Health, Education & Welfare Committee — 2020-06-04
Attendance
Jack Eccles ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Maya Jamaleddine ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Jeff McNaught ; Leila Migliorelli
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Remote Meeting Information
- Public Comment
- Orders
- ORDER-2020-112 : Appointment of David Hoff, 46 Warwick Road, to the Commission on Disability for a three-year term; said term to end on the last day of February 2023.
- ORDER-2020-114 : Appointment of Margaret Sheets, 53 Melrose St., Apt. 3D, to the Commission on Disability for a three-year term; said term to end on the last day of February 2023.
- ORDER-2020-113 : Appointment of Eileen Hamblin, 150 Youle Street, to the Cemetery Commission to fill the expired term of Mark Garipay; said term to expire on the last day of February 2022.
- ORDER-2020-115 : Appointment of Dorie Withey, 286 Washington Street, to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2023.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 4, 2020 Web-based remote meeting Committee Meeting 6:35 PM , Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Jack Eccles Chair Present Maya Jamaleddine Vice Chair Present Shawn M. MacMaster Voting Present Jeff McNaught Voting Present Leila Migliorelli Voting Present Jen Grigoraitis President, ex oficio Present The Health, Education and Welfare Committee is called to order by Chair Eccles. This meeting is recorded and may be viewed on www.mmtv3.org
ORDER-2020-112 Appointment Appointment of David Hoff, 46 Warwick Road, to the Commission on Disability for a three-year term; said term to end on the last day of February 2023. Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2020-114 Appointment Appointment of Margaret Sheets, 53 Melrose St., Apt. 3D, to the Commission on Disability for a three-year term; said term to end on the last day of February 2023. Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2020-113 Appointment Appointment of Eileen Hamblin, 150 Youle Street, to the Cemetery Commission to fill the expired term of Mark Garipay; said term to expire on the last day of February 2022. Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2020-115 Appointment Appointment of Dorie Withey, 286 Washington Street, to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2023. Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 9/29/2020 3:38 PM
Transcript
▶ 5:10 Jack Eccles: Yes. All right. This meeting is adjourned and now I will virtually turn it over to Councillor Eccles for Health, Education and Welfare. Thank you very much. The hour being 6.35 on June 4th, 2020. This is a meeting of the Health, Education and Welfare Committee. I am Councilor Jack Eccles, the Chair. Joining me are Vice Chair, Councilor Jamaleddine, Voting Member, Councilor McMaster, Councilor McNally, Councilor Migliorelli, Councilor Gagretis, and Non-Voting Member, Councilor Thomas, Councilor Cinella, and Councilor Tremendous. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020, order suspending meetings and the Governor's March 15, 2020, order imposing strict limitation on the number of people that may gather in
▶ 6:03 Jack Eccles: in one place. This meeting of the Health, Education and Welfare Committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. We will post an audio video recording or transcript or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Melrose website and on MMTV 3.0. At this time, is there a motion to open public comment? Motion to open public comment. Second. Motion to open public comment by councillor mcgrady second i have vice chair malady and madam clerk can you please call the role vice chair Jamaleddine yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes council Migliorelli yes president Grigoraitis yes chairman eccles yes um okay now anyone wishing to speak please
▶ 7:01 Jack Eccles: raise your virtual hand for public comment I'm looking I don't looking no one is raising their virtual hand for public comment okay seeing no one there much closed public comment so there's a motion to close public comment made by councillor McMaster seconded by councillor Jamala Dean working please Call the roll. Vice Judge Maladine. Yeah. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor McNaught. Councilor Migliorelli. Yes. President Grigoraitis. Yes. Chair Cinella. I'm sorry, oh, backwards, Chair Eccles. Yes. Six yes. The first order on tonight's agenda, close out. The first order on tonight's agenda is Order 2020-112, Appointment of David Hoff, 46 Ward Road, to the Commission on Disability for a Three-Year Term,
▶ 8:17 Jack Eccles: said term to end on the last day of February, 2023. I'm bringing in Mr. Hoff and I'm bringing in the Mayor. I'm also going to bring in Mike Sankovic, who is the Chair of the HRC. This is the Disability Commission. You're right, sorry. Yep. Sorry about that. No worries. Seeing we have some nominees, motion to suspend the rules motion to suspend the rules second motion to suspend the rules made by councillor gemaldi and seconded by president Grigoraitis madam clerk vice chair gemaldi yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught councillor Migliorelli yes president Isn't Grigoraitis, Chair Eccles? Yes. Yes. Fantastic. So we have Mr. Hoff and Mayor Brenner with us tonight. Mayor Brenner, would you like to lead off or can't see you?
