Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2020-06-29

Attendance

Christopher Cinella present · Chair; Jack Eccles present · Voting; Mark Garipay present · Voting; Jen Grigoraitis present · President, ex oficio; Maya Jamaleddine present · Voting; Shawn M. MacMaster present · Voting; Jeff McNaught present · Voting; Leila Migliorelli present · Vice Chair; Robb Stewart present · Voting; Cory Thomas present · Voting; John N. Tramontozzi present · Voting

Agenda

1. Call to Order (16:40)
2. Remote Meeting Information (17:04)
3. Public Comment (18:10)
4. Orders (19:36)
5. ORDER-2020-133 : Appointment of Kathryn Armata to serve as Treasurer Collector, effective July 13th, 2020 (19:44)
6. ORDER-2020-134 : Acceptance of an Emergency Management Performance Grant in the amount of $6,500. (31:16)
7. ORDER-2020-135 : A request for city council approval of the temporary consolidation of polling locations to the MVMMS Gymnasium for the upcoming elections in September and November of 2020. These changes are being made in an effort to support the health and safety of residents, voters, and elections staff during the Covid-19 pandemic. (33:40)
8. Adjournment (2:13:15)

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 29, 2020 Web-based remote meeting Committee Meeting 7:15 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 Christopher Cinella Chair Present Leila Migliorelli Vice Chair Present John N. Tramontozzi Voting Present Shawn M. MacMaster Voting Present Jeff McNaught Voting Present Jack Eccles Voting Present Mark Garipay Voting Present Robb Stewart Voting Present Cory Thomas Voting Present Maya Jamaleddine Voting Present Jen Grigoraitis President, ex oficio Present

ORDER-2020-133 Appointment Appointment of Kathryn Armata to serve as Treasurer Collector, effective July 13th, 2020 Recommend Passage

ORDER-2020-134 Grant Acceptance of an Emergency Management Performance Grant in the amount of $6,500. Recommend Passage City Council

ORDER-2020-135 GENERAL A request for city council approval of the temporary consolidation of polling locations to the MVMMS Gymnasium for the upcoming elections in September and November of 2020. These changes are being made in an effort to support the health and safety of residents, voters, and elections staff during the Covid-19 pandemic. Hold City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 6/30/2020 4:26 PM

Transcript

▶ 17:12 Christopher Cinella: This meeting of the appropriations committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. We will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. On the city of knowledge website, and then TV. 3 dot, or I'm clear. I should make me really here. Council of Tram and tozy. Yeah, Councilor McMaster. Councilor McNaught? Here. Councilor Eccles? Here. Councilor Garipay? Here. Councilor Stewart? Here. Councilor Thomas? Here. Councilor Jamaleddine? Here. Here. President Grigoraitis? Here. Chairman Tanalla? Here. 11 present. okay our first order this evening um is order 2020-133 the appointment of

▶ 18:11 catherine armada to serve as the treasurer collector effective july 13th 2020. uh point of order point of procedure yeah i think we've got a comment oh my bad thank you counselor motion for public comment motion for public comment second second madam clerk if you can call the roll in the motion public comment vice chair Migliorelli yes councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster yes mr mcnaught yes councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes councillor maladin yes president Grigoraitis Yes. Chair Sinella. Yes. 11. Yes. Do we have anybody in the queue? Let's see. Anyone wishing to speak a public comment and appropriations if you could raise your.

▶ 19:07 Virtual hand, I'm looking through here. I don't see no 1 has raised their hand. Going once or twice. Motion to close public on 2nd, motion to close public economy by counselor Stewart, seconded by vice chair. Madam clerk, please call the roll. Yes. Counselor. Yes, I'm sorry. McMaster. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Sinella? Yes. Levin, yes. And I want to take a motion to suspend the rules because we'll have Katherine Amata come up at some point. Motion to suspend the rules? Second. Motion to suspend the rules made by President Grigoraitis, seconded by Councilor McNaught. Vice-Chair Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster?

▶ 20:16 Yes, it's not. Yes. Counselor Eccles yes. Counselor. Yeah, answer Stuart. Yes. Counselor Thomas yes. Yes. President Grigoraitis. Yes, chairman. Yes. 11, yes, so we've been bringing Catherine and I don't know if the mayor is going to speak or yes, I'm going to bring them there. I'm both in they both made panelists can you hear us yes hey Catherine hey Laura's yours I don't know if you have any prepared remarks we can hear you see you can't see you mr. chairman my may I by way of introduction yes please so I want offer for your consideration uh for our next treasure collector uh catherine amada you have an extensive uh cv in front of you i hope you've had an opportunity to review it certainly reflects

▶ 21:35 Paul Brodeur: a deep reservoir of experience in all really in all aspects of the financial services industry and rather than go through an exhaustive description of what that might be I do want to direct your attention to her particular expertise in treasury management. It is referenced both in her resume and in essentially what I would call a profile highlights document, which really details the real value and experience that she will bring to this particular position. A tremendous amount of management experience interacting with executives and with the public and importantly um really what i think of as kind of back office experience the nuts and bolts of the day-to-day management of the office you all know from

▶ 22:30 Paul Brodeur: uh from recent events how important it is to have a uh someone who can do it all in terms of communication with the public communication with the council and the nuts and bolts management experience to make sure that our money is doing what it is supposed to do and where it is supposed to be and also making sure again we are giving excellent public service making sure that we are serving the customers uh where however they come at us meaning in terms of showing up in city hall to pay their taxes making sure we're innovating as much as possible to provide for uh online transaction where that is helpful to folks and to be able to answer questions and make people understand and help them navigate a system that again is sometimes sometimes challenging to the

▶ 23:18 Paul Brodeur: lay person and quite frankly sometimes challenging to the professional uh so i offer her uh i offer you um miss armada for your consideration uh with my highest recommendation um i know she looks forward to your questions and again i want to thank you uh for your consideration this evening Thank you so much. Do you have any prepared remarks or you wanted to go into Q and a. I had some prepared remarks, but I'm fine with whichever way you wanted to see. You can go ahead with your remarks. Thank you mayor for that introduction and good evening counselors. I'd like to start by thanking you here for the opportunity to be here tonight. I'm thrilled with this prospect of becoming the treasurer collector for the city of Melrose.

▶ 24:09 You have a copy of my resume, and rather than walk you through it, I'd just like to take a few minutes to provide you with some of my background and the experience that I would bring to the role. Nearly half of my career has been spent in a Treasury position and in and around money management. I began my career in Treasury soon after earning my MBA at Knight, while during the day I was working for a mutual fund company managing taxable and government money market funds. Over my 16 years in Treasury, the companies I worked for were as different as companies can be. Different cultures, business lines, and financial strengths. The one thing they had in common was constant change. There was constant change in ownership, in strategic focus. So I was exposed to and

▶ 25:00 had to adapt to a lot of situations that many, many people don't get to experience in their career. This provided a lot of opportunity to take my role beyond that job description in a lot of occasions. The Treasury and investment worlds have their own languages, and I'm very familiar with them both. It's not on my resume because I let the certification lapse, but while I was working in Treasury management, I belonged to what was then called the Treasury Management Association of New England and I passed the examination to become what they had as a certified cash manager. The exam covered all aspects of Treasury operations and the study and the networking that resulted from belonging to the organization were very helpful in developing best practices,

▶ 25:49 policies, procedures, technology upgrades, etc. I visited the Mass Collectors and Treasurers Association website and was glad to see the same kind of available resources for your next incumbent. In my earlier career, I managed funds on the short end of the curve. Later, at another company that owned many institutional investment firms, I worked with investment experts across the spectrum of strategies. I understand that language and I can interpret it. I've read the city's investment policy statement and the Massachusetts general law sections that are referenced, and I'm really looking forward to meeting with the city's investment team to become acquainted with the structure of the portfolios, the types of reporting that you're getting, and the communications

▶ 26:36 that are in place. The S&P rating report on the city's general obligations bonds was a really great read for me. I was very pleased to see the AA plus rating and all the positives that are discussed in the rationale. The strong management, the strong financial policies and practices, the plans to retire the majority of the debt over the next 10 years. I believe it was 75%. My experience has been over businesses that have varying levels of financial strength, so I know how difficult and how expensive it can be from a borrowing perspective with a subpar credit rating. Melrose should be very proud of attaining and maintaining that AA credit, the AA plus credit. I've heard really good things about Hilltop Securities, and I understand that Peter Frazier

▶ 27:26 is a great resource to the department. It seems as though the city has excellent third-party providers with a large amount of institutional knowledge to tap into after having such long and strong relationships. I understand the importance of quality customer service, particularly with relevance to this position, from both a product knowledge and a personal presentation perspective. In some of my roles, the client was a subsidiary that relied on me to provide a prompt, professional, and accurate response, and now I do the same for individuals. I strive to provide the type of service I would expect if I were that client. This same courtesy applies to departmental and cross-functional work within an organization.

