Public Participation

Transcript (~45 min @ 41:18)

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

▶ 40:58 Peter D. Mortimer: Appropriations for the Melrose Board of Aldermen, it is a committee of the whole. I am Chairman Peter Mortimer, the Vice Chairman is Alderman Jacqueline Bird. We are also joined by Alderman Inferna, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Wright, Alderman Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis, Alderman Lemmerman, Alderman Forbes, and President Kahn.

▶ 41:30 Peter D. Mortimer: Is there a motion to open the floor for public participation? Alderman McAteer-Margolis has made a motion to open the floor for public participation. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Byrd. On the motion to open the floor for public participation, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public participation is now open. And before I proceed with the public participation, I would like to note for the record, Sorry, it's the law, we have to say it under the state law, that this meeting is available on a DVD to be viewed in the future. And it's also available to be viewed on streaming video on the MMTV website and on the Melrose, Massachusetts website. The motion has been passed to open the floor for public participation. And I see the first public participant is Kristen Thorpe. you write your name and address there on the sheet in front of you please miss thorpe thank you for

▶ 42:38 Speaker 5: coming please proceed thank you so as you said my name is kristen thorpe i live at 77 oneworth road and i'm the chair of the melrose school committee um i want to thank the alderman for what i hope will be a decision to bring the override to the people for their decision um in november I want to remind you that during our budget process on May 5th we we voted to pass the budget which you will be discussing on Monday in addition we voted to approve and support what we called the growth budget which is what we believe that the school system needs at this time to really move forward and that is the bulk of the override so we just want to remind you remind the public that the school committee is fully behind the amounts and the items that we've listed in that request and we look forward to the continued discussion about the needs of the schools and the needs of the city between now and November thank you thank you very much mr. Thorpe any other public

▶ 43:44 Peter D. Mortimer: participants wishing to come forward mr. Keefe good evening sir thank you good

▶ 44:03 Speaker 9: evening thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight in support of order 2015-157 regarding the override my name is Bill Keefe and I live at 17 Beverly Street I support the override question for many of the same reasons that have been publicly discussed of late I believe it is reasonable I believe it will strengthen our schools and public safety I believe it will help bring further fiscal stability to the city and I believe it will enhance Melrose's future making it an even greater place to live than it already is I also like the fact that there are proposed mitigation measures to assist those for whom a potential increase would have the most impact. I fully understand and respect that there are others who do not share my beliefs, and I would not debate the issues in this forum and this chamber. Those issues should be debated civilly as part of a campaign leading to an election where all the voters of Melrose can have their say. Proposition 2.5, which created the limits on municipal taxation, was passed at the ballot box by initiative petition by the people, and the law provides an opportunity for the people to override those limits at the ballot box. By law, that opportunity is contingent on a vote by the Board of Aldermen, and regardless of your personal stance on the issue, I respectfully request that you support this order to grant the people of Melrose the ability to vote on this important matter. If this was a reckless proposition, your important function as a check and balance on the executive branch may be needed to block this proposal from the ballot, but by any measure, whether one supports or opposes an override this is far from reckless considering it is a smaller request than the one that passed at the ballot box over 20 years ago therefore again i respectfully request that you support this order and allow the people of melrose to exercise a fundamental american right to vote thank you for your time and your consideration thank you mr keith good evening

▶ 46:05 Speaker 2: good evening my name is kim la fontana i live at 75 hillside avenue and i'm here tonight to speak

▶ 46:13 Speaker 2: uh in support of order 2015-157 my husband dave and i have been residents of melrose for nine years we have daughters who are finishing first and third grades at the lincoln school we're strong supporters of public education we both come from families of educators and my husband dave teaches at chelsea high school i'm an active volunteer for several organizations including the lincoln school pto and the site council we strongly support the tax override we see this as a critical step in continuing to make progress to expand the breadth and quality of education available to the children of Melrose and to meet each child at his or her own ability level we've been closely observing this year's school budgeting process and believe the superintendent a more has made a very strong case for the additional positions that the override would create in Chelsea my husband Dave has had the opportunity to work with and serve as an instructional coach for his ninth grade peers and feels very strongly that this position plays a critical role in advancing and unifying instruction provided to students so we encourage you to support

▶ 47:15 Speaker 5: the override order 2015 dash 157 and we thank you very much for your time of