▶ 9:25 Paul Brodeur: Yep. Can y'all see me? Because the phone, I'm using phone because the, there we go. Computer failed me, but the phone is a terrific backup. I want to thank you for considering the nominees before you this evening for various commission appointments. I think you will find that it is an outstanding array of folks that have professional and personal experience that will serve the community well. If you've had a chance to take a look at Mr. Hopps CV and his cover letter, I think you'll understand why it was an obvious choice to join the Commission on Disability. I've had the pleasure in a past life of working with Mr. Hoff at the Institute for Community Inclusion, which is associated with UMass Boston.
▶ 10:24 He has been really in every phase of advocacy around developmental disabilities and workplace access, which is a very, very important part of the work that I think the commission can do. He is a trained social worker by trade, and I think you'll be very impressed when you hear from Mr. Hoff. I appreciate your consideration. Mr. Hoff, would you like to say a few words? Sure. Thank you. First off, thank you, Mr. Mayor, for putting my name forward, and thank you for this nomination. I've devoted almost 30 years of my professional life to the inclusion of people with disabilities into mainstream society and that work for me has always been part of a larger cause of just creating a much more inclusive society and much more welcoming
▶ 11:16 society and certainly you know the events of this past week or so are just obviously an echo of that so i always see it as part of a larger picture um i you know my my view is that people with disabilities should be included like everybody else whether that's an employment within the community and the same rights as everyone else and they are just part of the rich diversity of our communities and of our society and this is obviously a professional passion of mine but it's also personal i have several Member of my family who um have significant disabilities and so you know i deal with that in my my family as well so and i really you know one of the things I love about Melrose where my wife Karen and I have lived here for 24 years
▶ 12:02 it has always been the the welcoming spirit of Melrose you know it's one community open to all and so that you know obviously and obviously should extend to folks with disabilities and I think that Melrose is in a very good position in terms of of taking a look at these issues I did serve at one point several years ago on a task force on trying to make the Melrose public schools more inclusive of students with disabilities i think we put a nice document together did a lot of hard work on that i don't know frankly in the follow-up afterwards whether whether it resulted in the kind of action we we had hoped for so but i also you know feel like this so i feel like this type of commission is very much needed in the community but at the
▶ 12:47 same time i'm also confident that as a commission that will be welcomed the other thing i'd like to say so it's one thing to have sort of a technical background and understanding and i have a pretty if you look at my cv i know i know the world of disability uh you know pretty well particularly my focus is on employment but i you know i know the americans with disabilities act good working knowledge there i know the public systems both here in massachusetts and in other states and nationally fairly well but i also think that anybody who serves on any commission and any task force needs to be somebody who can work well and work in a facilitated way and be open to ideas and be willing to put their ideas forward and listen to others react to them and
▶ 13:29 Maya Jamaleddine: recognize that you know you need to work in a very much of a collaborative fashion so it's very much my style that I you know would bring to this effort so I really appreciate the opportunity to to potentially serve and happy to answer any questions anyone has thank you very much uh vice chair gemali thank you chairman and thank you mr hoff for stepping up and for all um the work that you've done in our community um i actually i would like to welcome you first and uh thank you and then uh my question is what is the first uh matter that you would like to focus on and that you feel that our city is in need and especially with our population in which population mainly you feel that they need the most attention at this time