▶ 28:19 In the past, I worked extensively on cross-functional projects and committees. Each person at the table brings knowledge or experience, and no one person operates in a vacuum, so it's imperative to work respectfully and effectively across roles to achieve both our collective and our individual goals. I am a resident of Melrose, so as a resident, I have a vested interest in ensuring the department continues to function well and in identifying the areas where improvements to both operations and services can be made. This position intrigued me when I first came upon it. It just seemed like a really good fit with my background and my experience. And after meeting with Patrick and Marianne Long and the mayor, now I'm very confident of that.

▶ 29:12 Cory Thomas: And pending your approval of the nomination, I would be very, very excited to assume the position of Treasurer Collective. Thank you, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. I didn't see any hands go up. Did I miss anybody? Councilor Thomas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for being here and your beautiful introduction. Ms. Amata, I just wanted to say welcome. Your resume and experience is extensive and impressive. It's glad to have such qualified Ward 7 resident working for the City of Melrose, and I'd like to welcome you and I look forward to working with you. So, again, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? What is the will of the committee? Don't everyone jump at once? Motion to recommend for passage.

▶ 30:08 Christopher Cinella: Motion to recommend for passage made by President Grigoraitis, seconded by Councillor Garipay. Any on discussion? None, Madam clerk, please call the roll. Yes. Yes, counselor McMaster. Yes, or not. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Counselor Thomas yes. Yes, president Greg writers. Yes. Chairman Sinella? Yes. Eleven yes. Great, thank you Catherine and Mayor Broder. Thank you. Congratulations. Congratulations. I'll make you both back to attendees. All right, next order 2020-134, the acceptance of an emergency management performance grant with the amount of $6,500. Anybody coming before us this evening for that so i'm looking for um mr albert uh he received an invitation i don't see him in the attendee list right now you guys don't see him do you i do not

▶ 31:29 Paul Brodeur: i do not i don't know i just see um the auditor mr donald so um that is it Does the mayor want to speak to this if he's still available or. Let's see, let's see if he is still available. Coming in a good evening and thanks for the opportunity to speak again. This is a, this is. A small amount of grant money that can be devoted to. You know, a number of emergency management related items we did our best to kind of survey the landscape, recognizing that they are. fairly limited funds and chose to devote them um to to this purpose and we are a little bit um time limited on this in order to make sure that we uh fulfill the grant under the timelines and thus the orders before you this evening any questions for anybody i'll make a recommend

▶ 32:45 Christopher Cinella: i'll make the mic i'll make a motion to recommend second you should recommend made by councillor stewart seconded by council tramitosi adam clark please call the roll vice chair migliorelli yes counselor tramitosi yes counselor mcmaster yeah counselor mcnaught yeah counselor edwards yes yes counselor thomas Councilor Maladine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Shawn? Yes. Anybody on mute here? Next order 2020-135, a request City Council approval of a temporary consolidation of polling locations to the Elrose High School gymnasium for the upcoming election September and November of 2020. These changes are being made in an effort to support the health and safety of residents, voters, and election staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. I believe we have

▶ 33:56 the City Clerk to speak to this. Amy, are you here? I am. Can you hear me? Yes. okay i changed monitors so i'm double checking um all right so thank you all uh i'm here to ask that the city council approve our proposal to consolidate polling locations temporarily for the september and november elections uh related to covid19 concerns we have about multiple polling locations i think you all received my um detailed request this weekend and um but i'll kind of do a quick summary uh we have currently eight locations in the city of melrose uh there's in all of the elementary schools city hall um the bb school which is not really ours anymore it's leased by the scene collaborative and the steel house we are concerned for a number of

▶ 35:01 reasons for using locations some are more obvious than others the steel house and the vegan school both have a very vulnerable set of residents and constituents who use those facilities and we don't want to expose them to increased risk City Hall obviously has its own challenges because we have other members of the public in and out and we don't like to socially distance the line there and we don't have multiple entrances and exits actually same thing for some of the elementary schools and then in addition to that all of the elementary schools use their space that we use for polling for a number of things including cafeteria use to news and based on what we've seen from Jesse's most recent recommendations for the fall most likely they'll be used for overflow

▶ 35:51 teaching space and so obviously that will present some health and safety concerns as well if we use those because then we'll need to disinfect those rooms before school the next day obviously if we move to the middle school we would have to disinfect as well but that's a much easier space it's a single-use space the bleachers push in it can be disinfected very simply whereas the other ones have quite a few different supplies, like including library books, cafeteria supplies, and a number of things that would make that concerning. So that's part of the concern. The other concern is our staffing concerns for elections. I'm sure you've all seen a bunch of news reports about some of the primaries that took place last week and some primaries

▶ 36:42 that took place earlier during the epidemic and our average poll workers age 75 years old. So we've already had 50% of our poll workers choose not to work the polls in September. Most critically that's 10 wardens. So those are the kind of the managers of each precinct. So 10 out of 14 wardens have opted not to work. So we'll have a challenge staffing in general And when we do have new staff who've never worked polls before, if we are able to recruit more, the more control we can have by all being in the same place so that we can field questions and manage any changes to procedures based on health and safety concerns, the better it is for us. Those are kind of the main reasons. There's others, but I think I outlined some of those.

▶ 37:35 I think what we really is the most important thing to pay attention to is that because of the way the state legislation is kind of proposing things coming forward that hopefully will get signed very quickly. Election Day is one of three ways that all the residents of Melrose can vote. And we need to look at it kind of as a whole package. so we don't expect every registered voter in Melrose to actually go to the polls on Election Day. Based on the data we've seen so far, actually probably at most 30% of the registered voters will actually go to the polls on Election Day. In November, it's proposed that we would have two full weeks of early voting, including weekends, and in September it would be one full week.

▶ 38:21 Robb Stewart: and every registered voter in Melrose will receive an absentee ballot application that they can then fill out, send to our office, we'll mail them a ballot and they can mail it back to us. So it's no excuse absentee, anyone who wishes to take advantage of absentee voting will be able to this go around. Does anyone have specific questions or is there anything else that they'd like me to address. Councilor Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Camosa, for your well thought out information. I had a chance to read it over the weekend and that was quite helpful. My initial reaction, quite honestly, was I was hesitant to this for the reason that being in the Ward 3 Councilor, I have both the Fuller House and Levi Gould, which as I'm sure

▶ 39:12 Robb Stewart: you're familiar with there's well over 100 members that do vote on a consistent basis within those two communities and um and the bb school is a very convenient location for them it's a very short walk for them it's a social opportunity um so my my my biggest has a reservation to the whole plan was how to give these folks an opportunity to to effectively vote um and what i would encourage is two things one is to get clarity on what the uh the state rules about the mail-in voting is going to be and i believe they're going to have a call on that tomorrow at the state level uh the second is to your point about the um the the early the absentee balloting since there's a no excuse If we could have some way to communicate that to the folks as well as and I'm sure there's other facilities in and around the city that I may also take advantage of it. So that's my biggest concern. Otherwise, I think it's a, it's a good plan.

▶ 40:20 Robb Stewart: It looks like it's well thought out and it takes into consideration a lot of areas. So, with that, I would suggest that we may consider holding this in committee to know what's going on at the state level. But that'll be the rule of community. Thank you. Mr. chair. Councilor mcnaught Thank you. Mr. chair. And thank you for being here. I just wanted to ask and I know you answered some of this, but sometimes it helps us. Restate things because the public at home needs to hear them. You referred to 3 different ways of voting. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, it's a little spotty, but I got you. So there's 3 different ways to vote in this upcoming collection. and there's early voting review that a little bit again

▶ 41:10 so the three ways to vote are early voting uh absentee and or which is synonymous with mail-in voting which is more of the common term now um and then voting on election day so those are your three choices so two would involve voting and casting a ballot in the press after you've checked in and and gone to either the early voting location or going to the polling location on election day and then the absentee would be the state will send uh all registered voters an absentee ballot application um the resident would need to fill that out um and then drop it in the mail our office will receive it and then we'll mail back a ballot to that person's home and then they can cast their ballot that way they'll fill it out and then mail it back to us or we'll also

▶ 41:59 have a secure drop box so people can drop off the ballots um at city hall any day anytime day or night before the election and and the uh absentee ballots are i think they're called no excuse absentee belts which means you don't have to prove that you're going to be out of town correct okay so um anybody can get one massachusetts actually was one of the few states that still requires an excuse so we would just kind of be part of the the norm if we once we accept this i think we're one of only seven states that still require an excuse to allow for absentee voting okay and um just i think a lot of people are under the impression that if this uh this one time in november that we're moving to a new platform is that the case i'm sorry say that one more time are we moving to

▶ 42:50 Jen Grigoraitis: a a new platform where this is going to be done for every election cycle or just just due to the concerns with the pandemic this is um specifically a temporary change for september and november right um i think that's all i have thank you ms kosa president Grigoraitis thank you chairman samella and thank you ms kamosa for being here and i just want to commend you and the election staff for your thoughtful approach to this i know this is something you all have been talking about along with the board of registrars since march when the pandemic first struck and i was um i wanted to just provide the update i know counselor stewart through the chair mentioned this um what's happening at the state level and my understanding