▶ 47:19 Speaker 2: service and for the chance to speak tonight thank you miss LaFontana my name

▶ 47:40 Speaker 5: is Mimi LeMay and I live in one shipment Terrace I didn't prepare any formal statements today so I'm going to be speaking off the cuff I am in support of order number two zero one five one five seven my husband Joe and I moved to Melrose in 2007 and one of the reasons we chose Melrose over some other neighboring towns that perhaps had better you know education statistics is that Melrose is up-and-coming and we saw a lot of promise in the community especially since we saw an influx of young young families like ours and young professionals who intended to raise their children in Melrose and that is what we are doing right now we have three young children ages six five and and we're just experiencing the Melrose education system for the first time and we're very pleased with what we see but we are also hoping that our excellent superintendent who are very impressed with is given the means to grow this education system so that it is what we were hoping it would be when we moved in here and I think it can be and I think the will is here among the parents I've been hearing a lot of things from parents and they are desperate for they're biting at the at the leash to have a better system and we know that we have a superintendent and teachers and principals who can give that to us let's just empower them with the funds thank you thank you miss LeMay hi there my

▶ 49:21 Speaker 10: My name is Rebecca Gray. I live at 157 Beechoff, and I'm supporting Order 2015-157. I'm a parent in the community, a community member, and I've been an educator for 17 years. I strongly support everything I've heard Mayor Dolan speak about, and I think from what I've been in schools

▶ 49:39 Speaker 10: schools and have seen that we've stretched our budget to the fullest it feels like every dollar matters in the school system and I see that from teachers requesting staplers on their gift list from parents to how much the PTO has to raise in order to bring enrichment programs to the schools to really support the innovation that teachers are looking for to all the academic initiatives we're making and I want to see a town that can support that that can fund all of the initiatives people are interested in I would like to see all learners from our most challenged to our most gifted and everyone in between have equal access to the curriculum and I'd like to see all teachers be able to realize whatever their educational dreams are for the students I feel that the mayor's laid out a very reasonable and achievable budget and I'm hoping that we can support that I'm hoping that each resident gets a chance to vote on that thank you thank you very much miss gray

▶ 50:57 Jen Grigoraitis: my name is Jen Gregoritis and I live at 419 Lebanon Street and I'm also speaking this evening on behalf of the override initiative my husband and I moved to Melrose three years ago and are raising our two young sons here my oldest son is just about to finish kindergarten at the winthrop school and i personally have over 15 years of experience in fiscal management at the state level and also in the private sector and i believe that this makes sense for our city at this point in time so i would very much ask the board of aldermen to consider this and let the city of melrose vote on it thank you thank you very much any other

▶ 51:37 Peter D. Mortimer: members of the public wishing to go forward thank you very much please step forward hi my name is

