Legal & Legislative Committee — 2025-11-17
Attendance
Cal Finocchiaro ; Mark Garipay ; Leila Migliorelli ; Devin Romanul ; Kimberly Vandiver
Agenda
Minutes
Legal & Legislative Committee Monday, November 17, 2025, 6:45 PM City Council Chamber, 1st Floor 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 MINUTES I. CALL TO ORDER Devin Romanul Vice Chair Cal Finocchiaro Mark Garipay Kimberly Vandiver Leila Migliorelli President, Ex Offico Member Maya Jamaleddine Chair Meeting was called to order by Chair Jamaleddine at 6:45 pm Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Devin Romanul Vice Chair Present Cal Finocchiaro Ward 6 Present Mark Garipay Ward 4 Present Kimberly Vandiver Ward 5 Present Leila Migliorelli President, Ex Present arrived 6:49 pm Officio Member Maya Jamaleddine Chair Present Non-voting members Councilors Hamilton and Karamcheti were also present II. MINUTES APPROVAL Motion to approve minutes without reading made by Chair Jamaleddine RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] AYES: Devin Romanul, Cal Finocchiaro, Mark Garipay, Kim Vandiver, Leila Migliorelli, Maya Jamaleddine NAYS: None III. PUBLIC COMMENT When: Nov 17, 2025 06:45 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Topic: Legal & Legislative Committee Meeting Join from PC, Mac, iPad, or Android: https://cityofmelrose- org.zoom.us/j/98343307574?pwd=YCveZqQzuw7mBImb2ttik8DNF9RS01.1 1 Passcode:850048 Webinar ID: 983 4330 7574 Motion to Open public comment made by Chair Jamaleddine at 6:47 pm There were no comments on the floor or via Zoom Motion to Close public comment made by Chair Jamaleddine at 6:47 pm IV. ORDINANCES
A. (ID # 2025-123): Food Truck Operations within the City of Melrose Ordinance. Proposed Ordinance relative to Food Truck Operations within the City of Melrose.
(ID# 12951) Discussion occurred regarding the map locations added to the ordinance. They don't expect more locations than the current 4 sites and it could possibly be reduced to fewer sites. Councilor Williams said he could discuss the locations with the Traffic Commission. Councilor Vandiver made a motion to strike specific words "or allow" from the ordinance in section 127-15 G. No councilors seconded her motion. Councilor Karamcheti asked if these licenses are for the general public for private one- time events, and no, this ordinance does not apply to private events. Motion to Recommend to full council made by Councilor Vandiver Seconded by Councilor Romanul All were in favor and motion passed RESULTS: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] TO: City Council AYES: Devin Romanul, Cal Finocchiaro, Mark Garipay, Kim Vandiver, Leila Migliorelli, Maya Jamaleddine NAYS: None V. ADJOURNMENT Motion to Adjourn by unanimous consent made by Chair Jamaleddine at 7:01 pm Meeting was adjourned 2
Transcript
▶ 0:02 Maya Jamaleddine: Good evening. The time is 7 45 on Monday, November 17th, 2025. This is a meeting of the Legal and Legislative Committee. I am Maj Maldi pronouns. She and her, the chair Also joining me tonight, our Vice Chair Romanul, Councilor Pinocchio, Gar Hamilton, Karen Chetty, um, Williams, and Ver. This serves as notice of Quorum for the record in accordance with the open meeting law. This meeting is being recorded and broadcast live on MMTV. Um, for, uh, now for the minute approval, um, I will, um, entertain motion without, um, uh, if there is no, uh, without reading, if there is no objection, I would like to entertain a motion to approve, uh, the minutes from November 10th, 2025 at seven 10. Seeing no objections, uh, the minutes are now, uh, approved.
▶ 1:12 Maya Jamaleddine: Uh, public comments part, I will, uh, motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Seeing no objection, we are now open for public comment. This is the portion of the meeting where anyone can speak on any item on our agenda for tonight. Seeing no one in person, um, in the, uh, chamber. Do we have anyone online? There's no one online. Thank you. Um, and seeing no public comment participation, if there is no objection, I will motion to close public comments and seeing none. We are now closed for public comments. Um, the first, uh, and only, uh, item on our agenda is ordinance ID number 2025 dash 1 23, food truck operation within the City of Merose ordinance, proposed ordinance relative
▶ 2:07 Maya Jamaleddine: to food truck operations within the city of Merose. ID number 1, 2, 9 5 1. I will open it. Um, I know that we had, um, multiple, um, just for the record, we had, um, approved the, uh, recommendation and amendments, uh, from, uh, the council, uh, during our previous meeting. And we had some amendments and we had, uh, attached new zoning, um, uh, to the, uh, agenda. I will open it for Councillor Pinocchio, um, to share some updates. And for the record, um, uh, president Elli has joined us. Thank you, chair Jamal. So, the, um, version that we're looking at tonight is the clean most recent version from, uh, the city solicitor made edits, and we reviewed them last meeting. And so now this is the clean copy.