▶ 43:38 Jen Grigoraitis: from today's events at the state house is that we anticipate the conference committee um releasing its final version of the bill and going for a vote in the house tomorrow and in the senate on wednesday um and i know you struggled with the timing of this order because while we want to wait for everything to be wrapped up on the state level we also want to give the residents of melrose as much of a lead time as possible about what's happening so i recognize the struggle in that um and i was wondering if you could just what is the role of the board of registrars in this process and what how have they weighed in on this as a plan for the city given the fact that they oversee elections so the board of registrars we've had two meetings in the last six weeks

▶ 44:22 but mostly to discuss this um decision um it's been a unanimous vote um to move forward with this plan uh we're probably all the most aware of how um much the need to control things by putting everyone in the same space is going to make a huge difference in these circumstances where most likely things will change on a daily basis leading up to the election so the more control we can have by being able to communicate to all poll workers at the same time and manage all the absentee and early voting ballots as we process them through the tabulators we understand the critical need for that so it's been a unanimous um decision from the get-go and it was more just the determining how best to execute uh what we would like to do um so the board's been really helpful

▶ 45:17 Shawn M. MacMaster: and um it's nice to have everyone who's collectively looking um to kind of accomplish the same thing. Thank you. Councilor McMaster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, Ms. Camosa. Thank you for your comprehensive memo. As good as it is, I still have some reservations about this, so I appreciate the opportunity to be here and to answer questions. Your memo projects significant absentee voting, and you cite data from other states, and it's recent data. if that's the case wouldn't that work against the argument for bringing voters to one centralized location because turnout in person at the various board locations will be significantly lower it just seems to me that we'd be assuming a greater risk of transmitting the virus if we're bringing more people to one

▶ 46:14 location I can see that logic um here's what I'll say the purpose of consolidating the polling locations isn't necessarily just to protect the voters because I think given the low numbers and the incredibly large space of the gymnasium it's 17,000 square feet and we're still separating everyone by ward and also by precinct so every precinct will have its own social distancing line and if you think like at the max you know worst case I'm thinking you know it's actually best case but you know from a maximum voter turnout perspective I was assuming 18,000 voters participating in this in November's election out of a registered voter total of just over 20,000 you know we're still only talking about 5,000 ish you know voters over the course of 13 hours so

▶ 47:09 they'll never be one time or another that will have 10,000 people in the space at any one time so but what we will have is we still have to have staff for creating that social distance line I'm sure you all have been to a grocery store or a Target during the height of the pandemic and you knew when there were limited number of shoppers allowed in a store someone needed to be at that front door saying no one else can come in at this time until someone else exits so we need that we need additional staff to run all the ballots through the machine that we have received from absentee or early voting if you think about it we if we do have say 13,000 ballots cast through earlier absentee we need to be able to feed those ballots through the tabulator at the same time a

▶ 48:01 polling location is open which means you know if the way I did the math it was like non-stop feeding of two hours per precincts tabulator of just feeding those ballots in so the only way we can really make that work is if we can distribute say Ward 5 happens to have a dip at 10 a.m. we can feed some of those ballots through and we can see all that because we'll all be in the same place but most importantly the the consolidated location will allow us to control for a very variable poll worker staffing system that we're just not sure or how it will exactly work yet. If you think about it, each precinct is kind of its own system. And then we have seven, we have 14 precincts, and then we have this system of systems.

▶ 48:49 And at any one time that stuff can break down. So the more we can be there to observe the whole thing in real time, when we have 10 new wardens and five new clerks, which are the two kind of managers of the election, the better. So that's kind of why it's like a combination multiple challenges all at once we're gonna have you know we have requirements to have police get guarding ballot boxes if we're all in the same place a police officer could say guard three or four ballot boxes because they have line of sight on all of those and then we could use the subsequent police officers to do that crowds control that we need if we have eight distributed polling locations we would have to double the number of police officers so

▶ 49:36 that we could also have someone doing the crowd control while someone is staying and guarding the ballot and then I think the final piece of it is I think there's certain polling locations that regardless of how many people are entering it's still not the best for us to protect the residents and users of those spaces for example the steel house and the BB so we would have to move a A number of polling locations, regardless of the number of people who are potentially going to vote in those. Think all the elementary schools have just such multiple uses for those spaces. I personally don't feel comfortable putting. A lot of people in there, we would still have to disinfect them and I don't know how many times how much each of you is spent in some of those all purpose rooms. But my.

▶ 50:23 My experience is mostly at the Hoover, you know, that all purpose room is the cafeteria. So there's like the milk refrigerator. There's the table that distributes the food. There's the kitchen. There's a whole reading. Guided reading library on the stage, like, it's there's tables, there's volleyball nets all within this space and all that stuff would have to be cleaned. Before school starts the next day, so it's anyway, it's not 1 thing and I understand from just. that perspective I can understand why it doesn't make perfect sense Council McMaster but I think we also just need to you know we were looking at all the trade-offs of all the different options and we just think that the combination

▶ 51:04 Shawn M. MacMaster: of challenges tips the scales to the single use in the single location and are there any legal requirements that would prohibit us from using high school students or college students any age requirements I'm just wondering if you know with high school students perhaps you know being able to if they're able to do this legally of getting community service hours or college students who aren't going away to school they're going to be learning remotely and might see it as an opportunity to make whatever is it a hundred and twenty dollars a day is that what it is mr. Mosa oh it'll be 150 there's an opportunity we also the unemployment rate in Melrose is twelve and a half percent right now I expect that to improve but there I think there might be

▶ 51:49 be a pool of people beyond the typical seniors and I'm just wondering what opportunities might exist there if any. So the high school student piece is a little bit we can use a certain number of high school students and but only a limited number we definitely are aware and considering the use of some college students both or recent college graduates because I know there's quite a few recent college grads who also would be happy to have the work experience and I've looked into it most likely will use them actually early like before the election just to help us with the managing of the early and absentee voting ballots so yes I think we can definitely pull from a different pool of residents to to help out with some of our poll worker

▶ 52:44 Shawn M. MacMaster: challenges. I don't think that negates our concern that having such a large percentage of brand new poll workers will be challenging if we're in distributed locations throughout the city though. Thank you for that. In my ward, as you know, Ms. Camosa is the most diverse in Melrose. 24 languages are spoken in the homes of students who attend the Lincoln School. I'm wondering what are the plans if any for educating our immigrant families in terms of you know the potential change here if that change does happen what might that look like in terms of outreach to those families and language access you know so that they fully understand what's happening why and where they would need to go so that's actually thank you because that's really the most urgent reason why this

▶ 53:37 order came before you now and not, I think the latest this state would allow for just 20 days before the election to make the change is that we want every opportunity to be able to communicate to all residents. So that will be a combination of a variety of approaches that would be postcards to every resident of Melrose. And that can be, you know, depending how we determine it we could look into doing that in a variety of languages um it would be the everbridge reverse 911 system to call all households um uh the mayor would work with us to do his videos with mmtv related to this um and then it's you know social media posts and it'll be a comprehensive communications plan my intention is to have a regular i actually

▶ 54:31 actually, despite my dislike of the platform, I think Twitter is a great opportunity for this because we can give daily updates for where we are with early voting, like when it looks like there might be a lull, if you're really concerned about health and safety, but you do want to cast that ballot in person, that might be the best way for you to know when is the best time to go and early vote, that kind of stuff. So I think it'll be a combination of you know multi-channel we'll do the actual print newspaper as well and I'm happy to hear suggestions from the council for other ways to make sure that we reach all residents but that is the reason for the urgency so that we have as much time as possible to make sure we do reach everyone okay and

▶ 55:17 Shawn M. MacMaster: I have some other questions I'll just ask one more than I'll defer to my colleagues for to ask questions it relates to the health piece and what role if any has the Board of Health played and neither consulting on this or might the board play prospectively in terms of I guess what first offering an opinion on this and to consulting in terms of their expertise to ensure that whatever practices are taken regardless of what direction we go and you know meet their satisfaction as it relates to cleaning and sanitizing both before and after the voting so I have talked to the health director about this several times and she is in full support of the consolidation she has some suggestions in terms of how best to manage the social distancing you know that her

▶ 56:16 Mark Garipay: recommendation for example is to make sure that we do have social distancing lines per ward or per precinct and to have radios to make sure we can communicate to everyone to say when, you know, a certain line is kind of hit maximum and someone needs to wait outside, that kind of stuff. She has a lot of logistical suggestions for that, and we will definitely utilize those. But yes, she's in support of the consolidation. Thank you, Ms. Camosa. Thank you, Mr. Channon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Camoso, for being here. Thank you for all the information over the weekend. I'll be honest, I'm struggling with the idea of consolidating the polling locations into one. Over the last three and a half months, we've been told continually

▶ 57:08 Mark Garipay: by the governor to practice social distancing and avoid large gatherings. We're being asked vote to do just the opposite on that. The proposal that you had given us earlier says, you know, there are two critical elections that are scheduled during a predicted increase in infection rates. So, you know, I understand there's the safety of the workers and also, you know, I look at the safety of the residents. We're bringing everyone into one location. I know it's a bigger facility um i do have some i'm concerned about uh how would we handle peak voting times um before and after work i'm concerned uh about the social distancing long lines that could occur disc discourage uh actual voters um from voting individuals from voting if