▶ 51:47 Speaker 11: Alice Shattuck. I live at 140 Grove Street in Melrose and I wanted to thank everyone tonight for letting me come and voice my concerns about this order number 2015-157 and about placing this on the ballot this year. You know I come to you as somebody who moved to Melrose about four years ago. We have two young kids and we have another one on the way this fall so I'm definitely invested in having great schools here I grew up in Lexington actually so I'm very familiar with overrides and with the impact that they have on the communities one of the reasons that my husband and I chose Melrose and came to live here was because the city does take such a balanced approach to really making sure we invest in the needs of the schools and also in many of the other really important things that add so much value to this community. We've been really thoughtful about what we've done here in Melrose. I never see the Board of Aldermen turn down requests from the schools. And overall, I think we're really thrilled with how Melrose handles their budget in their schools. However, as I've gotten kind of more involved, my sister, my daughter is going to start kindergarten in fall of 2016. So I've kind of followed more of the discussion on the boards. There's the Melrose education group on Facebook. There's the Real Moms of Melrose group, the Melrose community group. And I really follow a lot of these conversations that parents are having. And I have heard some things that have concerned me about how things are handled in the schools. To quote some of the comments that people make, a really big concern for a lot of parents has been the rigor and the standards at the kindergarten level you know one parent said kindergarten needs to be a time of discovery exploration developing a love of learning we need to maintain two physically active breaks our students have now one was almost taken away last year snack at my daughter's school is supposed to be a working break time per the administration so while they're having a snack they're supposed to be actively working with a pencil in hand another parent robot I so wish that the teachers could speak freely about what they believe would be ideal because they They know what is really needed, but I know that my daughter's teachers and all the teachers are in such a bind with what they can say around administrators without jeopardizing their relationships and in some cases their job security." Again, these are comments from current Melrose parents. Another issue that concerned me was the way that the kindergarten placements were handled this year. I saw parents talking about how sometimes they would request one school and get another only to see that another parent was in the opposite situation and had been placed in the school that they wanted, although they had chosen a different school as their first choice. One parent wrote, we ended up with Winthrop. I'm hoping I can switch. I've heard of other families that got Hoover but wanted Winthrop. Another parent also wrote, how could people with Horace Mann as a first choice not get it when others got it and it was not their first choice? I think that a lot of times parents, we as parents, when we come forward to schools with these concerns the answer that we hear is there's not enough funding we're overcrowded we don't have funding but to me the quotations I'm hearing and what concerns me is that these don't seem to be funding issues these seem to be problems with the way the current funds are administered additional funding isn't going to lead parents and teachers to believe that the administration is more supportive of them and listens to their concerns more additional funding has already been approved by the Board of Alderman for additional kindergarten classrooms so there's not a funding issue behind the kindergarten placements and in general I don't believe that funding is the answer if parents or teachers believe that there are culture problems in an administration or that the administration isn't reflecting their particular educational values I really I really believe that that when you have an administration that you think it's doing all the right things and everything you want and they really share your goals that more funding can make a difference but I don't think that it's going to change the priorities and I think in general you actually really do see the priorities of a school administration when you have limited funds and that I have concerns about giving two million dollars to people who based on things I'm hearing it doesn't seem like they're listening to parents and teachers for example with the shift in the kindergarten curriculum to be more rigorous and standards-based my understanding is that when the full-day kindergarten program was implemented this was a program that was fully paid for by state grants and it paid for itself it didn't cost the city anything I'm not sure whether that's still the case or if it's costing the city anything I haven't heard or seen any analysis of what that costs now but I for one would rather have the option to put my child in half-day program if I'm not happy with what's happening in the full-day program and and that kind of choice if we don't have it and if full day kindergarten is actually costing the city money is the kind of choice that that I'd like to have as a parent and that's not going to be solved by more funding really I can't see that the schools in Melrose are systematically underfunded at all according to the most recent census figures from the federal government 28% of the households in Melrose have children under the age of 18 and yet when you include things like health insurance and pensions and other things almost you know in 40 to 50 percent of the city budget flows to the schools in some form or other and that's right now we're lucky that we live in a community we're very fortunate to live in a community where the schools are so highly valued and where the whole community is together in making an investment in the schools schools that are underfunded for example would include those in Malden right now where they're cutting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the budget because they have a tremendous shortfall and they're losing about 20 teaching positions I mean that's what underfunding looks like and to me I don't see this in Melrose as a matter of fact I mean just since the beginning of 2015 watching the Board of Aldermen I've seen you know over six million dollars in additional non school budget spending go to the schools in terms of the the high school improvements in terms of the Hoover School window improvements this isn't this isn't a community that's cutting from schools or underfunding them or taking away from them so I'm concerned because I did growing up in Lexington here a lot of times parents accused people of not wanting to support the schools and I feel that there are a lot of people in the community who are already doing much more than their fair share happily to help support the schools and that we already lean on them a lot there's not a reluctance here to fund educational priorities we're also hearing a lot right now about the demographic shift that's a big cause for asking for additional override funds that you know we have a growing school age population and we're going to have this Armageddon of additional children that we need the extra funding for but from what I can see from the proposed use of funds I don't see that this is really going to a long-term plan for dealing with a demographic shift first of all we don't know that there's necessarily a demographic shift happening this year's kindergarten class was very large but looking at the enrollment figures published by the school committee there doesn't appear to be a visible long-term trend towards more students in the schools over the last five or so years certainly there's not a trend towards more in the middle and high schools where five of the positions are going to fund additional electives there's and the you know if we do have additional kids coming into the elementary schools none of the positions funded by this override are additional classroom teaching positions so that's going to be more positions that are going to come up if this is an issue on the last time I watched the superintendent speak on this she said that everything is on the table when it comes to addressing having additional students in the schools including potentially reopening the Beebe school and I have a fear that we might really regret spending two million dollars on a wish list of nice-to-have positions when we might need to spend millions on reopening a school or renovating or building a new school to deal with a demographic issue that we might have that so I really believe that it would be nice to know the results of that demographic study before we go forward with spending this money and finally I really am concerned about the impact on the whole community I think as parents we spend so much time and energy on our kids and we love our kids and we think a lot about them and what's best for them and you know we spend a lot of time around other parents at playgroups and you know in PTOs and in school pickups and drop-offs and you know we forget that sometimes there are other people around us who you know have other needs and other priorities and I mean I for one was surprised to see that 28% figure that only 28% of the households in Melrose have kids under 18 because it seems like more to me because I'm a parent so more of the people I know our parents also and you know there are so many other people in Melrose you know we have neighbors who are older which is great my kids my daughter lost one of her grandmother's when she before she was even two so she calls our next-door neighbor her other grandmother I think that having this community around us having great local businesses in our downtown that we can visit is so important and that that the costs of this override which really multiply out exponentially over time and are on top of other costs that are growing like water bills like utility bills that they're gonna really drive out some of these people and some of these other demographic groups that add so much richness to our community and I I think there's actually a lot more to be valued in having you know these other groups of people and the downtown where we can go that that I think it counts for more between between those things than having the extra academic facilitators and extra electives at the high school those things are great but if we have to choose I choose a community where we have room for everybody and we're welcoming of families and households of all shapes and sizes I don't want to see us spend the next six months as a community throwing away you know working together towards common goals and having this huge divisive pitched battle between parents on one side and seniors on another side and everyone fighting over it because I grew up in a town where we had yes and no lawn signs out every year and it's so frustrating to see a community split apart like that and people feeling like they need to fight each other because I really believe that in this city we can have great schools and we can also have a community that's welcoming to everyone so i appreciate your time and i urge you to consider that these other groups of people very carefully um you know who aren't maybe on the pto email list to come in tonight that that uh before we we make a decision to go forward with this override thank you thank you ms shattuck