▶ 3:08 Cal Finocchiaro: Um, so this is the most UpToDate version. Um, and then today, um, a, a map of proposed location slash zones for food trucks, um, was added. Um, this map will be submitted to the traffic commission for their agenda on their agenda for December meeting. I think they meet December 17th. Um, and we'll kind of take it from there. Um, and it's gonna go through a series of departments. Um, but we're gonna start with the traffic commission. So if anybody has any questions about the proposed locations, there's one, um, potentially at the Knoll. There's one between Winthrop Street and East Emerson, which is sort of near f your art area. Um, there's an area around pine banks sort of corners, the main Street and Silver Street area.
▶ 4:07 Cal Finocchiaro: And then, um, also added, uh, I spoke to the city solicitor today, um, a location directly in front of the brewery, um, because they're going to be, um, wanting, you know, to have an abundance of food trucks there. They do fall into that, um, outside of that 200 foot rule, with exception of dunk and donuts. So, um, so yeah, so 1, 2, 3, 4 locations proposed. Um, I just wanted to show the council that we are, you know, moving forward with getting these locations and zones looked at and approved. And they will be listed on the permit application with Claire, um, instructions to the mobile food vendor that comes in for a permit. Awesome, thank you. Any, um, colleagues, like co-sponsor colleagues would like to add any comments?
▶ 5:01 Mark Garipay: I'm good, thank you. Okay. Um, I have, um, counselor gpe. I haven't had a chance to read, really take a good look at this. Um, but I do through the chair to the makers, um, the edits today. Uh, anything else other than any other changes from last week other than the amendment? Uh, the 200 feet that we made city solicited did not make any changes to the order. No. After we left the last meeting, There are no more additions. Nope. Okay. Just the 200 feet. And then the map was a proposed map, which is Okay, Just for your information. And just one quick question on, um, Winthrop Street to Emerson. Um, we thought anyway, anywhere, I don't know if that's in the street right here, but in front of Memorial Hall, I think there's any, like,
▶ 5:56 Cal Finocchiaro: moving it down a little bit, um, to make it in front of Memorial Hall. Uh, I don't know if that's a street or not in the parking lot here, or, Go ahead. Um, thanks to the chair. I, that's something we can discuss. I'm on the traffic commission, so that's something I'll bring up when we get to the traffic commission meeting for sure. Thank you. And these are the, uh, locations that are in front of the traffic commission right now? Not yet. Um, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. Um, Per the chair, sorry. I wanted to, I'm gonna send it to them to be added to their agenda after this meeting. I wanted, um, the counselors to review it first and kind of give their opinion or, and then, um, it will go to their, I'll send it to them.
▶ 6:40 Cal Finocchiaro: We'll send it to them this week. Is there any anticipation that there'll be additional locations added to the traffic commission? Um, this is what we're going, this is what's gonna be proposed, if any, If anything, I think there might be some deleted, maybe like, maybe the null won't be feasible because that we have to figure out if that's a park or a school property and how that, um, works. So if, if anything, uh, no, no additional areas will be added, I'm assuming. Correct. Conser Williams, Uh, through the chair. The, uh, traffic commission is free to do its own thing. But I, uh, the conversations that we've had with the chair of the traffic commission are that they're going to take a really sort of judicious look at this
▶ 7:22 Ryan Williams: and think through all of the questions you've had and the feedback. And, um, so I don't anticipate that there will be much broader than this. If anything, you might go to like a small zone and they're gonna discuss, my expectation would be that they're gonna discuss how to functionally roll this out. Like, you know, what do you, do? You put up a special sign, do you just tell the vendors this isn't space that they can by parking code, they can overstay if they're this use or something. However, that works out the nuts and bolts of it Through the chair. Uh, you don't anticipate making any changes as a member of the traffic commission. This is what you're, you're gonna, uh, propose and support.
▶ 8:00 Kimberly Vandiver: I'll support that. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm pretty good right now. Thank You. Any other question? Counselor? Vandiver? Uh, thank you. Chair Jamine, uh, thank you. Councillor Occhio and, uh, Williams and Ro Ramil for coming with this additional information. Um, I'm just trying to visualize a couple of these locations. I love that there's one near Pine Banks Park, because that's a place that people spend a lot of time. I'm just looking at that location and trying to visualize where the truck would actually go, because on Main Street, there's a right turn lane right there. Mm-hmm. And I mean, maybe there's a little bit of space on the cross street, but I'm not sure on the main Street side where they would like functionally park themselves.