▶ 58:02 Mark Garipay: they came um i understand that the gymnasium um i've been in there quite a bit but if it does back up where that hallway is not a big hallway um and i'm concerned with um with with the pandemic that we're we're bringing our whole community and i understand that there's going to be um there's three ways three ways for voting and we we do have a prediction that the the um the in-person voting will be down compared to what it has been in the past um but we really don't know what that number is going to be so i do um i do have a lot of of reservations on on bringing everyone to to one location but just a couple items you've mentioned that 50% of the workers have already expressed some concern about coming back knowing that have we have we already started the

▶ 58:57 process to find new workers where the primary is eight weeks away so we have once we have a better sense of what our options are I will do a heavier recruit part of that is if we're in a single location then we actually for once can open up the option for split shifts or like multiple shifts throughout the day most town clerks that I speak with who have a single polling location which is quite a few Wakefield Stoneham Linfield they have multiple shifts of whole workers, like up to three separate shifts throughout the 13-hour day. I think it will be a much easier ask for a younger population who may have small children at home to give a third of their day to poll worker activities rather than the

▶ 59:52 full, what ends up being a 15-hour day. But when you have a bunch of brand-new wardens in the separate locations, they have their own job to do. That's very complicated and time-consuming so it's really difficult for them to manage that kind of shift change but if we're all in one place it's easier for us and to address your concern about the space again it's 17,000 square feet with pathways for multiple entrances and exits depending on what ward you're in it still gives about a thousand square feet just for voting space per precinct Um, and we'll have data before election day in November about how many people have already exercised early voting or absentee voting. If we determine not as many people as we planned for, we'll, we'll be actually exercise that.

▶ 1:00:47 Mark Garipay: And we think the turnout on election day will be higher than anticipated. We have the mark who Jim next door to the middle school gym that we can expand into, and that would provide us additional spacing and additional entrance so that we can even spread out the voters even more. One other question, if this plan was to move forward, what would be the plan for individuals who go to their old polling locations and find it to be locked? So we will have the large, as much as possible, we will have large, the signage that the DPW to kind of direct people but we'll definitely have signage on all the doors of the existing polling locations to direct people where they need to go and I know some of the surrounding communities have have one consolidated

▶ 1:01:48 Cory Thomas: voting location but it's a little bit different changing moving to that in the middle of a a pandemic where we're worried about potential infections and yeah so I do have some concerns on this so I'll uh I'll uh concede my time to some of the other councils thank you mr. chairman madam clerk thank you for being here a lot of my concerns have already been asked I do have some of my own as well just coming out of the budget season and we are in appropriations how is this gonna be funded and how is this gonna be different you know what are the costs surrounding a typical election at the 14 polling places and and and will that amount be more or less than this one polling location I think we have to

▶ 1:02:46 look at it slightly differently because I think what a typical election would cost is probably not what's gonna cost this year um regardless of where we choose polling locations the average state or federal election cost us about $30,000 for this particular situation given the additional supplies we will need it's definitely going to be more but it may be counterintuitive it's actually going to be less costly to do the consolidated location by quite a bit in terms of labor cost of I think I already mentioned the police details if If we go to 8 locations, we will need to double our police costs because we'll need 1 for a crowd control and 1 to get out the ballot box. And then if we move to the single location, we could keep that cost steady state, the disinfecting cost of using DPW staff overnight. I actually don't have a quote on that, but it would be.

▶ 1:03:45 obviously significant if at all possible if even possible to do the disinfection of eight different locations so there's that and then just the additional staffing to kind of again manage crowds make sure social distancing is contained and organized and keep to keep people moving through and to facilitate the entire set of activities we plan I think we'll have if we have eight different locations we would need eight additional staff just to facilitate that with the police officer if not double whereas I think we can cut to about half of those numbers if we're in one location because we can monitor one you know shoot one kind of path of per precinct you know we can manage maybe three at once as one crowd control

▶ 1:04:43 and is this already in your fiscal year 2021 budget or you know would you be looking for additional money to fund um so for the fiscal 21 budget we just budgeted a standard election because at the time of preparing those budgets even though we knew it would be more it was none of the legislation was clear and it would be too hard to kind of predict um some of that extra cost can be we can use COVID-19 funding to cover some of the costs and then typically we cover the rest through a free cash allocation if there's a balance left but obviously we're still I mean we want to make sure that the election regardless of cost is you know handled freely and fairly and everyone has the ability to vote as they choose but obviously we always

▶ 1:05:30 Cory Thomas: Keep an eye on the budget so that, you know, that's why it will help to be all in 1 location to keep those costs reasonable as much as possible. Sure, I used to hold signs for Alderman Bill Forbes, Alderman and City Councilor Scott Forbes up at Hoover. So I see a lot of people that are coming in and out of the Hoover School polling place in Ward 7. A lot of the people that are going up there are the most vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our senior citizens, people over 65 years old, a number of them walk to Hoover. How are we going to handle transportation if they cannot walk to the middle school or the high school complex? So I've talked to Stacey Montello, the Director of the Council on Aging, and the Council on Aging is already kind of on it. They're actually

▶ 1:06:22 quite supportive of the consolidation because what they run into when they provide rides to the polls is they need to kind of coordinate what polling position a resident needs to go to and they need to build that into the schedule. If they have it so every senior is going to the middle school, that's much easier for them to actually offer more frequent rides throughout the day because it's a single you know and as you know there's a nice loop to kind of drop residents off right at a curb cut it's level for them to get in unassisted and uh it so that's i think will be um a reasonable solution for residents do we know how many rides on average per election the council on aging are currently giving to a neighborhood polling place

▶ 1:07:14 Cory Thomas: I do not. Not off the top of my head. I'm not sure if we have that data. That number would surely seem to be on the rise if we're going to one centralized location. Right now, say they're giving X amount of rides to the individual neighborhood polling areas. You can only assume that that's going to increase multiple fold if you're going to one location. Ward 7 is one of the furthest locations from the high school complex in the middle school. you know so you know people that don't drive you know are going to be reliant on these rides with council on aging i know a number of candidates um in a local election might offer rides but this is these are going to be um you know congressional um elections and national

▶ 1:07:58 Cory Thomas: elections you know i don't know if we can count on on those level of people giving rides in the community so we really will be relying on the council on aging um how many how many vehicles do the council and agent have uh two two and those those um you know the the school bus the smaller school bus sizes yes okay um you you did mention earlier about the communication uh that will go well uh i assume you know it'll it'll be you know reverse 911 like you said um mayor broder is doing a great job with communication uh to the general public with the broadcast he's doing. Again, a lot of these people are over 65. They might not all have computers or access to computers. I'd really be concerned about getting that message out

▶ 1:08:46 Cory Thomas: to people as early and often as possible. Maybe reverting to the Melrose Helps call line to call these people directly at their homes and letting them know what these changes might be. That could be another way of communication. September might not be concerned with weather, but November, May. If there are long lines, like Council Gareth, they said before work and after work hours, have they been in consideration, you know, if the line goes out into the rear parking lot during climate weather, you know, is that a concern that you guys are ready to deal with as well? Yes. So we've talked about that. Again, you have the Marcoux gym next door. So for example, if we decide that we still have the right number of voters who will most

▶ 1:09:33 likely turn out at the polls, we can keep the voting in the middle school gym, but we could open up the side door to the Marcoux so the line goes through the Marcoux, for example. If it looks like a severe inclement weather situation, both of those elections are on a day that school is closed. It wouldn't be ideal, but again, if we're talking like a hurricane in September or something, we can also set it up so that you maybe enter through a different door. We can kind of flip it around and enter through the front middle school door. You can line up down that long ramp that has a portico, and then you have the entire central lobby of the middle school to wait in line if it came to that. I think that's a very worst case scenario because I'd prefer not to do that, but it does, the school does provide us with a number of options if we need to use them.

▶ 1:10:33 Cory Thomas: But the more options open us to more areas of potential contamination, more areas to clean, more hours for DPW overtime. Correct, but not as much as eight different locations would, so we still have the options. Sure, no, I understand that, you know, I'm very familiar with all of our elementary schools in the polling places. There are a great amount of people, students in the middle school in the high school complex. Hopefully some sports will be back into. Activity when we're back in school during these elections times, you know, we'll have girls volleyball going on in the gymnasium, the middle school gym, gym classes for the middle school in the high school. So there are concerns all over.

▶ 1:11:16 Cory Thomas: Um, I was doing, you know, do some homework today. The CDC has a page that's dedicated to this. It was an article called communities, schools, workplaces and events. And it talks specifically about a variety of voting options, including those that reduce the number of voters who congregate imports at polling locations and how to keep whole workers safe. So, you know, maybe it's on, you know, from your office and take a look at that, you know, the CDC community schools, workplaces and events. That might be a source of information to help people work or save. We have a, we have to gavel in city council and we do have a few more people in the queue. I really appreciate appreciate you guys being so proactive on this and, you know, humoring a lot of these questions for me.

