheets. Everything is out before everybody, for better or for worse, and we hear about it from everybody, and we're just asking other forms of government to follow that same level of transparency. And, yeah, I stand in support of this order and appreciate my colleagues filing. Thank you.
▶ 27:06 Speaker 4: Councilor Gelormini?
▶ 27:07 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Finocchiaro, for filing the resolution. I wanted to be clear that I am fully in support of auditing. But as we had this conversation, speaking with the auditor herself, I was told that she doesn't even have the capacity to audit everyone. And, I found it a little bit misleading, the question on the ballot, knowing that, for the record, I did vote in support for this, and then after found out that she won't be actually able to audit everyone across the board. So it would really depend on her own agenda and on her own list to pick and choose who to audit. So if we want to know if every single person is following the right guidelines and there is nothing that they needed to be audited, I don't think her office currently have the ability and the capacity to do so. So if I find out that she does have this capacity and she has been funded to add more to her staff and be able to audit everyone across the board, I would 100% be in support of this. But until now, I don't know who is she going to audit, and if those people that are being audited is due to any conflict between politicians, we all know. So, we are really in a bad situation and a bad decision where we don't know. We definitely are all for transparency, but also I don't want to use that term just to gain and to be able to have everything on our agenda.
▶ 29:19 Speaker 3: So
▶ 29:24 Maya Jamaleddine: I hope that the auditor's office will be able to provide those answers to us after we supported her question to be able to promise that she will be able to audit everyone across the board and not picking and choosing based on who she sees that they should be audited and have a closed eye on the other people.
▶ 29:54 Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Gelormini. And Councilor Williams.
▶ 29:57 Ryan Williams: Thank you. Well, I agree that there are some peculiarities with the greater story of the auditor. I think that the resolution that Councilor Finocchiaro has put forward is broad in its approach. I appreciate the courage it takes to wade into this issue. I also voted for the audit. I also recognized at the time that the audit question was a little vague, but I voted for it for the same reason that I'm going to support this resolution tonight because it's a statement about the importance of transparency in state government. We have one of the less transparent state governments in America. One stat that stuck in my head after all these years was that we were the last state legislature to reopen in America after COVID closed down public meeting spaces. And I would like to see more transparency generally in the legislature, and I don't think that we're going to get there by ignoring the issue. So, I think as a resolution, fine and good, and I'm proud to support it. If we were voting on actually auditing tonight, I would have a lot more questions and a lot more scrutiny on the issue. But as just a statement of free speech, I think transparency is fantastic, and I'm glad to support it.
▶ 31:17 Bradley Freeman: Seeing no further discussion, what's... Oh, sorry, Councilor Chen.
▶ 31:21 Jason Chen: I support this audit. I voted for the ballot resolution. And there's a few things. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I did try to find as many objective sources and look at the documents. So, I looked at the state legislature's clerk's office and tried to read the audit. The most recent one that was completed was fiscal year 2024. No, it's 2023. 2024 is not done yet. There are four numbers in the 2024 audit for a legislature that controls about 60 to 70 million and makes decisions on about $65 billion of funding. And those four line item, the four line items are starting balance, funds received, funds dispersed, and ending balance, which they say that they audit themselves, and they're transparent about it, but they don't post it on time, and that's just not what I expect for a state audit. There's a few other concerning things that I found. They're not transparent about what the legislature spends money on, what vendors, who the legislature is paying, on what date, and how much, and for what. So, there's some spend information there, but not what you would find in our systems, and you can't even FOIA that stuff if you tried. The third issue is that the pay for legislators, there is a formula, but it is highly set by the leadership it seems. It's not very clear on how a legislator gets paid based on what positions they have, and that sets up a kind of a power dynamic that you can't challenge or represent your district equally without feeling like you might be punished by it. And I don't think that, over a long time, leads to open and transparent government. And quite honestly, it tends to lead to corruption. And the fourth thing is there are some rumors and some examples of harassment cases being settled by the legislature. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I would like to know how much, over what time, by who. We don't need to know the victims, but how it was paid out. And if that's not transparent, and I get that all organizations have legal fees, but if that's not transparent, that could lead to just some encouraging bad behavior as well. So, for these, I support the resolution. And I don't see this as a partisan issue. I don't want us to get dragged into a political food fight, and I hope I'm not on whatever Fox News tomorrow. But I'm just a simple person who, when I see these things, it doesn't sit right with me. Jimmy, can
▶ 33:55 Bradley Freeman: we... Thank you, Councilor Chen. Seeing no further discussion, what's the will of the council?