▶ 14:25 so well thank you for the question i think and i've thought about this a little bit i think it's also it's important to frankly get a sense of need out there so there's nothing that jumps out at me that says oh my gosh we've got to take care of this immediately it's not you know and again maybe Don't have a sense of what's going on out there. I think the 1st thing we do have to do is really ask the community. And as the community Member, and obviously those with disabilities, their view of what is needed. So it's not like, I come in with, like, okay, these things need to be taken care of. I would say certain things are very obvious to me full access to voting. uh is a key piece um ensuring uh i would say that's kind of up there obviously i think the
▶ 15:03 schools and looking at kind of are we doing i just mentioned the task force i worked on and you know my anecdotal discussions with a number of parents is um you know some frustration at times particularly around things like for example parents who've had to place their their children out of out of district which you know from my both my value standpoint is not a good thing i don't think it's a good thing for these parents and when i hear parents say you know what we ended up placing our child out of district and my child's happier and that's not a good thing and that's not a good thing for a multitude of reasons we should have schools that are fully inclusive and i also am fully cognizant of the challenges of inclusion i'm not not even say
▶ 15:43 Maya Jamaleddine: just okay that this is all just going to magically work but it's certainly something that i think the community needs to look at more closely it's not only the right thing from a value standpoint it's also very costly to taxpayers to place uh students out of districts so i would say that those are kind of two things that come to my mind uh pretty quickly absolutely i just want to say something that during you know my conversations with parents in school i've noticed that especially those that they have children uh in need or you know special needs um there is a lot of um need for us to educate those parents to be able to understand the language um so that they can uh request and uh understand what is their rights in our school system and what is the service that they can
▶ 16:34 John N. Tramontozzi: receive um in our school and in our city as well so this is something that i feel it's very much needed to educate um and provide the service for the parents of children in need thank you thank Thank you so much. And good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, although I'm not a voting member of this committee, express my wholehearted support for Mr half as a ward 1 resident. I have known David and his in the half family for many, many years and David, you will be a positive addition to this commission. when it comes before the full board on recommendation from the committee you got my support and thank you so much for your support for your service through for this to the city over the years and this is a wonderful addition thank you
▶ 17:36 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank You council thank you thank you mr. chairman good evening mr. mayor good evening mr. Hoff thank you both for being here mr. Hoff first I'd like to Thank you for your willingness to serve. This is obviously an important topic for the council and for the mayor. This is one of the mayor's first initiatives that he put forth as you know. So it's near and dear to all of our hearts. The one thing I would hope that you in the perspective other commissioners would consider is thinking broadly in terms of disability. We talked about the schools and what I would really encourage you and your future colleagues to think about is at the other end of the age spectrum, particularly our older adults with dementia.
▶ 18:22 Shawn M. MacMaster: As you know, dementia is also classified as a disability because of the physical and mental impairment of those who suffer from it. it's an issue that's very important to me personally but I know with our aging senior population with the baby boomers you know aging out of the workforce we really need to be prepared for that and as a community ways in which we can find opportunities to maybe help families better identify signs of early dementia and how we can be responsive so I just say that to plant the seed in your early work to maybe start thinking about that I mean if you just I don't want to put on the spot on that particular topic, but if you had any thoughts or comments, I would certainly be open to hearing them. Thank you, Mr. Hoffman.