▶ 1:12:12 It's going to be a tough decision, but at least we are looking at it proactively, so thank you very much. Thank you. President Rodriguez, did you want to gavel in now? We do have a couple more people in queue on this, but we can recess and come back if it's easier. I mean, we have to gavel in within the next two minutes, so I don't want to cut anyone off while they're speaking. So I would recommend we do that, do public comment, and then we can recess out of the full council and come back to this. I don't know who else is in queue though. So motion to recess. Motion to recess made by Councillor Stewart, seconded by Councillor McNaught. Vice Chair Migliorelli. Yes. Councillor Tramontozzi. Yes. Councillor McMaster. Yes.

▶ 1:13:02 Councillor McNaught. Yes. Councillor Eccles. Yes. Councillor Garipay. Yes. Councillor Stewart. yes counselor Thomas yes counselor Jamala Dean yes president Grigoraitis yes chairman Sonnella yes 11 yes recess could you just repeat who did that recess counselor Sonnella it was counselor Stewart and second thank you thanks we are recess president Grigoraitis thank you counselor Sonnella and you know who's in queue for you when we come back to all right your show excellent um just let me know when you're ready to go I know you're wearing a lot of hats tonight if I can unmute um I'm fine all right good evening it is 8 14 p.m. on Monday June 29th 2020 the Melrose City Council is called to order I am

▶ 1:18:42 The state doesn't actually have specific guidelines to that end. So, you know, again, that's why her recommendation is for us, you know, and we'll get once we get closer that those guidelines might change, But it would will will limit it based on a number of socially distance spots that someone can stand in per precinct at a time to make sure. So, I think it's more of a distance. Between each person, depending on how the ultimate layout of the space works out. So, anyway, I know it's not like a great answer, but I have talked to the health director about that. um and actually she sent me an email tonight uh saying that the state doesn't she had asked the state specifically if there were guidelines she wasn't aware of and um the answer

▶ 1:19:38 is no so um but we will work on that more i think that again it's seven thousand 17 000 square feet it's when we have it mapped out to have several entrances and exits so no one yes we don't have a lot of crossing the people in multiple in opposite directions there's probably only one spot where that would be the case so even with multiple lanes for people to walk without being next to someone else the poem the voting locate space itself for each precinct is a thousand square feet and that's a very long linear line uh so uh we could definitely field hundreds of people in the space and still maintain very satisfactory social distancing um and i understand that as to counselor Garipay's point there are peak voting times but um you know on average

▶ 1:20:36 it's it's not going to be more you know if we look at it the max possible use case over 13 hours i think i did the math it's like only less than 500 you know it's only about 420 people per hour and that wouldn't all come at the same time either right like you have people usually vote you know the whole process is about 10 minutes so if we spread that out it's never going to be a significant uh the excessive number um uh if for whatever reason we hit a point where that is the case you know again we can extend the line through the Marku gym or if it's nice out we'll have canopies covering the sidewalk where people can line up outside if it if the day allows for that because I know I personally I'm much happier waiting outside if the weather

▶ 1:21:26 Maya Jamaleddine: allows for it then waiting inside right now so I think it'll be a combination of things but But bottom line, there is no specific occupancy guidelines for this use case regarding COVID. Oh, okay. So when, you know, I'm not focusing, obviously everyone is important to make sure that everyone is safe during this time, however, I'm focusing more on the most vulnerable population that already hesitant to go and vote and when they we're gonna um first tell them that we're changing the setting um second that it's gonna be consolidated and everyone's gonna be in one room uh many of um uh our seniors even if it's not gonna even if we're gonna tell them tell them that it's seven seventeen thousand square feet um we're you know we know for sure that they're

▶ 1:22:29 Maya Jamaleddine: not going to look at the how big is the room as much as we're all in one room. How can we put a plan to assure them that it is safe and it's very well planned in a way? Do we have a set plan that we can share with our constituents? Do we know if we're going to take some kind of recess in between around the clock to make sure that we're doing a thorough cleaning? How are we sharing the pen? No, so yeah, so there's a lot of factors. I didn't. Yes. So, one, I didn't want to, I don't want to, I didn't want to give it specific details yet about what we think the plan will be just in case we do have to modify it based on the number of voters. But our intention to date is we'd actually have the gym divider deployed so that it's a

▶ 1:23:31 one it's not one large room it's actually two the smaller side of the gym would be three wards and the larger side of the gym would be four wards just again to keep it that was it that's partly for just noise considerations and then also it just gives us a little bit more separation so there's that no they'll be disinfecting throughout the entire day we we won't be using our regular poll booths that we use those are too close together we're going to be renting small bar height tables so that those can be spaced each voting location can be spaced out within the precinct section and then those will be disinfected between uses and the pens we that's another back to counsel Thomas's questions that's a little bit more of a there's a slight price concern the pens

▶ 1:24:27 we usually use are about $25 a box and they only come 12 to a box so obviously we can't provide those pens for everyone to use that would be kind of an astronomical cost for something that isn't absolutely necessary but we can by ballpoint pens that we think we will use. We want to make sure we test their functionality in the tabulator just to make sure that they work just as well. So, best case we would have pens for every voter. If we can't make that work again based on the number of voter turnout, we'll plan for that. If we don't do that, we will have a set of pens that can be used and then they'll get disinfected between uses one one of the ideas that i you know we did in in a different setup and for different reason we have two buckets one uh clean pens and one um

▶ 1:25:24 Maya Jamaleddine: dirty pens so every time a voter would use a pen they would put it they would take it from clean buckets and put it in them right so you have a bucket that you deposit your pen in when you deposit your ballot and then those would get disinfected before they get brought to the front again to be used again. One other concern that I would have is you mentioned first about transportation that Council on Aging will be transporting and it would be much easier to accommodate our you know seniors rather than going to different pools however we know that with two buses we won't be able to take the same number in each trip because of the socially distancing and because of that you know transition of the virus so how

▶ 1:26:19 are we managing that as well so I think one I think we should also just to remind you know to bring a reframe it again day of elections is just one way to vote Joanne preparing our admin elections administrator has relationships and reaches out to the directors of all the senior housing in the city for every election to get absentee ballots for the residents and we will continue that outreach and actually being even more aggressive with that outreach the Council on Aging is also, and again, back to the Meadows Helps piece, like there are alternative ways to make sure that we actually get the vulnerable population to choose some of the other voting options rather than election day voting. Again, early voting, a lot of

▶ 1:27:13 Maya Jamaleddine: times some of you can also get transportation throughout those 14 days and the residents throughout the city can use that option as well. So I think it's a combination of we'll utilize the Council on Engine Vans as much as possible, but we'll also try to direct some of the most vulnerable residents to keep the other options in the top of their minds so that we keep them as safe as possible. How about the individuals that they, you know, that they go to these polls and they found that they, you know, they didn't, they weren't aware of the consolidation and they went to their regular votes location and they found it locked, but their first language is not English and they don't know how to read these signs.

▶ 1:28:13 So we can, you know, again, we, once we can, I'm happy to hear from the council what they, what alternative languages they most often experience residents using. I have my, you know, our official census data is nearly a decade old. So while I have that data, I think there's probably some more common languages now that weren't there then. I also know what the school recommends and I would use those languages when the school uses translation options. We would communicate the same information that the school does in terms of translation documents and we'll of course also have all this information front and center on our website which is the entire website is Google Translate compatible so every piece of language even

▶ 1:29:06 Maya Jamaleddine: the buttons and the menus all translate to I think over 60 languages so there's there's definitely multiple options so and if we really have an issue whether you know we'll also leave a phone number at those on those signs and if we do need help with translation at that moment we do have a translation service with the city through UMass Amherst that we view that the health department uses quite often to do real-time translation if necessary okay um is the city and considering any kind of transportation for those who are unable to they're not you know from a senior population but they are unable to go to that you know to the high school because of the it's it's not as convenient as the regular

▶ 1:30:01 polling location are you looking instead of the council on aging bus do you mean I guess I'm not clear yes yeah the city has not identified an additional transportation service the League of Women Voters also often offers a transportation so there's there's multiple opportunities and again we can also specifically plan for Council on Aging Transportation for a variety of early voting days as well to make sure that we can capture everyone who needs a ride. We can give them an opportunity to vote in person even if the schedule on election day doesn't work for those particular residents. Awesome. I just have one last question and then I'll pass it to my other fellow councillors um you you mentioned all the good stuff about this uh new plan in your opinion

▶ 1:31:03 and your experience what is the one downside that you see it in this plan the one downside it is like exactly as you've all said um i mean we're very aware of the fact that we're not only asking um residents to make a change um and we're aware that for some people this is a dramatic shift from when they can from their traditional voting opportunities where they can walk down the road to their polling location and it was a serious consideration again it's just there's a series of trade-offs that we need to make and when we think about what our priorities ultimately are it's to make sure that we keep the voting safe, accessible, fair, accurate, and that's, you know, we need this controlled environment we can to guarantee that, particularly because we know