▶ 1:04:17 Speaker 5: Good evening, Mr. Dedma.

▶ 1:04:18 Speaker 1: Good evening, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 1:04:35 Speaker 1: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you this evening. And my comments refer to Order 2015-157. And I totally agree with all the comments made by the previous speaker. She did, I think, a great job in articulating many of the issues that I was going to bring up. In fact, I hope not to be redundant, so I crossed out some information here. You will soon be, I've got some written comments that I'd like to read, if I may. You will soon be voting on whether to put on the November ballot a request for an override to provide extra money to the school system. And I just want to say initially that I'm all for education. I feel obviously that's the way to success. So the better education that we can give our students, the better chance of them succeeding in life. And I've been in the city for, my wife and I, for 40 years. All three of our children went through the Melrose public school systems in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. They went on to have very successful college experiences. And so I attributed that to the success they had and the learning that they experienced in Melrose public school system. So I'm all for the public school systems. I'm all for Melrose education. But what I wish to address are some of the issues I see and which were described by the previous speaker. The question you should be asking is why is there, one of the things is why is there so much free cash each year even after months of budget meetings? We seem to have a significant free cash every year to pay for purported structural deficit. Now in the last two years we've had in the school department structural deficits. This is what we've been told by the superintendent and the mayor. Somehow, this extra cash comes up and pays for this structural deficit. The schools seem to have slush funds in their budget every year to pay for things which were never budgeted, such as a pot of cash to be distributed among non-union senior school staff and be allocated by the superintendent. Is it really coincidental and random that we have so much free cash at the end of each year? Also, I have noticed that when other cities decide on an override, they establish special financial committees and groups made up of residents as well as city officials and school officials, and develop a comprehensive plan as well as justification for the added money. And no such group was ever formed by the mayor or the superintendent as far as I'm aware. What they presented is a wish list, and we all have wish lists, right? We all have wish lists that we'd like to have things. But in reality, money is limited, resources are limited, and you have to make tough choices. And you have to live within those choices. We all do with ourselves, our home, our budgets. And I think the city needs to do that too, and certainly the school department. You all have an important job to do, and it's not just the rubber stamp proposals brought to you. From appointing committee members to determining water sewer rates, or putting proposition two and a half overrides on the ballot. Our charter makes you the gatekeepers, it's your responsibility both to evaluate and carefully exercise your authority judiciously in this democratic process. It's not good enough for you just to go along with what comes before you. Do your job that you were elected to do so, as well as doing due diligence concerning the budget. Not because it's just a pot of money, as the school says, but because it's the public's money. The easy thing for you to do is to pass this proposal along to the voters in some politically correct context, like let the voters have their say. Why wouldn't you pass it along to them? This is a democracy, correct? Right. You have a specific role to fill in this democracy. Presumably you have some keen insight into local government and its actual needs. Presumably you can make a quantitative and qualitative decision from a unique and informed perspective. There are many valid reasons why any random two and a half override shouldn't just be passed along to the voters. It's your job to respect those reasons in this case. The easy thing politically may be to shirk your responsibility to evaluate the proposal carefully. Please realize that this is a large amount of money that represents only a small gesture in improving the schools. Tell the school committee to work to create a plan for comprehensive change in the school system before you let the voters consider giving them $2 million more to do whatever they like to do on their wish list. Please keep in mind that thousands of Melrose residents live on fixed income, and even if you think $300 or $400 isn't a lot of money, to some it means that they have to make decisions about the quality of food they eat or the quality of life they live. When rents go up and property taxes go up, real people are being impacted. know many of you alderman personally i know you're all decent honest people uh do your job as you were elected to do so that's all i ask thank you thank you mr detmer hi my name is katherine

