ORDER-2022-153 : Appointment of Randall Carter, 50 Mystic Ave, to the Melrose Human Rights Commission for a three-year term, said term to expire on the last day of February, 2025.

Transcript (~10 min @ 1:02:37)

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▶ 1:02:27 Jen Grigoraitis: Passage made by councilor Cassidy seconded by Vice chairman glorelli. Is there any discussion? Seeing none all in favor why any opposed that passes unanimously? Thank you very much Dr. Thank you, and this will be recommended to the full Council.

▶ 1:02:46 Speaker 8: Thank you for being here tonight.

▶ 1:02:51 Jen Grigoraitis: So we have one more order before us tonight, which is order 2022-153 appointment of Randall Carter 50 Mystic Ave to the Melrose Human Rights Commission for a three-year term said term to expire on the last day of February 2025. Evening Mr. Carter and welcome and Mr. Broder, we're still under suspension of the rules. So take it away. Thank you.

▶ 1:03:12 Paul Brodeur: Madam. Chair Mr. Carter compared to Dr. Aradamus a long time. Well Mel Rosine haven't arrived there. I want to say in in 2019. He brings more than just a fabulous haircut. I will say he he reached out to us. He reached out to the administration as a fairly new member to the community and expressed his passion for social justice for for commitment to Dei wants to see that grow in the community. I think I've fair to say both from the government side, but also from the from the community as a whole and we certainly welcome and that enthusiasm he's also in his workplace done a lot of event planning and I know from our friends that are currently sitting on the on the on the commission that having folks that aren't just committed to the ideals but committed to the work and sometimes the blocking and tackling the nuts and bolt of delivering plans delivering that Outreach. It's really going to help their work tremendously. I'm excited to offer him feel consideration rentals like

▶ 1:04:34 Speaker 5: to say a few words. Absolutely. Thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you to the members of the council for for your time and consideration. I guess I'll just I'm sure you might have some questions, but I just wanted to give a brief brief biography about myself. I'm originally from Cambridge I grew up there and went to school. I have a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Colgate University. I also have a master's degree in education from tour University, which is a you know, it's a college in New York after I graduated. I spend a couple years as an elementary school teacher in Brooklyn and I also gain my my Master's at the same time. I came back to Boston and I spent about six years at a small science nonprofit called adjean where I started in customer support, but then moved into Tech transfer technology transfer, which is like a small Niche area of intellectual property that Kind of kindled my interest in in the law. I'm actually a trained paralegal. I took a course. I very recently took a job at MIT. I work as an intellectual property coordinator for their open learning department. And what I do most of my job is helping professors and you know their postdocs and everyone put their course materials online. And so that's not explicitly a you know like a Dei or a human rights issue, but I guess one way that it kind of dovetails into the Human Rights Commission is that I think the reason that these things were founded by MIT was kind of to Leverage The the democratizing power of the internet, which is really why it was basically invented and has since been I think as we've all seen seized by um some some Bad actors and used to some pretty bad ends, but I won't I won't digress too much that's kind of my Spiel and basically yes as the mayor said I moved here about two years ago with my fiance who was originally from Melrose and I only recently learned of the HRC. I was poking around on the Melrose City website as I am want to do and I thought it aligned with my interests. I'm as I stated in my statement of interest. I'm extremely passionate about social justice and equity and inclusion and I seek appointment to this Commission because I love Melrose already and I want to make it an even more inclusive and you know, welcoming place to live so Hope that wasn't too long-winded. That was perfect. I'm

▶ 1:07:00 Jen Grigoraitis: glad you came to your senses and came back from New York. Yes. Yeah.

▶ 1:07:03 Speaker 5: No, I was never the Red Sox

▶ 1:07:08 Speaker 8: hat was on all the time. We'll forgive you the transgression.

▶ 1:07:11 Speaker 1: Are there any problem but everything good any questions

▶ 1:07:12 Jen Grigoraitis: for my college counselor Williams?

