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.

Fantastic.

Okay.

In section two, um, there's a clarification I made.

Uh this was not discussed on September 30th.

Uh, it's a nuance that we procurement professionals like to make it very clear.

Um, where the threshold, where do you actually cross the line?

It's like when you're on which side of the equator are you on.

Um in this case, um, we had omitted uh the specifying that the sound business threshold would go up to and include 20,000.

So this next band of sort of threshold value would be anything greater than 20,000 up to what is currently the um the micro uh purchase threshold, which is 250,000 by the operational services division.

Yes, the small procurement threshold, it's called different things.

So I just clarified in an amount greater than 20,000.

Um, to be very clear there for those of us who will be implementing this um petition, shall it pass?

Um moving on a couple of lines later.

Uh we have the exact same language you saw above and the sound business practices item, which was section one.

Um by virtue of a certification process approved by Somerville.

Only such certified businesses shall be eligible.

And then moving further through the document.

Let's see if there's anything else.

That was it.

All right.

Well, uh I know uh myself and I I know I was ready to vote last time, but uh wanted to give time to get these language changes in.

Uh Counselor Davis, I know you had had some thoughts on this earlier.

Do you have any thoughts tonight?

Oh, before I go, I see uh sorry, uh Lia's and Radassi.

Do you have anything else to add?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I just wanted to flag, I noticed a typo in my red line that I sent um in the first section.

Just wanted to flag um by virtue, it says A of certificate.

It should be by virtue of a certificate.

I just noticed it now.

I'm sorry, I just wanted to flag.

All right, I'm sure we can fix that as a scribble's error.

Um right, counselor Young Camp and Counselor Davis.

Uh, do you have any thoughts or feedback on this now?

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I just want to say thanks for um for addressing this.

And this is something that I had I can't remember who raised initially, but I know I'd I'd wait in as you as you noted in the last meeting.

Um this looks like it provides some good clarification to me, and I'd be ready to move forward.

Wonderful.

As am I.

Uh, any other discussion for members of the committee.

Uh as I say, if then if there is no other discussion, I'll be happy to uh move to approve or recommend approval.

Oh, I love recommending approval.

All right.

Well, in that case, uh, I before we go on, uh act on that motion.

Uh see analyst Salisbury.

Did you have any further thoughts?

Uh, Mr.

Chair, just a procedural note.

I do want to note that you will need to accept the amended version before you before recommending its approval.

That is all that's right.

That's correct.

All right.

So uh the first motion that would be in order would be to substitute uh substitute the uh red line, uh except the red line amendments that are uh are contained in the handout before us.

So I will move to adopt that red line version or the the changes specified in the red line version before us.

Uh believe that motion is in order.

So uh Madam Clerk, if we could just pass the uh or uh take a roll call vote on accepting these changes.

All right, on the motion to accept the amendments.

Councilor Strasso.

Counselor.

Oh, is that counselor strozen?

All right, counselor Strazo, Councilor Mbaugh, Councilor Ewung Campen.

Yes.

Counselor Davis.

Yes.

Chair Scott.

Yes.

All right, with that, those amendments are accepted.

All right, that's excellent.

I think that might have been uh future counselor Hawk chiming in there.

I don't know.

Uh that's the bear, actually.

But the bear.

Yes, Nina Bear.

Oh, all right.

Uh well then on that, then now we have a vote to recommend approval of the uh of the home rule petition as amended.

Uh let's uh councillor Davis moves to accept uh move to recommend approval on that.

Uh and then I suggest we take up uh along with that the uh approval of the minutes and a motion to adjourn so we can take care of all of our business at one time.

Perfect, very efficient.

All right, on the minutes, item number two and adjournment.

Counselor Strozo, Councilor Mbaugh, Councilor Ewan Campen.

Yes.

Councilor Davis.

Yes.

Chair Scott.

Yes.

All right, with that we are adjourned, and those are recommended for approval.

All right, thank you everybody for the time.

Thank you to city staff for showing up tonight, and especially for the work y'all did in the intervening two weeks to get this ready to rock and roll.

Uh I appreciate it, and I hope everybody enjoys the rest of their evening after this uh 10-minute uh interval.

Good night, y'all.