← City Council · 2025-04-28 · City Council Regular Meeting
Public Comment
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
Transcript
▶ 16:53 Leila Migliorelli: I will, um, we're now at public comments. I will motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comments. Seeing no objections, we are now open for public comment per, per rule three three A of the Melrose City Council rules. This is the portion of the meeting where the public may speak on any item on tonight's agenda. Comments expressing any other viewpoint on other matters are also welcome. Just a reminder that public comment period is an opportunity for the public to share comments. Counselors will not respond. The public has up to five minutes for comments. If anyone's here wishing to speak, please approach the table.
▶ 17:34 Speaker 10: Hi, please state your name for the record.
▶ 17:37 Speaker 6: My name is Ann Marie Habin. Um, before we start the five minutes, can I just give a quick trigger warning?
▶ 17:44 Speaker 10: Uh, just five minutes is all. Oh, okay. Yeah.
▶ 17:47 Speaker 6: All right. Um, good evening, city Council members. My name is Annmarie Habin. I grew up in Melrose and I currently reside in Stanford, Connecticut. I graduated from Melrose High School in 1990. I am here tonight to speak in support of the resolution put forth and affirmed by this council on April 7th, supporting the goals and ideals of sexual assault awareness Month. As a survivor, myself and someone who is committed to survivor advocacy and who actively seeks out further education on this subject, I am here to clearly outline the actions this council and everyone must take to support survivors and to combat the pervasive societal problem of sexual violence. Some of you here know my story and some people watching this at home know my story due to time constraints, I will not be getting into all that here tonight, but I encourage anyone to reach out to me if they would like a conversation. Since being forced to confront and process this traumatic event that happened to me as a teenager and start my healing journey two years ago, I am now able to talk about it without getting extremely emotional and upset, which has been a silver lining in all of this for me. I've, uh, for the most part have been burying this for 33 years, only talking about it with very few people, literally could not get the words to come outta my mouth. In the last eight to nine months, I have become very involved in volunteer capacity and survivor support, advocacy education, and sexual assault prevention. I'm helping others and I have learned so much from people who work in this realm who have devoted their whole careers to supporting survivors and ending sexual violence. I would like to share some of what I've learned and talked with everyone about, especially those in leadership positions can support survivors in their community and in their personal lives. Supporting survivors is not passive. It requires action. It requires commitment, it requires courage for those in leadership roles, leadership is about responsibility. It's about setting the standard and creating a culture of accountability even for your friends and colleagues. It is about putting the wellbeing of society as a whole and the community in which you serve over personal alliances. Supporting the goals and ideals of sexual awareness month requires more than just saying the right words. It's not enough to say we support survivors Actions must reflect that. The following are some ways in how people can make a real difference. Believe survivors when they come forward, listen with empathy and without judgment challenge and correct victim blaming. Educate yourself about sexual violence. Hold people accountable for their harmful behavior. Do not try to silence or shame survivors for reporting and or speaking out. Do not throw around words like defamation. People love to throw this word around, even though they have no knowledge or understanding about what exactly defamation entails and no evidence in which to cause something. Defamation. Threats of defamation are just a tool that per perpetrators and their enablers use to try to scare and silence survivors. A couple of months ago, a person in a Hyatt profile position in Melrose wrote in a town Facebook group about what happened to me and said, this is defamation. If nothing has been done about it by law enforcement or legally, this is completely false. Reporting to the police is not the sole determinant of truth. Other survivors, people currently being abused and future victims may have probably did read that and thought this person knew what they were talking about and, and may now fear coming forward. I ask this person to apologize publicly for writing this inaccurate information about defamation, but this person has yet to do so. Survivors who bravely come forward must have their right to speak. Protected defamation laws must be reformed to stop those who harm in this way from using threats of defamation lawsuits as a weapon of retaliation. This leads me to my next topic. There is a bill called the Speak Your Truth Act that is currently in consideration in 16 states, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Being two of those states, this bill would pro protect survivors of sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination from retaliatory lawsuits used to silence them. This would ensure that if abusers file defamation lawsuits and lose survivors can require them to cover their legal fees and pay for other resulting harm. I'm calling on lawmakers in my home state of Massachusetts, my current state of Connecticut, and all states considering this to adopt this into law city council members, um, to show your commitment and resolve to the resolution. You all, who was, who were here at the last meeting voted yes a couple weeks ago. You can reach out to state legislators to advocate for the passing of this bill. I am also prepared to do anything in my power to get this passed. No one should be punished, blamed, or shame for sharing their truth. In closing, I would like to acknowledge and thank my husband, our two amazing kids, and all of the people who have stood by me through all of this. I'm incredibly grateful for you. Your kindness and empathy has been a lifeline and reminds me often that speaking out and speaking the truth is worth it. Your support has made all the difference. People who choose to support survivors to listen with compassion and stand against injustice are helping to build a better, stronger, and safer society to send our kids out into You set an example of the kind of community members. Melrose and all communities should want people who strive to make society a place where survivors are respected, supported, and believed. I wanna make clear to everyone listening, survivors do not ruin the lives of perpetrators by reporting and or speaking out the ones responsible, um, for ruining lives. Both the lives of their victims and their own are the perpetrators and only perpetrators. Thank you for letting me speak. Thank you for your time. Thank you
▶ 22:53 Speaker 10: For your words.