▶ 19:08 Thank you, Councillor. Well, I would say a couple of things. First, I think disability is a very broad group of folks, and I've spent a significant – I mean, a major concentration of mine has been on folks with intellectual development disabilities, if not exclusively, and so sometimes we even get in these philosophical debates about how do you define disability, And there's a lot of different definitions, but I would absolutely agree that actually most of us in some course of our life, particularly as we age, disability becomes much more prevalent. And I think that part of it is, okay, figuring out, okay, how can Melrose provide the supports for those families, the resources, how can we make sure that, frankly, family Member
▶ 19:49 are able to stay in the community as long as possible. And it's obviously making sure that people have resources that are available to them. One thing that I've been struck by in my work with individuals and families, and echoes an earlier comment, is I often find that people are not aware of just the resources that are out there. There's often a lot of resources that people are not aware of. I also feel like sometimes there's this notion that the bureaucracy that parents have to go through sometimes, or family Member that I deal with, or individuals themselves, is incredible. I mean, I know, I guess I speak for all of you, we always wonder how did these systems get so complicated so anything like that we can do in terms of providing user
▶ 20:29 friendly information and serving you know information referral to you know individuals you know with family Member with with dementia and other other similar conditions I think would certainly be a priority thank you mr. Hoff thank you mr. chairman seeing no one else wish to speak what is the will of the committee motion to recommend passage made by Councillor McMaster seconded by Councillor Migliorelli Madam Clerk Vice Chair John Maladine yes Councillor McMaster yes Councillor McNaught yes Councillor Migliorelli yes President Grigoraitis I'm going to abstain from voting I have an abundance of caution because I have the distinct pleasure of working with Mr. Hoff's daughter in my day job, so I want to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.
▶ 21:31 Thank you. Chairman Eccles? Yes. Five yes. Thank you, Mr. Hoff. Thank you, Mr. Hoff. The next item on our agenda tonight is Order 2020-114, Appointment of Margaret Sheets, 53 Melrose Street, Apartment 3D, to the Commission on Disability for a Three-Year Term, set to expire on the last day of February 2023, and I believe Ms. Sheets is in the room. Interesting. Margaret, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you, but I don't think you can hear me. Yeah, we can hear you. We just, for some reason, I'm unable to make you a panelist in the room. Was it the way that I signed on? I do apologize. No worries. Everyone can hear you. We just love to see people. If you want to start. Okay. I wonder if there's something I can do to make myself visible on my end.
▶ 22:31 Let's see if I can hold on one second. The ability to hold on. Let's see if I can try this one thing. Yeah. Oh, I am so sorry. Don't hold on, guys. Through the chair. Hi, Maggie. It's not you. We always have this issue. so don't it's not you don't feel guilty all right well okay well thank you very much first for this opportunity i'm so excited to be able to serve on the commission or have the possibility rather to serve i um as a woman living with disabilities i am really passionate about this cause and i have advocated for people with disabilities throughout my and i've done a lot of work studying issues that impact people with disabilities in my past position as a research assistant with
▶ 23:27 the Disability Policy Consortium. And I have also continued to work with people with disabilities in my current position with the Disability Policy Consortium on their MyOmbudsman team, which is a team of people that help people on MassHealth if they're having issues accessing their services. So, and that's where I'm an administrative assistant with them. So that's work that I have enjoyed and I think my past research translates very well into my work hopefully with the Commission. I'd love to echo, I'd love to do a needs assessment and I want to echo David Hoff and his idea of looking at what people with disabilities need in Melrose and figuring out how these needs can best be met. And I just want to thank
▶ 24:20 you all for giving me this opportunity to speak. I'm so excited to be able to have the hope of being able to serve Melrose. And it's a community I really care about. So I am just excited to have this opportunity. So thank you so much. Thanks, Ashish. May I bring her? You want to meet? Hello? Yes? One second, Heidi. Hey, your brother's going to speak. I don't think, I think Ms. Sheets is underselling yourself a little bit, quite frankly. She has a master's degree in health communication, undergrad degree, served in D.C. in the Senate doing policy work, and has also been, as you can see from her resume, on the front lines. And if you've ever had been in the world, we have to help folks navigate