▶ 1:07:15 Ryan Williams: So I'm Excuse me. Very interested to hear you talk about the internet. I happened to think that a number of the Battlegrounds we face right now on social and human rights issues are online and if they are not exclusively online from dedicated keyboard Warriors, they are often found out online. For example, we had a group of neo-nazis D. You know this. Yes at Oak Grove. That's right Oak Grove. They got off the train gotten their cars and drove through where who knows Melrose probably but The first and best way to find that information was on Instagram. Twitter and what would you your thoughts be on how the Human Rights Commission could use that information use more of an online presence keep track of these happenings. Keep track of the trends of the things being said online on social media.

▶ 1:08:19 Speaker 5: Sure. Yeah, that's a great question. I think you know whatever the ends are. I think that the HRC would do really well to have as strong of a social media presence as it can I think that's especially in these days is by far the most effective way to engage people. I mean, you know, I read that that Weekly Melrose paper, but I don't think a lot of people do I'm probably the youngest people person who does but yeah, I think you know it for especially for you know, I'm I'm 32. I'm a millennial. I'm not a huge social media user but I feel like I do understand how to leverage it and how to do Outreach and make posts that are gonna be attention grabbing and get into the algorithm and and what have you so I think there's a lot of positive ways that it can be be leverage in terms of announcing events and and just kind of increasing awareness of of issues that that are germane to the council but to your more central question about How can it be used to monitor or perhaps do more when there are? issues such as a gathering of neo-nazis who came from Boston and got off at Oak Grove and or any kind of You know hate speech or something like that. I was on the Melrose website today and I think I just saw that there was a video incident of maybe a public works employee who might have said something homophobic. I haven't seen the video. I just saw the mayor statement. And so I mean things like that are incredibly important. I mean, we're in a day. We're in an age where you know, 30 years ago that just would have gone by unpunished. So I mean, unfortunately, I don't have a super solid answer as to what the council's role should be to leverage that. I mean, I'm I think there's a line to be walked where I don't know if we should be policing or how actively we should be monitoring it but I think keeping an eye on it and and bringing issues that rise to the level of certainly of legal action, but also of you know suspected or alleged. you know issues that that threaten the the Equitable and diverse You know sort of spirit that we want to elicit in this town. I think those are those are certainly in our purview and Yeah, I think it's a great idea for us to at least look at that and kind of discuss I would say frankly, you know, I'm just a perspective member at this point and I won't pretend to know all of the inner workings of the commission yet. So I would love to hear from some of the more seasoned members of the commission especially ones who are attorneys and and have a really good understanding of I mean, the last thing I'd want to do as a human rights commissioner would be to overstep my The Authority that I'm given, you know into you know, that just would look bad for me for the commission for the city like I'm very Very aware and very concerned about even just the appearance of impropriety or overstepping I can already hear people who would detract, you know saying like there's woke police or something like that that would spread like wildfire on the internet, you know, so something like that, you know, yeah, like who you know, who knows you never know what the internet just has a mind of its own. So yeah, I would say I have some measured optimism about the commission's ability to to track certainly happenings like that which are to me infuriating and and disheartening and I don't know a whole mix of negative emotions

▶ 1:11:44 Paul Brodeur: Randall doesn't know I suspect is that several members of former?

▶ 1:11:50 Speaker 5: HRC commissions. Oh cool cool. I don't think I did know that although the clerk might have we met outside. I think she might have mentioned something to that effect. But my mind kind of went blank before I was sitting out here. But yeah.

▶ 1:12:04 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you. Any other councilor Stewart man? I'm

▶ 1:12:06 Robb Stewart: sure I'd like to recommend Mr. Carter disappointment to

▶ 1:12:11 Jen Grigoraitis: the full Council second. So we have a motion to recommend made by counselor Stewart seconded by councilor Williams. Is there any discussion