▶ 1:09:54 Speaker 5: saragosa i live at 78 walton park i didn't prepare anything until just now so i'm sort of going off the cuff as did mimi um we i moved here with my husband in 2007 shortly after my son was born and my husband and I are both in support of 2015 157 my kids are at Roosevelt they'll be entering first and fourth grade and I'm very active in the school community and and the PTO as I said I didn't formally prepare anything I will keep this short I did email all of you so I know you've you've seen that but what I would like to say is that I feel strongly that this should be put forward onto the ballot so that people of Melrose can spend the next several months educating themselves on the pros and cons and debating their opinions in a healthy fashion with their neighbors right now there seems to be a lot of chatter about this override but there are many in the community who know little of the details i'd like to make this official so that people can form an opinion and exercise their right to vote melrose is an amazing city and it's growing as can be seen by the need for more kindergarten classes in this coming year we need this funding so that we can keep up with the needs of this lovely city thank you for letting me speak and for all that you guys do for the city very much are there any

▶ 1:11:22 Peter D. Mortimer: members other members of the public wishing to come forward to be heard good evening sir

▶ 1:11:42 Peter D. Mortimer: he moved first but you got here first

▶ 1:11:52 Speaker 3: quick like that my name is mike aldrich i live at 146 lynn phillips parkway I didn't prepare any words either, but in listening to what I've been hearing thus far, it does appear that there are a lot of different opinions, a lot of views on this issue. And I do feel that we deserve it to ourselves and our kids. I have three young kids, one starting Roosevelt next year. think we we deserve it to ourselves to uh to discuss this issue further and to uh to have a uh have the public have the right to uh to to make their decision on this that's all i'd like to say

▶ 1:12:51 Speaker 12: thank you sir thank you good evening good evening i'm jerry morose here to talk about the trash feed

▶ 1:12:58 Speaker 12: Seriously.

▶ 1:13:00 Speaker 2: Don't worry, I'll get to school.

▶ 1:13:06 Speaker 12: Solid waste is on your agenda tonight. And I do pick up on some of the concerns that the aldermen have expressed that