▶ 1:32:03 so many things will be changing on a regular basis between now and those election days. The downside is definitely we're asking people to make a significant change in their voting habits, So, I hope that we can work through the small – those challenges are still kind of identifiable and clear, so we can work to solve those particular challenges when it comes to transportation and outreach. What we can't do quite so easily is adjust on the fly at eight different polling locations with limited staff. That's going to be a much harder challenge to solve. i think when we decided what was the best course of action that was kind of how we just came to this conclusion thank you so much counselor um thank you mr chair and um thank you miss camosa

▶ 1:33:04 John N. Tramontozzi: for your hard work and putting this alternative plan together uh and uh thank you to the committee the registrars themselves as well. Like some of my colleagues, I am also torn with this proposal. I have some concerns about it as well, similar to some of the concerns that already have been addressed. In terms of poll workers, I don't think there's going to be a problem with getting co-poll workers with the younger community, and the increase in spending costs, which will be recovered as a legitimate expense from the CARES Act, the money that the city has received from the federal government for the COVID pandemic. I think the funds are going to be available to manage the election at the original polling

▶ 1:34:02 John N. Tramontozzi: places. My other concern as well is that I too believe that there's a greater risk of transmission of the virus when there's a larger number of people gathering together and you're going to experience that at the middle school. I do have a concern, I respectfully disagree, you mentioned about the steel house and the seniors there. In my view, in my opinion and discussions with some seniors, they would prefer to stay at the steel house. You see, they need to do is you take the elevator from their rooms from the upper floors come down to the lobby area cast their vote and they go back upstairs to their rooms and I think that is a less troubled a process than to leave the steel house and somehow get to the middle school and congregate with a

▶ 1:35:00 John N. Tramontozzi: bunch of other people and in the risk of greater from my from what I believe in their perspective at the at the middle school the other downside I see that this is the I believe that you'll have longer lines there is some experience from other states and I know granted we're not a we're not Kentucky or Georgia or Nevada but those states have had some experience with the single voting places recently and in Louisville Kentucky for example there were significant long lines, making it more difficult to vote. In Georgia, for example, they had a primary on June 9th and voters had to wait many extra hours in line to cast their votes. Nevada, they had to keep polls open for eight hours beyond the normal closing time. Richland County,

▶ 1:35:58 John N. Tramontozzi: South Carolina, the voters were still in line more than five hours after polls were closed. Philadelphia also experiencing lines. I know every state is different, counties are different, municipalities are different, but I can foresee a situation occurring that we're going to have along lines with the greater number of people congregating in one location. On the other hand, I see your proposal. Again, I'm torn, but in balancing the risks against the benefits, I'm leaning towards not going along with this change. I don't like change, and I think for the most part, we can maintain the voting polls, the number of voting polls we have, and to the benefit of all the citizens of the community. So, at this point, I'm leaning against agreeing with it, but I'm certainly willing to keep an open mind and listen to my other colleagues, what they have to say.

▶ 1:37:16 John N. Tramontozzi: And I appreciate the comments already delivered by my fellow colleagues on the council. So, I don't have any specific questions. I think you did a great job, Ms. Comosa, in putting forth the proposal. I just don't know. just have some concerns and um and i you know express it here my fellow counselors uh thank you mr chairman i appreciate it again thank you ms commoser as well counselor eckles thank you mr chairman and thanks so much miss kosa for being here um i think that one thing that's that's uh very important about this is that we do it early um when we look when we start talking about holding it in committee and pushing it out um we're looking at maybe passing it it through the full council on July 20th, which is a bit over a month before the September 1st

▶ 1:38:06 primary, which is very concerning for me. I have a few questions aside from that. Can you kind of talk about the early vote process so far and what you're thinking? I know that nothing's completely set in stone, but for each election, how it's going to be based on what you know now? Sure. So early voting, right now, we are working with the plan that we will have early voting in Memorial Hall. I know in the past we've done early voting at City Hall. Again, for the same concerns I expressed for Election Day, there's no really ideal way to socially distance a line at City Hall without blocking all the offices. There would have to be a lot of cross crossing paths of different people and there's only one entrance and

▶ 1:38:55 exit to the City Council Chamber so people would have to walk in and out at the same time we also anticipate a larger number of residents who may want to early votes we want to give them as much space as possible to spread out so again we would we are working with the plan of putting it at Memorial Hall so Right now, state legislation that should get signed tomorrow will have seven days of early voting in September, including one weekend day, and then 14 days, including Saturdays and Sundays before the November election. So, if we picture it, it's actually eight days of voting total, including election day in September and 15 days of voting, including election day in November. So, and the only difference from a resident's perspective, if you early vote versus vote

▶ 1:39:51 at the polls is you put your ballot in a sealed envelope that you then sign and the Board of Registrars and the elections staff don't open that and they don't pull your ballot out until election day and feed the ballot in to the machine on your behalf, but it's always linked back to your name it's um we've done this now for multiple elections so we have a pretty solid system in place and uh um it's definitely a great opportunity for residents to take advantage of you know their mic you know to use their schedule um to vote and find the time you know maybe they're down at shaw's shopping and they just want to go in and vote um we'll be open and ready for them and then um so so then we also have vote by mail right so we're looking at kind of two ways to

▶ 1:40:43 Jack Eccles: access the ballot aside from in person correct we don't totally have all the details but you can stop me if i'm wrong it's it's paid postage for the application probably not paid postage for the return of the ballot but this is that goes up for debate still yes okay awesome and then i guess i I kind of would like to dig into the space requirements, because we've been talking about that a little bit more. A thousand square feet per precinct is probably more than you're going to get in anywhere. I know personally, I voted for one with down in City Hall in the city council chamber. And I know that I could never, I don't think that the city council chamber is a hundred by a hundred, but I could be wrong.

▶ 1:41:27 Yeah, I think it's hard to envision it unless you're there, but it's definitely a very comfortable amount of space. And we can, there again, these very kind of long channels. So we can definitely line up multiple voters, very socially distanced before they even go to check in. And then we will spread out multiple tables for everyone, you know, to kind of vote. When you would normally go to a booth, you'll go to one of maybe five tables. so we can keep the line moving as rapidly as possible so that we don't have that congregation that is an obvious concern. And we realize that there may still be some times that you might queue up in line, but my personal experience is that the most, I think if you all think back to your voting experience

▶ 1:42:28 here in Melrose correct me if I'm wrong I have not seen many times when the line is you know 30 people deep in one ward or precinct it's usually you know maybe three or four so and again if we're reducing the total number of people voting on Election Day you know again say say we have five I can get my calculator to work we have 5,000 voters in the building throughout the day over 13 hours that's 384 voters per hour but again at most if we assume 10 minutes per voter you know at any I understand it's not consistent it's not gonna be that steady but if you think about it that way it's about 65 voters at any one time in 17,000 square feet of space. So, it sounds like you're congregating a bunch of

▶ 1:43:29 Jack Eccles: people. Again, we'll have the divider up, so it's actually two large spaces, and I think we can spread people out quite a bit. We'll have multiple exits so that very few people are exiting the same way they come in. Thanks. And this might not be a question that you know the answer to just yet, but But I know that a lot of get-out-the-vote efforts or voter projects will basically link you with your polling place. You'll give your address. Do you know if – on the – most of them pull from the Secretary of State's website. Do you know if your official polling place will be updated so that it's the Memorial Middle School? Yes, I believe that's part of the expectation. And again, this is one entire section of the pending legislation to allow for this consolidation.

▶ 1:44:23 Jack Eccles: So it's kind of a high expectation that this will be the case, that we will have many municipalities adjusting their polling locations. And then just one last question on kind of poll worker recruitment in your, because there's been a little discussion of, you know, between now and then, could we get the poll workers that we need. As a young person, I'm a little skeptical. I think that young people are sometimes the most least reliable voters, so I don't know if they're going to come work. So, you know, that's something that I scratch my head about quite often. So, I think I would kind of talk to you about what your history of recruiting poll workers has been, and do you see it realistic that

▶ 1:45:07 you could get the staff you need to do eight polling places between now and September 1st? Um, thank you. No, I don't actually think that we'll have that success as the counselors have been here for a while. No, we put a call out. We've published press releases. We put it in the newspaper. I've done personal asks of friends. We've never gotten honestly more than 5 full workers through those recruitment efforts and most often of the ones we get, I think we'll, you know, we'll have. Um, a couple of amazing shining stars that we're so grateful for. Um, but often, um, we don't, um, people still work and, you know, people have children and we're asking them to work a 15 hour day for a hundred fifty dollars.