▶ 25:18 Paul Brodeur: mass health. That is a skill set that even the best of us can really be challenged by and to do it and do it well takes a magician, quite frankly. And if you are in a world where sometimes you have to navigate what they call dual eligibility, where some of your health expenses are mass health and some might be Medicare, those problems can really multiply, it can be a bureaucratic nightmare but to have someone like miss sheets on the commission with that academic research background but also her lived experience and her work experience will make her an outstanding addition to the commission thank you mr chairman um i just would like to echo uh mayor broder and uh tell you maggie we are thrilled to have you i think you
▶ 26:12 Maya Jamaleddine: you will be a great asset to the Commission on Disability, and I think Marouz will be so lucky to have you. Thank you for stepping up, and thank you for all what you did in the past year and more. You can make anyone love you without seeing you, and we are happy to have you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all. I really appreciate this. thank you I know I'm also very excited to see this committee having one of the two Member here to the Member coming through tonight what is the will of the committee seeing motion to demand to back for passage to recommend for passage by vice-chair Jamal Dean seconded by councilor McGlure Madam Clerk? Vice-Chair Maladine? Yes. Councillor McMaster? Yes. Councillor McNaught? Yes. Councillor Migliorelli? Yes. Councillor Grigoraitis? Yes. Chair Eccles? Yes. Six yes. Congratulations, Ms. Sheets. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Thank you. Thank you. I'm so thrilled. I'm really
▶ 27:27 Jack Eccles: thank you thank you the next item on our agenda tonight is order 2020 dash 113 appointment of Eileen Hamblin 150 Youle Street to the Cemetery Commission to fill the unexpired term of Marc Garapes said to expire on the last of February 22 I'm having the same issue it's interesting some people in the room I'm able to make panelists and some people I'm not but miss Hamlin Hamlin can you hear us can and right now I'm myself I'm gonna exit this screen I was seeing the panel and I tried to turn a camera on I'll leave the I'll stop trying to fill with technology sorry about that may brother would you like I would so it is Hamlet should you choose to move forward with this nomination would obviously have big shoes to fill as one
▶ 28:24 Paul Brodeur: your fellow counselors. Mark Garipay has a, it's not strong enough to say he has a passion and advocacy for our Wyoming cemetery. I think we have the perfect person to step into that role. If you've seen from her letter of application, it explains well why she has a passion for this work she is very well accomplished in melrose as a as a professional certainly has been active in any number of committees and causes around the city and i do think with all due respect to those who have come before i think it will be a breath of fresh air to have a woman serving uh serving on this commission i'm not sure if it has ever happened before but i'm pretty sure it hasn't happened in a while so i'm delighted to move forward with ms hamlin's nomination thank you
▶ 29:18 I'd like to thank you all for this opportunity to speak to you. I didn't mention that I have a passion for open spaces, and a cemetery is a well-preserved open space for flora, fauna, birds. So I think it's a treasure in many ways. And I also don't know and hope to find out, whether I'm appointed or not, I would look into this, what the future plans for the cemetery are, what kind of plans we have looking long into the future when there might be drought conditions, things like that. So I have no idea what kind of long range planning has been done for the cemetery. And I think that would behoove all of us to be aware of it. But I'm also a senior citizen, but a young senior citizen, I want to point out.
▶ 30:10 And I'm aware that this is a place of consolation for a lot of people. And I wonder if it's also useful in other ways that we've not approached yet I know a lot of people have been walking there because parks have been closed but I'm just not sure without overusing it if there are any other uses while preserving of course the dignity of of a final resting place thank you miss Helen any committee Member wishing to speak at this time and vice-chair Jamali um I just want to say thank you so much for stepping up and um good luck thank you um before before we hear the will of the committee there was some correspondence set from the administration uh late this afternoon is there a motion to attach that to the record motion to attach the correspondence to the record
▶ 31:07 Jack Eccles: motion to attach the letter from miss hamblin made by councillor mingle early seconded by council or president Grigoraitis madam clerk vice chair Jamaleddine yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes council Migliorelli yes president Grigoraitis yes chairman eccles yes yes seeing that uh what is the will of the committee motion for passage to recommend for passage made by Vice Chair Jamaleddine seconded by Councillor Migliorelli Madam Clerk Vice Chair Jamaleddine yes Councillor McMaster yes Councillor McNaught yes Councillor Migliorelli yes President Grigoraitis Chairman Eccles yes fixed yes thank Ms. Hamlin. Congratulations, Ms. Hamlin. The final item on our agenda tonight, Order 2020-115,