▶ 1:13:20 Speaker 12: we're paying for our solid waste removal about $1.2 million a year as a contract. the trash fees that we apply to all the households in the city apparently amount to about 1.9 million I don't have the exact number but that there is a profit that the city is making on what they require people to pay to have their solid waste removed and I don't you know fundamentally I don't I don't believe that that's a proper fee it's fine to pay for the all the costs related to solid waste but when the collection and tipping fees and everything amount to so little to be charging so much I think is inappropriate now I'll go on to the schools I am the tired old voice saying the school committee hasn't asked for enough money from the city to do the right things for our students I've watched for many years how local politics harms the schools by constraining superintendent after superintendent from asking for sufficient funds to build a competent school system as a person prodding for more money it may appear at first glance to be a contradiction but I believe that this overrides as proposed will only be an enabling device for the schools to continue the long-standing dysfunction rather than improving as they must more money isn't the problem right now the problem is a dysfunctional structure the problem with this proposed override is that it won't make the schools into what our children need it's a good change here that there's finally an acknowledgement that we need to do something more but the ask for these millions of dollars of additional dollars didn't come out of any valid process of examining the schools and determining what needs to be done better or differently the ask is only made within the context of adding some marginal positions on the service on the surface of a fundamentally broken system the money requested in the positions purportedly funded would only put new frosting over the same stale cake. You've frosted this cake so many times before, co-teachers, science kids, smart boards, textbooks, science labs, full-day kindergarten. No matter how many times you've re-frosted the cake with new frosting, it looks appealing initially only to the uninformed, and then only for a short while until they slice into the frosting to discover the old stale cake inside.

▶ 1:15:38 Speaker 12: After that wears off, the mayor looks for some new funding to mix up some new frosting. time around, it's these random marginal positions. They don't represent good structural change. They won't even likely remain in place when this superintendent leaves, just as this superintendent frosted over Joe Casey's last attempts. Now, the override machine has begun churning. Most of the money is aimed at the schools. The misinformation is already becoming very widespread. There are many misstatements that have been made already in the paper. It was claimed that it isn't easy to evaluate competing priorities when resources are constrained. That's plain wrong. The most visceral way to evaluate competing priorities is when a decision has to be made to fund one thing over another. Nothing clarifies your values better than deciding one over the other. The irresponsible way is not to evaluate year after year and reach into the taxpayers wallets funding many unevaluated priorities with an override when they just get too expensive in doing so the taxpayers end up paying for unproductive and unproven strategies the override won't help evaluate priorities when the school committee refuses to do so override supporters stroke many egos claiming the budget is so wonderful today but just needs a little bit more funding it isn't isn't it interesting that the people coming out in favor of the override are typically the same types of people, always in favor of spending more money from the taxpayers without showing their thought as to the investment objective or the investment return. It's telling that those same people show up and say something when they want to fund specific, sometimes politically correct positions which resonate with them, often elementary library media specialists we've heard about for years, and music directors, fine arts directors. wonderful positions, aren't they? They are. Who could be opposed? But looking at such positions in the narrow view with blinders on prevents everybody from seeing the gaping holes in the system when all they care about is getting a certain parochial interest funded. That's not structurally making our school system better. The people supporting overrides

▶ 1:17:56 Speaker 12: will say that the money would fund some vision for continuous improvement under the premise that a few marginal positions that we're talking about funding will cause some grand educational improvement here in Melrose they have they never have before and they won't do so in the future not long from now this superintendent this administration will be gone just like the one before this in the one before that all the money in the city thrown at the schools during the tenure of each has been used to make it appear as if the schools are doing wonderful and grand things new frosting on the stale cake when they end up just hiding the fact that the schools aren't doing the proper things at their core in fairness the superintendent has changed a few things but they are so little in so late that the schools won't become what the children need them to be before she's gone I always believe the school

▶ 1:18:48 Speaker 12: committee needs to engage finally and not continue their cheerleading from the sidelines they need to lead the schools to reframe how we educate our students the world has changed considerably but the schools have clung to the status quo The game we play at budget time of who yells the loudest for a director of fine arts or elementary library media specialist, a director of instructional technology, or any of the positions that are proposed for this override, they all sound so wonderful.