▶ 1:45:58 So, and I think it's, you know, again, it might be a more reasonable ask to get people to come for part of a day, particularly if they have a family, or they have work obligations. There might be a little bit higher likelihood of recruiting people this year for part day because with so many residents still working from home, they may have a little bit more flexibility than they've had in the past. um but again it's even if we can recruit the poll workers that means we're sending brand new poll workers who have never done this before into separate locations throughout the city with most likely a brand new warden and often a brand new clerk so the wardens are the ones who kind of manage each precinct they know the voter rules even the obscure ones they know what

▶ 1:46:49 to do if someone challenges a vote what to do if someone isn't on the voter rolls um all of those things they know what to do if the ballot machine jams um again we have only four returning wardens out of 14 precincts and only half um you know we have five and we have nine returning clerks the clerks are kind of below the warden often their job is to just document anything that happens like if someone was you know had to devote provisional or if you had to reset the machine which you shouldn't do but anything like that they just log it um so again without that kind of leadership in these decentralized locations uh it would be really hard even if we do have reliable poll workers to execute such a challenging election with brand new people

▶ 1:47:42 Jack Eccles: and again just i think i put it in my report uh keep in mind i know it sounds simplistic but um a lot of the elementary schools were designed as bomb shelters during the cold war um i don't know if any of you have spent time in any of those all-purpose rooms but unless you have um the guest wi-fi they're very hard to reach people with um cell phones so even that will be an additional challenge if we have um you know three-quarters brand new staff um at those locations thank you um i think at this point uh i'm a person who's very concerned about voting rights um but i think that i think that this generally makes the most sense um going forward especially with i think the poll worker shortage is the biggest kind of poll here i would not feel

▶ 1:48:30 Jack Eccles: comfortable as i know that some poor voting experiences can some be is dealing with an inexperienced poll worker i would not feel comfortable having if we were to find this new workforce of poll workers distributed around the city without for example you Mr. Perrion or any of the registrars there to intervene. That concerns me. It concerns me that various precincts have worse social distancing precautions. Specifically, the City Council Chamber is a lot smaller. So thank you so much, Ms. Camosa, and I plan on supporting this order as is. Thank you. Vice Chair Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Camosa, for being here tonight um i guess the downside is that most of my questions got answered but i had thought of

▶ 1:49:16 Leila Migliorelli: other questions as others were talking so um i think this is a i i will admit at first when i heard about consolidation i was extremely concerned about public um public health um as someone who wears a mask when i go out and you know regularly practices social distancing the thought of um combining a lot of people in one location was sort of you know terrifying but i think there's as you mentioned there's three ways to vote now so i think that part of my question which you sort of answered but i would encourage to i think really come up with a thoughtful plan on how to communicate um early voting and um hopefully mail-in voting especially to people who are not on social media i think that's that's a huge challenge it's a huge

▶ 1:49:58 Leila Migliorelli: challenge now um you know if we are to go back into more um more quarantine style living you know that that we have been in um how do we get into those senior housing how do we let people know um i think that's going to be the biggest challenge but i think it's the biggest opportunity i mean we're thinking you know people are talking about long lines but if we're able to mitigate that through voting by mail early voting um i think that's our our best bet kind of overcoming that challenge um do you have a sense i you know we brought up cost do you have a sense of what it would cost if you had eight polling locations um for dpw to be cleaning i'm assuming it would be dpw cleaning all locations beforehand and afterwards and and maybe i don't know if it's

▶ 1:50:43 just a percentage or something like that what it would be for eight locations versus this one location um i don't want to give you a really a specific number um because i think i i haven't consulted um specifically with a quote um with dpw on this but i will tell you that um our bill for dpw for their work on an average election is anywhere from five thousand to seven thousand dollars um that just and that just is set up and take down of the um the polling booths and tabulators and um so i think if we can assume that given the just kind of the general clutter of those all-purpose rooms um what i you know in passing the conversation with some of the dpw staff was you know that would basically take the rest of the night to do

▶ 1:51:39 Leila Migliorelli: so if we think about that it would be thousands and thousands of dollars okay um and then i thought I thought it was a great point as you mentioned that with the state guidelines on education, whether those all purpose rooms at 3 of the schools that do have those multiple functions, whether they might need to be put into use for social distancing for students. I think that was a, that was a great point that I know I hadn't thought of until reading your presentation. So, thank you. I wonder if, you know, perhaps if the council's hesitant on moving forward. If have you come up with any type of map or schematic of what it would look like in in the gym, you know, to do this, you're sort of talking about it.

▶ 1:52:21 Leila Migliorelli: But I know for some folks, perhaps it might be more realistic or helpful to see to see like an actual map or plan. Is that something you could do or have done? I started it. I can send it to you. I don't think I have the ability to screen share right now. and i don't know how to do that but um yeah that option is blanked out on my screen but um yes i can uh send everyone a schematic with that information okay um and then so the existing volunteers and my apologies if you already mentioned this the volunteers you have the the warden and um wardens and everyone else you have volunteering are they aware of this consolidation plan do you think they would be on board with this or do we have any concerns

▶ 1:53:12 that we would lose some of those volunteers or just have you um at this point we have not asked them specifically what their interest level would be um we have simply asked them if um you know at first pass you know six weeks out are you comfortable or eight weeks out wherever we are um we actually asked them you know maybe two weeks ago so 10 weeks out you know who's comfortable um so i think given you know knowing our poll workers there may be some that are concerned about the change um i would hope that you know their biggest goal is just to make sure that the election runs smoothly and um that they'll work with our our systems um i think the more we've when we do speak with individuals who have experience with the polls the more we kind

▶ 1:53:57 of explain the entire thought process the more comfortable they are with it uh you know i because i understand the initial um concern it doesn't sound necessarily like the safest option but um but then once we explain all the you know the strengths and weaknesses of the other options like for example i think it hasn't really come up like horse man just the way that polling location lays out the only way to social distance people would be to put them outside um we've tried to map it out differently and it's nearly impossible to come up with a way to keep the polling booths separate enough and to get people in and out the door without having people wait uh outside um you know so i think the more we explain the people familiar with their particular polling

▶ 1:54:41 locations they'll understand the challenges of those locations so waiting outside could be an issue regardless so right um but not completely the thing is you can bring people into the gym you know there might be a few people have to wait outside at a really heavy use time at horseman there is no like literally nobody like there's no space there's maybe one person could wait in queue before they go to the check-in so that's the that's the difference that's helpful to know um i think that's it thank you so much um for for walking us through this and i think i'm inclined to support it based on the information you provided thank you council mcmaster for the second time thank you thank you mr chairman can you hear me yeah um i i'm really looking at this

▶ 1:55:33 Shawn M. MacMaster: as uh an enfranchisement uh issue not just related to uh our immigrant communities in melrose but also our seniors as i think other members of the council have referenced tonight uh we can't lose sight of the fact that a lot of seniors take great pride in physically going to the polls to cast their vote and some just may not be comfortable with these other options even if they exist whether it's early voting or absentee voting in fact some may question the reliability of absentee voting they just may not be comfortable voting in their home and putting a stamp on the on the envelope and then putting it in the hands of the united states postal uh service they might be afraid frankly that their vote

▶ 1:56:18 Shawn M. MacMaster: won't count. I think that is a cultural and age demographic consideration that we need to account for. I'm also concerned about the issue of mobility or lack of mobility. We haven't really talked about that too much. The idea that seniors are going to have to walk a greater distance than they're used to, that they may risk slipping if it's wet or icy outside, that they may have to stand for longer periods of time and perhaps stand outside in November when it's cold due to the social distancing measures, that they may choose not to vote at all for fear that a large crowd you may present health risks at their precarious age. Those are our concerns that I just I find hard to swallow a change in light of their existence. Now, having said that, if anyone can figure out

▶ 1:57:21 Shawn M. MacMaster: how to do this, Ms. Camosa, from a logistical standpoint, it's you. But for as prepared and persuasive as you've been tonight and you're very prepared and persuasive i'm just not uh convinced that the benefits outweigh uh the risks to public health and of unintended voter suppression um so um i'm not inclined to to support this uh if we vote on it tonight thank you mr chair Thank you, Chairman Sinaloa. I just, I know as we're talking, and obviously all of us vote in different parts of the city and certainly have different experiences, and the, you know, the Winthrop School, which is in Ward 6, I think is a very different building than the Lincoln or the Roosevelt, which are much more modern buildings and provide much better access

▶ 1:58:15 Jen Grigoraitis: for those with mobility issues. But given that most of our polling locations are schools because of the confluence of events that is 2020 on the whole, the primary will occur the day before the first day of school when we all hope students will be returning to buildings in some fashion for the first time since March. And historically, the two days leading up to the return of students are actually in-house professional development days for teachers, so I assume those buildings will be occupied by staff who i you know i think we all are aware have their own concerns about their health and safety of returning to school so have you had any conversations with the um either superintendent tamar or incoming superintendent kuchenberger about their

▶ 1:59:04 preferences as we think about both the staff and student populations at all of these elementary schools having to come back the day before um so as you know we're in a kind of that's a challenge as well right now just because we're in the transition of between two separate superintendents um so i have reached out to superintendent taymor early on in this process um and she at the time you know was kind of hesitant to give a complete endorsement only because she was leaving didn't feel like it was her place um but she i have had multiple conversations with her when we first talked about the middle school as a contingency voting location um for emergency preparedness purposes and she was completely supportive at that time

