APPT-2024-26 : Appointment of Francis Sanzone, 184 Upham Street, to the Board of Registrars of Voters

Transcript (~8 min @ 1:33)

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▶ 1:29 Robb Stewart: Seeing no objection. Rules 37 B is now suspended. Uh, we have appointment 2024 dash 26, the appointment of Francis Sanzone of 180 4 Upham Street, to the Board of Registers of voters, Madam Mayor.

▶ 1:46 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening, counselors. Um, I'm here tonight with Fritz Sanzone, who is my nominee for the Board of Registrar Voters. Um, just for a little background, for those of you that are newer to the council, this is, um, the board that oversees the elections for all elections that are carried out in Melrose. And by state law, this board is required to have a makeup of both registered Democrats and registered Republicans. So, Mr. Sanzo, Sanzone, excuse me, will be filling the vacant, um, seat for a registered Republican. He was nominated by the Republican City Committee and submitted an application. He's raised his three children here in Melrose with his wife, and has had a long history of civic engagement, and seems really excited to take this opportunity to give back to his community. So I'm thrilled that he put his name forward, um, and I'm happy to turn it over to him.

▶ 2:35 Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Uh, my name is Fritz Sanzone. Uh, I've lived in Melrose for the past 19 years. Um, I have three kids. Uh, one, the oldest is in, uh, college. I'm another one who's a senior who's going on to college. And my youngest is a sophomore in, um, high school. Uh, and I say that because my civic duty really started with, um, coaching when we moved to Melrose Soccer, basketball, um, baseball. Um, can't say I was a great coach, but, uh, it was the civic duty that I could do at the time with three little kids. Um, now that they've grown up, um, I still feel that pole do some sort of civic duty. And when this opportunity came up, um, I applied and, um, I'm, I'm quite happy to serve in this way for the community.

▶ 3:22 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Sanzone and Madam Mayor. Um, are there any questions from the committee?

▶ 3:34 Leila Migliorelli: Go first. Hi, Mr. Sanzone. Thank you so much, um, for, for being here tonight and, um, for volunteering, offering to volunteer your time on the Board of Registrars. Um, given that elections are such a hot button and, uh, somewhat controversial topic, uh, in the country, what, um, what inspires you, um, to serve in this role, particularly given those pressures, um, with the increased, um, forms of voting, mail-in voting, it's, it's gotten more complex, so I just wondered if you can talk a little bit about that and how you, what you think you can bring to the board.

▶ 4:09 Speaker 1: Sure. Absolutely. Um, so currently I work for, uh, Massport, Massachusetts Port Authority. Um, I've been there for over 12 years. Uh, the longest time I've spent there, excuse me, sorry. The longest time I've spent there is, uh, as the budget director. So we had a budget of about a billion dollars. And, um, it was my responsibility to put that together. So a lot of pressure, a lot of, uh, focus on that, um, internally and externally, um, and by the state. And so we have to follow specific rules and guidelines. Um, and the most important thing I think about that is making sure that you follow the rules and whatever it is that you do, you can point to the rule and say, I did it because of this. And even though there is a lot of, oh, thank you very much. Excuse me.

▶ 5:05 Speaker 2: Yep. Take your time.

▶ 5:10 Speaker 1: There. There is a lot of focus around that. I think at the end of the day, Sorry, it's a long day. Uh, I think at the end of the day, it, it's important to be able to substantiate what it is that you're doing and within your role. In other words, no matter what the votes say, when you count the tally, at the end of the day, you want to be able to substantiate what it is that the people of Melrose wanted. And that is your job. At the end of the day, whether republican, democratic, independent, it, it doesn't matter. And so when people get, you see a lot of angst throughout the country, I think you need to always rely on the facts of, of what the outcome is. And I know that this role is, is not as basic as that. There's other things that you have to do to make sure you have a fair election. But, um, I, I don't get too excited about it or worried about it. Um, I think I'm a very even minded person, a very fair person. Um, I like to think that the people I worked with in the past when I was doing their budgets, um, thought of me as a fair person. There was give and take, um, no matter what department they worked for, what it was that they were trying to do. Um, and I kind of approached this job the same way, or this responsibility the same way. Just be a fair and honest and straightforward and, um, very transparent person.

▶ 6:41 Robb Stewart: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Anybody else?

▶ 6:44 Manjula Karamcheti: Um, I had my hand raised, but you kind of actually answered my question 'cause I was gonna ask you sort of what principles will you bring to the role? And I think you answered them beautifully in terms of transparency, fairness, um, rules, that kind of thing.

▶ 7:00 Speaker 1: Rules always follow the rules. Yeah. And that it'll keep you out of trouble

▶ 7:04 Manjula Karamcheti: And more. I just wanted to comment. I was also a coach and not a very good one. So I appreciated you saying that. And thank you for volunteering your time in those ways and volunteering your time to do this as well.

▶ 7:17 Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. I look forward to it.

▶ 7:20 Devin Romanul: Council, Um, I'm, first of all, thank you for, uh, uh, being willing to be of service to the city of Melrose. And, um, I'm, I'm just curious as, and okay, if you don't have a totally well thought out answer at this stage, but as we assess, uh, how best to run elections in Melrose in terms of locations, do you have any thoughts on how, uh, you know, uh, how to improve elections operations or, or, uh, things like that? Anything we should be bearing in mind?

▶ 7:47 Speaker 1: Um, to the honest answer, um, at this point, no. I, I, I don't, I don't know, um, I, in any of the other roles I've had in the past, um, unless you have extensive experience in this role already, I think it's hard to kind of walk into a role and say, you need to change this, you need to change that. I think you really kind of need to go through at least one election cycle to kind of figure out what the city's doing, right. What they might be doing wrong. Um, in terms of when it's run, how it's run with different locations. Um, I have seen as a voter, I've, I've voted in this room before, I've voted at the middle school before. Um, and it was really seamless in both cases. So, um, to say that I have any thoughts on how to change it at this point, I, I, I would be speaking out of, out turn to say, you're doing it wrong or there's something that you need to really change. Yeah.

▶ 8:47 Robb Stewart: No right or wrong answer. I was just curious. Yep. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for Ms. Council?

▶ 8:54 Speaker 3: I'll Make a motion to recommend. Second,

▶ 8:57 Robb Stewart: We have a motion, motion to recommend by Council Chetty, second by President Michael under discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. This will be sent to the full board with the recommendation, uh, for passage. And, um, that will be on May 6th. May 6th. On May 6th. You do not have to attend. You're welcome to if you'd like to. Um, the final vote will be taken there.