▶ 8:47 Cal Finocchiaro: Um, and there's also this fence here, so like, once you get your food, you need to walk a fair distance to get anywhere. I, I mean, I guess you could go across towards, so I just wanted to like, understand a little bit more like what you envision with that one. Yep. Through the chair. Uh, this is sort of a proposed zone, and I, I'm, I'm about the understanding that the traffic commission will look at this area and give suggestions, and it might be whittled down to maybe just a spot across the street from Hunts or something. It, it won't, might not be the entire area. Uh, counselor Williams can speak to that more. Go ahead, counselor Williams. Thanks. My, uh, my thought on this is probably that they're gonna suggest Sylvan Street right
▶ 9:30 Ryan Williams: around the corner from, um, Maine, where there is parking available mm-hmm. For vehicles. Um, and we'll discuss too, how we are thinking, we'll, we'll discuss this issue of like, you wanna put it by pine banks, but Pine banks is privately owned mm-hmm. Land, right? So does Melrose, because it's on our, within our boundaries, do we say, yes, you can put it in the parking lot there, you know, how does that shake out? That's something that we're gonna have to, um, talk through the traffic commission and if it requires additional amendments to the ordinance to make it work, then we'll come back here and figure out how to make it work. Okay. Uh, through the chair. Thank you for the clarification.
▶ 10:11 Kimberly Vandiver: I, I definitely would love to get a spot in that general area, just trying to understand how it would be feasible. And then, um, similarly, uh, the spot on Cory Street, I just, my memory of that street is that it's pretty narrow and in like, how would that exactly look? Sorry. The, the, I must have moved the star. It's supposed to be on Main Street in Front of the brewery. Okay. Thank you. So it's one, one shifted one to the right. Got it. Yeah. Okay. That makes more sense. Yeah. Okay. Uh, awesome. Then, um, the only other question I had last meeting I had, um, as we were kind of wrapping up, had been talking about the one section about seating where it says that the food truck vendor may not provide
▶ 10:57 Kimberly Vandiver: or allow seating, um, in the area. I think they called it a dining area, but they gave a lot of examples. Um, so I don't know if that, um, how many people that resonates with, but I, I do think that that would be an improvement for accessibility. I think it's a little bit overly much to have the food vendor, um, not allow anyone to bring their own seating and just as far as enforcement. So, um, I would make mo make an, uh, suggest, propose an amendment, uh, to see if there is interest in that amendment to strike the words or allow, um, Do you want to repeat? What's your, what's the amendment? Uh, so let me pull up the wording. Uh, so my proposal is in, so in the clean draft we're looking at, um,
▶ 11:54 Kimberly Vandiver: I believe this is page four, uh, 1 27 dash 15 G. Um, mobile food vendors may not provide or allow any dining area, including, but not limited to tables, chairs, booths, bar stools, benches, and standup counters. Uh, so my proposal is to, uh, remove the words or allow from that sentence. Is that motion? That's a motion, yes. Um, do we have a second? Okay. Okay. Um, I have counselor ro uh, no, I'm sorry. I have counselor Che, um, um, in queue for questions and then that's also, thank you. Thank you. I'm a non-voting member, so just wanna make sure. Yep, that's okay. Okay. Um, this is just like a general question and I apologize 'cause I haven't been following it as closely because I'm not on legal and ledge.
▶ 13:02 Manjula Karamcheti: Um, but just for, like, regarding the map is, is it true that like, let's say an organization like Follow Your Art or any other in the city, they can still have a food truck for one of their events by applying for a permit. This doesn't, like, take that opportunity away. So food trucks can still be utilized by other organizations that aren't necessarily starred on this map. Just wanna confirm that. Councilor Kyra? Yes. Through the chair. If you look at, uh, 1 27 dash 13, there's like, um, 1, 2, 3, the fourth paragraph. There are exceptions. Um, really the, it's, it's, it's specifically these licenses are for if we're serving the general public. Yeah. So, um, it's, if it's a private event, they don't fall under that.
▶ 13:59 Maya Jamaleddine: Wonderful, thank you for No problem. Just Yep. Clearing that up for the, for the community. That's A lot of information in here, so, yeah. Thank you. Moving. Um, councilor Vania, did you wanted to add anything? Okay. Um, what is the will of the committee? Councilor Vandiver? Nope. Do you wanna, Do I make a motion to recommend to the vote council? Second, We have a motion to recommend made by Councilor Van Devin, seconded by con uh, vice Chair Romanul on discussion. Seeing none. Um, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. This passes, um, to the full council. Um, congrats finally on passing this ordinance, uh, seeing no other items on the agenda. Um, we are now to adjournment. I would, um, uh, entertain motion to adjourn.