▶ 1:19:20 Speaker 12: But it's the education policy equivalent of a children's Disney movie. Hiring them doesn't do anything to improve the lot of the majority of our students. The people who promote the two-and-a-half override, they have all the buzzwords down. They want to use curriculum materials and digital resources, teams of educators, the politically correct STEM, art, music, social studies, expanding options, reducing class sizes. It's a wonderful world. Help accommodate the growing elementary population. As speakers have pointed out, the proposed override doesn't fund those things, and the positions it would fund won't improve them. Throwing more money at the schools in the past hasn't made them perform well. The schools use most money to pay administrators and teachers more money today than ever before. But the structure within which they work isn't productive. In fact, there is less teaching of worthy subjects than there was 20 years ago. Administrators today have to be more concerned with skewed incentives in attempts to make them look good on tests that are designed to identify that places like Lawrence or Holyoke are doing virtually nothing for many of our children, but that's what we're all focused on. The override committee people will say that there is no money available except through an override. I don't believe this is true. They say that money can't be found in the current budget or through regionalization. I think that's wrong. Every year the city and the schools, and as one of the speakers pointed out, find extra money to spend on things which never were budgeted and the huge the huge free cash of the last few years you know is a prime example of that and if we expect continued growth in the city with higher property values and higher I'm sorry I meant to say with more new growth that will be better for us let's talk about regionalization though it's a it's a subject that I talk about frequently has Has a school committee here ever gotten together with surrounding towns to explore what they could regionalize and why it would be best for students? Even better for students, far more than just saving money. To her credit, the superintendent has done a couple small things through the same collaborative. If we were to regionalize as few as just our redundant administrative functions with a few towns around here, we would free up over $1 million a year for Melrose to do more productive things for our students. say let's do that before we have an override more importantly though than the money doing so could frame the structural change the towns around here need to move our education to a higher level the mellow schools could be the innovators whom parents want to send their children to instead of to the charter schools we hear a lot of people here with complaints about the funds spent to the charter schools if we do a good job people will come if we do better people will come that could then bring back many Melrose children back to the community so they're part of our community instead of part of a different one and it could also bring back a couple million dollars if we do it well we aren't trying to do that with a few positions on the margins in the school system by this override the school committee itself has never never engaged in evaluating that priority and it never will as long as you keep throwing them easy money maybe you actually have to cut the school's budget by two million million dollars to make them reevaluate what they do, make them make some hard choices, make them figure out a more efficient and more effective way of getting education accomplished for our students. Even then, it isn't likely that they would. They would likely cut teachers, counselors, and psychologists instead. The problem we have with the disengaged school committee is that the very administrators whose jobs need to be consolidated with those in other towns aren't likely to cut their own positions independently I actually offered to the school system when Joe Casey left or was but was going to leave that we go into a submissive role in a regionalization proposal it would have worked out well I believe nobody would listen override supporters also use the same language we've heard so many times we are only one crisis away from very difficult choices and cuts to me that betrays a position of intellectual laziness there are difficult choices we should be making every day if in this city if policymakers were doing their jobs correctly and and with effort throwing another two million dollars a year at the schools without making the right choices in advance will only make waste money while enabling in perpetuating what I do believe is a

▶ 1:24:09 Speaker 12: dysfunctional system we don't need a naive simplistic solution here it's It's not just spend more money on what we're already doing, it's not just add a few positions and the cake is re-frosted and we all want to eat it.

▶ 1:24:24 Speaker 12: I don't see evidence that the people behind the override have looked carefully at the schools. What the schools do, why they do what they do, and what could be different fundamentally in our schools. I think this is maybe a time we should look at that. It's difficult work and it takes a commitment that most people either can't or aren't willing to give. It's much easier to sign on to a pro-override campaign than engage in difficult policy analysis. For political reasons, the Board of Aldermen approves the school committee request every year. It's done this even though the school committee hasn't really allocated money responsibly for the long term. You think of things like textbooks replacements that you funded, technology upgrades you're about to do. There are so many problems that you've thrown money at, science, kids, everything else. We've done it for years and years. When the schools haven't done their job, we've kicked it in and done our part more. But you've enabled them.

▶ 1:25:23 Peter D. Mortimer: Mr. Moroz. Yes. We have a ten minute limit, you've been speaking for 13. Please get ready to wrap it up.

▶ 1:25:28 Speaker 12: Thank you, I will. Anyway, I would ask that instead of sending this override to the voters now, please ask the school committee to re-examine what the schools do and how they do it. only after the school committee finally makes responsible and critical decisions about the school with a real plan should you ask the voters to consider giving them more money i don't see that this proposal is competent and again i ask please don't send this override for insufficient marginal change to the voters ask the school committee to go back into the kitchen they need to mix up some new cake batter put it in the oven cook it up and make certain it tastes good if it's good it won't need frosting of any type people will eat it directly from the pan thank you thank you sir are there any other members of the public

▶ 1:26:30 Peter D. Mortimer: wishing to participate make any comments seeing none at this time is there a

▶ 1:26:43 Peter D. Mortimer: motion please Alderman Inferno has made a motion to close public participation said motion is duly seconded by Alderman Lavender