Hello, everybody.

Welcome to uh tonight's meeting of the City of Somerville's legislative matters committee.

I am your chair tonight.

That's Ward 2 City Councillor JT Scott.

Uh Monday, October 20th here at six o'clock on the dot.

Pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025.

This council committee meeting uh is being conducted via remote participation, and the video will be posted up to the City of Somerville's website shortly after the conclusion of the meeting.

Uh we do have a very short agenda tonight of just one substantive item and uh a short council attendance here, uh just a quorum, uh, because several of our members are have another obligation tonight uh for a candidate forum.

So uh if we could just go ahead, let's go ahead and take roll to uh establish a quorum, if you don't mind, Madam Clerk.

All right, this is roll call.

Counselor Strazo.

Counselor Mbaugh.

Counselor Ewan Campen.

Here.

Counselor Davis.

Here.

Chair Scott.

Here.

All right, with that, we do have three here, so we have quorum.

Wonderful.

Glad to hear it.

Uh so we have the uh approval of the minutes of our last meeting on September 30th.

Uh is anybody have any comment on those minutes before we accept them?

All right.

Well, then hearing none, we'll go ahead and lay those minutes on the table uh for acceptance with a single vote at the end of the meeting and move on to our only substantive item this uh this evening.

This is returning from our last agenda uh from our last meeting.

Uh this is item number two here, 251407 requesting approval of a home rule petition to raise sound business practices and written quote contract thresholds under mass general law 30b.

Uh so there had been some good discussion last time and uh some drafting that happened in between meetings to provide us with a new red line version, which has been attached uh as a handout for this meeting.

So it won't be in the individual item if you're looking at legislatar, but it will be uh attached to this particular meeting's agenda.

Uh I see the clerk has already put this up on screen, and it was emailed to committee members earlier this week.

So hopefully everybody's had a chance to go over it.

Uh would somebody from the administration like to uh just give a brief overview of what changes were made in response to committee concerns and uh anything else that we need to be aware of that might not jump out at first glance.

All right.

I mean, if nobody has anything to say about it, I suppose uh director.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I'm I'm happy to speak to this.

I didn't know if my colleagues in IGA wanted to, but um I'm happy to speak to these items, uh Chair Scott.

Okay.

Uh well, I'm looks like liaison Radassi is uh bowed out.

So go for it.

Director Allen, always a pleasure to see you.

Likewise.

Um thank you again to this committee on legislative matters for the opportunity to discuss this uh proposal for a home rule petition.

Um, taking into consideration our discussion uh from September 30th.

Uh we uh the city solicitor, the um yes, the uh intergovernmental affairs uh representative, uh Yasin Radassi and um myself put together these updates that you see here in red font.

Um we wanted to clarify what Somerville's specific um role would be if we were not uh going to be certifying directly through a program.

And we changed the language to be by virtue of it certification process approved by Somerville.

So this would enable give us the flexibility to look at, for example, a certification from another state or an agency other than the supplier diversity office of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or the City of Boston.

Um and then to make things even more clear, addressing some of the city clerk's concerns.

Umly such certified businesses, uh customarily providing the supplier service that we're looking for for a particular procurement process, shall be eligible.

Um so we would you wouldn't only be certified, but you need to be conducting business in the field where we're seeking uh quote.

Um kind of stating the obvious, but I think stating the obvious clearly is always a good idea.

Um further on in section two.

And please, Chair Scott, tell me if you'd like me to pause and discussion or would you like me to go through all the changes first?

No, I'm happy to let you go through it and uh you know I appreciate it.

And uh, you know, I appreciate it.

I'm sure if my colleagues have questions, they can jump in with a hand raise and uh, or we can just wait for the end.

So go keep going.

You're doing great.