▶ 1:59:51 Jen Grigoraitis: i've also talked extensively with the school committee chair at o'connell and he is also in support of using the middle school thank you and i'm assuming similar concerns again in november it would be that while school is closed on election day we would be you know the polls close at 8 p.m and then we would be reloading students into those buildings as early as you know, 12 hours post-polls closing. And I know we've talked about the cost of cleaning, but honestly, I question the feasibility of if we even have... I do as well. Okay. If you walk into the gym, the middle school gym, when the bleachers are closed up against the wall, it's a much more obvious space that you could actually disinfect. There's just, it's really

▶ 2:00:38 Robb Stewart: a blank slate of gymnasium that could be feasibly cleaned as opposed to most of those elementary school locations and then i just i just want to make sure i understand that both the board of registrars which is the you know commission that oversees elections for the city unanimously approved this and then this is also the recommendation of the health director that that we go to a consolidated polling location. Correct. Thank you. Councilor Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In listening to all the conversation over the last hour or so, I really think it comes down to, in general, I can support this, Ms. Camosa, but I think there's some details on communication that need to be put together. You mentioned transportation and what that really looks like,

▶ 2:01:31 Robb Stewart: working with the council of aging and the physical plan layout needs to be finalized. I think that would help clarify a lot of some of the questions that many of us have. And so after everyone is through, if there's anybody else, I do want to give other people a chance, but I would want to make a motion to hold this in committee so that you can get that information to us. So that way we can have a much better sense of confidence on how all those fall out. So that as a whole, the people that we're concerned about, the people maybe that have language considerations or the elderly or people that have limited mobility. I think those are the people that typically go to Watt and I want to make sure that we are accommodating

▶ 2:02:29 Mark Garipay: for all of those. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Did you make a motion or are you? I will make a motion to hold this in committee. So we have a motion to hold the committee made by Councillor Stewart. Second. Seconded by Councillor Thomas and we're still on discussion. Councillor Garipay, you're next. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also am concerned about the communication I think I had already explained that earlier. But I do have one question regarding the parking. As we all know, anyone that goes to that gym and has been there for rec events, that parking lot is not very big at all. And we were talking about, as Councilor McMaster said, accessibility for seniors who may be driving themselves to the pool,

▶ 2:03:21 Mark Garipay: not taking a senior bus. Other than the parking lot, there's not a lot of parking on Melrose Street. You can't park on the right side going down. I believe certain times during the day, you can't park going because of the school. You can't park coming up Melrose Street. So the only available parking would be the high school parking lot. And I have a concern. That's a long walk for a lot of seniors that are gonna be coming, walking up that hill. I mean, it's not a hill. When I, again, in the contingency planning for using the middle school for emergency situations. I had extensive conversations with Chief Lyle and the police would actually open up parking on Melrose Street for the duration of the election day.

▶ 2:04:11 Mark Garipay: So you have all of those. There's 60 spots in the upper lot as well and we would make sure that poll workers and other staff would park down below so that all those spots would be available to voters. But 60 spots is not a lot when we're talking the amount of people that we think that could be going. I think that could get filled up pretty quickly. So I do have a concern also with that. Agreed. Just respectfully, most, you know, if we look at what the Winthrop has for polling location, parking, Hoover, There, you know, we have that additional, we have this a similar challenge and a lot of the polling locations. Yeah, I do know a lot of people and for to a lot of them do walk. As I stand there holding signs, a lot of them do walk to to Winthrop from.

▶ 2:05:05 Mark Garipay: From the other side of up on the street, so I, for that reason, so we're taking that opportunity away by by having 1 polling location. So. I think we need to figure out either reserve parking up on that lot for seniors or if this tends to move forward, but I know my mother wouldn't be able to walk all the way up from the high school. So I think we need to make sure in the high school parking lot. So I think we need to really think long and hard about that, making sure everyone has the opportunity. Councilor Eccles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I kind of opened my last talking point up up was, I'm concerned about kind of kicking the can down the road with this. I will vote to hold in the committee, but I think that it is concerning to me that if we wait until

▶ 2:05:58 Jack Eccles: the 20th, we're going to be giving the clerk not that much time. Maybe we can have another special meeting. I think basically that's, I see it twofold as it's an enfranchisement issue and a public health issue um and based on what i've seen just where i vote personally down at city hall i feel it's safer um to be in a thousand square feet of a gymnasium than to have to walk back and forth in front by people but i guess that's more on the order and this is on the motion so thank you mr thomas thank you mr chairman um madam clerk thanks again for being here um speaking of both the accessible parking spots i'm actually looking at a map right now of the upper parking lot behind the marku gym in the middle school gym there's only four accessible

▶ 2:06:53 Cory Thomas: parking spots up there there are also four accessible spots in the lower level of the high school in the front near the administration building we always designate additional handicapped um spots for elections the police will be able to do that chief said that okay um speaking of council mcmaster mentioned too a lot of the seniors in our community you know they make up a large portion of the population and and they do take pride in in going to their polling place working at their polling places um you know multi-generational families many of my friends from high school and middle school their parents were in these polling places my my mother works in a polling place um and has had wonderful conversations with ms preparing and possibly

▶ 2:07:38 Cory Thomas: even you uh earlier this year uh when she volunteered this springtime uh at the elections office um some of some of these voters and melons have been voting at the same polling place for literally decades you know they've they've grown up voting you know either the lincoln school or or the Hoover School. My biggest concern will be getting the information out, disseminating the information in multiple ways to reach all of our voters, not only the language barriers, but technology barriers. You put together a wonderful presentation that we were able to read over the weekend. Thank you for sending that in advance so we could read it throughout the weekend. But a lot of it centered around the concerns of a spike in COVID cases.

▶ 2:08:26 Cory Thomas: The wording in that, you know, kind of was was alarming and I'm wondering if people that get that will be fearful of voting in person because they're, you know, they're, they're afraid of going to a location. That is designated for a 1 stop voting place in the middle of the pandemic. You know, it kind of flies in the face of social distancing, you know, instead of instead of going to 14 polling places, you know, we're bringing all these people, all these hands touching doors, hallways, walls into 1 centralized location. I understand why it's being done, but there's some financial concerns is console and aging transportation. You only have 2 small buses. There's a lot of concerns. I think we need answered.

▶ 2:09:12 Jeff McNaught: um about the logistics of it all and and the funding of it all and and what this will cost the taxpayers thank you councilman thank you mr chair um it's been a good discussion tonight uh it's been lengthy and i know we have a good bit to do to keep it short i do share all the same concerns about access to the polls i share all the same concerns about uh the pandemic um and i also think that you know that the biggest group that we talked about um our highest risk group for the you know within the pandemic um and if we're in a second wave of covet 19 i don't think uh many seniors are going to turn out to the polls i think they're going to make votes in um and i think a lot of people are going to do that anyway that's why i'm inclined to

▶ 2:10:12 Jeff McNaught: to support this and I think communication is key I think if we hold this in committee and we can't you know unless we have a special meeting if we can't meet for another month approximately a few weeks we're really shooting ourselves in the foot from the communication perspective I think if we're even considering this time is of the essence I also think that there's more parking and much more parking at the middle school in high school than any of the elementary schools and and there is more room to social distance and maybe we need to work out the details to cue people out and around the building rather than have people in the hallways and maybe we need to have dw cleaning all the high touch surface areas um throughout i

▶ 2:10:58 Jeff McNaught: know we do um throughout the entire process um but i think it's more manageable in one place rather than chanting this all around the elementary schools again I think the communication piece is huge so if we're considering this I think we need to need to pass this thank you anybody else can I say one sure additional point of detail um also to keep please keep in mind that the the current legislation that should be signed tomorrow asks that that initial application for absentee ballots gets mailed out to residents around July 15th. So if we do wait until July 20th that kind of complicates our ability to sort of give all voters a list of all their options all at once. I would ideally prefer to have this messaging voted on and approved well before that deadline so that we can

▶ 2:12:02 start postcard mailings and additional outreach so that everyone is aware of the entire array of their options all at once and then they can make the most informed decision for them and their families thank you anybody else wish to speak seeing none we have a motion made by counselor stewart to hold in committee seconded by counselor thomas vice chair Migliorelli no No. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? No. Councilor Eccles? No. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? No. Counselor, I'm sorry chairman. No, no, I have 5, no 7. yes. I'm sorry. 6, yes, motion to. Even committee passes the committee at this time will entertain a motion to adjourn.

▶ 2:13:20 Motion to adjourn. Okay, Jeremy, that comes to a second of that. Council echoes these problems. Why should we rally? Yes. Council McMaster. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. Yes, yes. Counselor Stewart yes. Councilor Thomas yes. Yes, yes. 11 yes we are adjourned amya will turn over host privileges all right and we're back madam clerk of committees we don't have any communications from his honor of the mayor we do not we have any new business we do not we have any orders out of order uh we have one from earlier well that's an order from committee order from committee yep sorry yep no order yep okay so orders from committee yes 2020 134. or Migliorelli uh that's the emergency management grant oh the emergency manager i apologize counselor

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• Agenda packet (IQM2 PDF)
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