▶ 22:55 Leila Migliorelli: Anyone else wishing to speak in public comment? Yes.
▶ 23:05 Speaker 2: Hello everyone. My name is Patricia. Uh, thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my concern here. I hope the United States remain the beacon of the world, protecting freedom and the human rights forever, and it will not be controlled by the Chinese. Excuse
▶ 23:24 Leila Migliorelli: Me, could you, uh, please speak up and into the microphone? Thank you.
▶ 23:29 Speaker 2: I hope the US will not never be controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. I'm a practitioner of Ong, which is a spiritual meditation scientist that guide practitioners to follow the principle of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance in our life. Uh, however, we have been persecuted in mainland China for around 25 years, already since 1999. This persecution includes detention, brainwash classes, labor, camping, and even took our organ for sale when the practitioner still alive. And the flyer we have and the newspaper is for showing, which is promoting a world class performance that come by beautiful music and the dances, which show five some years of the traditional Chinese culture without communing them. And, uh, many of the performers are practitioner. So that's the reason why shame become a tar, be targeted by CCP. For example. The CCP agents have slash the tire of the vehicle transporting shain per performer trying to kill them on the way. And this threatened the theater to prevent the show and, uh, even directly pressure governments in the city hosting xin to block at tendency. Um, during she's tour last year, bump threats was made in three different countries in just one week. Also, for the first performance of this year in Georgia, she receive an email. Threats stated that, that if the theater allowed X have show here, the audience will be shoot the email, even include a photo of Pentagon. Although the CCPs persecution on following go overseas has been ongoing for many years, but in the past several months, the repression has suddenly become more seriously and obviously even in our community. So, uh, we, the practitioner receive a leak internal documents from CCP government detailed saying that how the CCP claim to carry on transnational repression, even here to, against the, for example, they plan to fabricate fake public opinion on social media. Why did they spread the fabricated news in major newspaper and initial law case without a factual business? This action stated started a few months ago and they did mislead some people's image of us already in our society, they even succeed in getting one theater council cancel. Shame show. I'm here trying to not only to express, have a concern about CCPs persecution of the following go overseas, but also trying to awareness of the infiltration and, uh, threats from CTP to our society to American people. I hope that, that from my brief account, we can recognize the infiltration and the stress from CCP. I hope that in the future, if you hear some negative news about the ong, about us, about ing, please do not listen to them, don't believe them
▶ 27:19 Speaker 2: or please have a clear mind to distinguish what is right and with the their, the CCPs line. I hope our government, our people can be more actively against the communism. I hope everyone can choose candidates and can choose justice. I hope that when you see be treated unjustly, please give us a hand of justice and support us. Thank you. If we'll be very grateful, if you can introduce us to more people or more opportunity, which we can help more people to have this awareness. This newspaper, the real story of Xing tells the beginning why this performer star have shame in performing arts, the performer story, the real story.
▶ 28:26 Speaker 2: I have some here and this flyer is introduced. What is and how CCP persecute us here. Yeah, please take some flyers and newspapers and share with your friends share in this building.
▶ 28:47 Speaker 2: We cherish the belief freedom here because we escape Mainland China. We come here for the blue freedom, so we cherish it, we want to protect them together with people here. And this is my statement. Please feel free to take some. Thank you so much. Thank
▶ 29:08 Speaker 10: You. Thank you.
▶ 29:12 Speaker 10: Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak in public comment tonight? Is there anyone online?
▶ 29:23 Speaker 3: There's one
▶ 29:27 Speaker 7: Sydney, did you wanna speak?
▶ 29:46 Speaker 2: Hello, my name is Sydney Albin.
▶ 29:50 Speaker 2: Um, I live in Stanford, Connecticut, and I'm 18. Um, so quotes in support of the resolution to support the goals and ideals of sexual assault awareness month. Padma Lakshmi in the New York Times.
▶ 30:07 Speaker 2: Op-ed said some say man shouldn't pay a price for an act he committed as a teenager, but the woman pays the price for the rest of her life and so do the people who love her. We all have a lot to lose if we put a time limit on telling the truth about sexual assault. And if we hold onto the codes of silence for that, that for generation have allowed men to hurt women with impunity. And then me Too many voices. Community Support network said rape culture is getting angry at victims for coming forward rather than perpetrators for the abuse. Rape culture is thinking it's toxic and dramatic for survivors to talk about their experiences, but justified for people who look the other way and silence those who have been harmed. Behind every perpetrator of sexual assault or abuse are dozens of enablers, naysayers. And look the other way, as they say it takes a village, it is not a coincidence that too many abusers skirt responsibility and accountability while their victims are often ostracized and ridiculed, enabling abuse and abuse. Thank you.
▶ 31:12 Speaker 10: Thank you. Okay.
▶ 31:20 Leila Migliorelli: All right. All right. Seeing no further public comments, I will motion by unanimous consent to close public comments. Public comment is now closed. Next up a reading at the minute of the minutes, and at this time I will motion by unanimous consent without reading minutes from meetings dated April 7th and, um, April 7th, 2025 and October 7th, 2024. Seeing no objections, those minutes are now approved.