▶ 32:13 Jack Eccles: Appointment of Dori Whitey, 286 Washington Street, to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term set to expire on the last day of February, 2023. And I believe we have the Chair of the Human Rights Commission and Ms. Whitey with us. Briefly, because I will save most of my time to Mike, because the reality is um that dory has really been a de facto member of the commission for at least a year now and is deep into planning a lot of their upcoming events and programming and hopefully we'll share a little bit of information with us tonight to the extent that's available about our pride month celebrations that i know that there's a lot of work being done in the background we're looking very much forward
▶ 33:01 to that and with that i would defer to to the chair thank you mike thanks for joining us thanks for having us i feel like we're all becoming best friends um like uh mr mayor said uh dory has been part of our commission for um over a year as an associate member um more than that she's been to our events um she's helped plan our events um she's constantly present she's dedicated um example of dory's dedication is that even though she travels frequently for work during our meeting she would offer to call in during flights to be a participant in our commission meetings so her level of dedication is unmatched she single-handedly took our pride event and made it virtual so everything that you see coming up on the week of june 21st
▶ 33:49 is because of dory her creativity and her responsiveness and so i couldn't be more happy to have dory as part of our commission thank you uh miss wifey if you'd like to say a few words thank you um one it's fantastic to be alongside all of you this evening i would be both humbled and honored to be a part of the human rights commission i believe that everyone should be seen heard and valued in the communities in which they live in and i'm really looking forward to having the opportunity to serve the community that i currently call home as was alluded to a moment ago i travel for work i coach schools to ensure that both at the district level and the school level, equitable instruction is at play.
▶ 34:33 And when I learned about the Human Rights Commission, all I kept thinking was, how can I essentially give back and be a part of my community in a deeper and more meaningful way? I'm excited about Pride, too, just to share really quickly. We are going virtual. We'll have a different event every day starting June 21st all the way until the 27th. And I think it will be a really fantastic celebration just different than how we've done in the past but uh still looking forward to being able to have that opportunity and chance to celebrate with the community thanks again for having me thank you uh councilman thank you chairman um thank you dory for coming um i i just wanted to say i had the pleasure of working alongside dory
▶ 35:20 Leila Migliorelli: um on the human rights commission as she had served as an associate commissioner commissioner and um was i mean felt like a part of the commission the whole time so really to even see your appointment today it sort of seems like a no-brainer to me and um she's not only her commitment but her depth of experience and is what we need on the commission right now so um i i will be recommending her appointment thank you counselor master thank you uh mr chairman good evening uh Mr. Stankovich and good evening. I just wanted to thank you for your willingness to serve. Always a pleasure to have a Ward 5 resident be willing to step up and serve on any of our commissions or boards. And I'm impressed by your level of engagement and your enthusiasm and your
▶ 36:11 track record as an associate commissioner to date. Thank you for your work to make the Pride event a reality in a virtual sense and I'm looking forward to supporting your nomination. Thank you again. Thank you. Vice-Chair Jamaleddine. Thank you, Chairman. Dori, I just want to thank you for stepping up and for continuing the great work for our community. I want to congratulate you, hopefully once we all uh vote you in and i would like to make a motion to recommend for passage second to recommend for passage made by vice chair de maladeen seconded by councillor master vice chair de maladeen yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chair Eccles? Yes. Six yes. Congratulations.
▶ 37:19 That was the final item on the agenda. Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion to adjourn made by Councilor Migliorelli, seconded by Vice Chair Jamaleddine. Vice-Chancellor Maladine. Yes. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor McNaught. Yes. Councilor Migliorelli. Yes. President Grigoraitis. Yes. Chairman Eccles. Yes. Mr. Chess. Thank you very much. Over to you, Chairman Snowe. You guys need a break. Just taking some people out of the room. Hang on one second. Good evening. Welcome to the Appropriations Committee. The date is June 4th at 7 p.m. 7.08 p.m. I'm the chair, Councillor Sonala, and pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law and the governor's March 15th order