▶ 34:00 Ryan Williams: Excuse me. A point of order. Councilor Karamcheti has her- Oh
▶ 34:03 Speaker 4: ... has her hand up. I'm sorry. Councilor Karamcheti.
▶ 34:08 Manjula Karamcheti: Hi, everyone. I hope you're having a good evening. I just wanted to jump in real quickly. One, to say thank you to Councilor Finocchiaro for putting forth this resolution. I too am in support of this resolution. As someone who just believes in transparency and representing our constituents, this is what folks voted for. And while I understand that there is a lot of nuance and complexities and laws around this issue, at the end of the day, I think voters were looking to have a direct line into how money is being spent, where it's going, and why. And I think that is something that we should all support. It is something we all need to abide by as elected officials. And so, just in the name of that and what voters wanted to see happen, I'm in support of this resolution as well. And I think there are a lot of things that have happened since the original resolution that was filed that I have a lot of questions and concerns about, and that I hope we can continue to have conversations about that as well. So, I agree that this is a nonpartisan issue, and I think voters deserve to have information and to have it be accessible and available to them. So, that's all. Thank you.
▶ 35:45 Bradley Freeman: Thank you, Councilor Karamcheti.
▶ 35:48 Speaker 4: Councilor Jamaleddine.
▶ 35:49 Maya Jamaleddine: I'm sorry. It's just because it seems to me that I want to make sure that people are understanding our vote is not going to provide... Or if the auditor was able to audit, and she got the power, okay, to be able to audit, my question is, is she going to be able to audit every single person? Or the voters voted for her to decide who she should pick to vote and who she can close eyes on and not audit them. So, that's my only concern Do our legislatures need to be, should be audited? Absolutely, 100%. I am 100% for them to be audited, but across the board. But my concern is, are we giving a power for someone to pick and choose
▶ 36:53 Speaker 4: who
▶ 36:55 Speaker 3: to audit
▶ 36:58 Maya Jamaleddine: and probably due to retaliation or due to political agenda or whatever it is, just for them to support them and to help them, go through their political agenda? Or is it truly for transparency and to do what our voters requested for? So, again, I am 100% in support for more transparency and 100% in support of the resolution if the auditor will promise that she will be able to audit every single person across the board, every single legislature. But if she cannot, we're technically under her own mercy, under her own agenda, under her own decision to decide who she wants to audit and who's not.
▶ 37:53 Speaker 3: That's it.
▶ 37:54 Speaker 4: Thank you. Councilor Finocchiaro.
▶ 37:55 Cal Finocchiaro: Thank you. Through the chair, I appreciate everybody's comments on this. It's a hot topic to bring into council, so I appreciate you all speaking on it, and I appreciate your remarks. I know you've had conversations. I actually had conversations with the auditor as well, and I can't speak to that direct conversation that you had with her, but I'm under the impression from the conversation I had with her that she would be able to audit everyone. But that's something that we could maybe get clarified. Maybe we could have her join us here or something like that. But to that argument, in the same respect, our legislature just voted on a bill to completely almost restrict the ability to audit at all. So who's better? If we're saying that the auditor's not voting, I mean, cherry-picking who she's going to audit, but now our state legislature had just passed a bill essentially doing the same thing and controlling. So, I'm not looking to kind of get in between that. My resolution is about supporting the electorate, supporting our voice. 72% of Massachusetts, 67% of Melrose residents supported an audit. And that's really essentially... But again, I appreciate the conversation around these tables.
▶ 39:21 Bradley Freeman: Council Williams.
▶ 39:22 Speaker 2: Motion to recommend. Second.
▶ 39:26 Speaker 4: Point of order is a motion to recommend.
▶ 39:28 Ryan Williams: Motion to place on file. File. Second.
▶ 39:31 Bradley Freeman: Yes. Motion to place on file made by Councilor Williams, seconded by Councilor Romanul. On discussion.
▶ 39:36 Speaker 4: Seeing none, Madam Clerk.
▶ 39:38 Speaker 1: Councilor Chen. Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine.
▶ 39:43 Speaker 3: No.
▶ 39:44 Speaker 1: Councilor Karamcheti.
▶ 39:46 Speaker 5: Yes.
▶ 39:48 Speaker 1: Councilor Kowal. Yes. Councilor Obremski. Yes. Councilor Park. Yes. Councilor Romanul. Yes. Councilor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Williams. Yes. President Freeman. Yes. That motion passes.
▶ 40:01 Speaker 4: Thank you. Moving on to licenses.