Recording in progress.

All right, good evening, everyone.

It's not going to call this meeting to order.

It is Thursday, October 23rd.

My name is Lance Davis presiding.

I use he him pronouns.

Pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025, this meeting of the City Council is being conducted.

No, sorry, may be recorded.

That was my committee spiel, and it's just in my head.

Sorry.

It's being recorded, and it may be shown live on local government government access channels and on the City of Summerville website, and will be available for future review.

Will the Kirk please call the role?

This is roll call.

Counselor Wilson.

Present.

Council Ewan Campen.

Here.

Counselor Scott.

Present.

Counselor McLaughlin.

Yes.

Counselor Burnley.

Here.

Counselor Said.

Here.

Counselor Strazzo.

President.

Counselor Klingon.

Present.

Counselor Mbaugh.

Present.

Counselor Davis.

Here.

With all counselors present, we have a quorum.

Excellent.

All right.

Pursuant to our Rule 32.

Let it be known that this City Council salutes the flag of the United States of America and let us recall our oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the Commonwealth to the best of our abilities and understanding.

We begin our meetings with a moment of silence.

Are there any counselors who wish to say a few words about members of our community?

Council Ewan Campen.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I'm sorry to say I have two moments of silence tonight.

Both of these are uh very personal for me.

These are people who passed away recently, who I really looked up to and admired, um, longtime Ward 3 residents, very widely beloved.

Um Robin Dash passed away peacefully at home on October 18th.

Robin was the beloved wife of Stuart Dash.

They were married for 45 years.

Robin taught art and education at the New England Conservatory, at Brandeis, and at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Um she was a painter herself.

Um you can visit her her website to see her extremely wonderful paintings.

Um one of her sons, um, David and his family moved here a few years back, lived on on Prospect Hill near their parents, um, and they themselves were really active members of the community.

Um Robin was just an unbelievably kind and warm and loving person, someone who really embraced the younger generation.

Um this might kind of be a silly story to bring up, but um so over the last whatever, eight years, I I send a newsletter to to my constituents every couple weeks or months.

Um, and it's you know, updates on stuff the council is working on, and almost without fail, Robin would respond to every single newsletter um with just some incredibly sweet and kind words of encouragement um and support, lots of emojis.

Um this may sound like a small thing, but it you just get the sense that um Robin did this to everyone that she knew and just kind of was such an incredibly beloved, warm uh person who really made a point to go kind of above and beyond um uh letting people know how much she cared about them.

So I wanted to send our condolences to the Dash family, let them know that we're thinking of them.

Um and we also lost Ellen Davidson, um who passed away at the age of 77 on October 15th.

So until very recently, um when Ellen moved into a facility as her Parkinson's disease was advancing.

Ellen lived right around the corner from from my family.

Um and what immediately strikes you when you meet Ellen is that she lives in this giant intergenerational communal house.

Um for many years.

Um and it she lives cooperatively with a kind of rotating group of of people of all ages, sharing meals, common space, welcoming neighbors in.

Um her and her husband raised both of their daughters in this setting in her obituary.

The family wrote that this house uh there were years were full of lively parties, annual Thanksgiving satyrs, and technically edible April Fool's dinners.

Um I know many of us on the council knew Van Hardy, um, a longtime Union Square activist who passed away a few years back.

He was living at Ellen's house at the time.

So, you know, when when he needed a place to live, um it was Allen's house that he moved into.

Sh this this kind of unbelievable, amazing, vibrant community.

Um, it really was like a manifestation of who she was as a person.

Um she's someone who like her car was just covered in bumper stickers about anti-war and um, you know, uh embracing children.

Um she also uh uh kind of unbelievably to me was a longtime counselor at a summer camp that I attended that was like a huge part of my childhood.

She was there a decade before uh doing arts and crafts.

Um so I always felt kind of connected to her.

She had an incredibly rich life full of travel and friendship and activism.

She attended the march on Washington at college.

She got very into anti-war activism, kind of lefty politics, and throughout it all, her focus was always on education and young children.

Um she was a special ed teacher, did Quaker justice work in women's prisons.

She authored a very widely read education book called Open Minds to Equality, um, that's gone now through four reissues.

So I'm I'm just one of many, many people who is mourning Ellen's death and celebrating how much joy she brought to the world.

I wanted to um send our thoughts to her family.

Thank you, Councillor McLaughlin.

Uh thank you, Mr.

President.

I'm sad to report uh the death of Marilyn Contreras, um, who played a pivotal role in the Somerville City Charter and many charters in the city.

It's sad that on the uh cusp of the charter movement in Somerville that she was not able to see this moment.

Uh she recently passed away while visiting her family in Connecticut.

Uh she was a Melrose resident and dedicated and served uh senior program and policy analyst for the Massachusetts Department of Health Housing as well as community development for 35 years.

She worked on many charter commissions, municipal government study committees, and other local officials.

Umicipal association and local League of Women Voters.

Uh very involved person who uh her legacy is going to be secured in Somoval.

And uh I just want to give a thoughts to her family and thank her for her service to this community.

Thank you.

Uh, would everyone in the chamber please rise however you are able to uh for a moment of silence for the aforementioned individuals?

Thank you.

All right, Madam Clerk, first item.

Item 1.3 is approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of September 25th, 2025.

See, no discussion, the item is approved.

Item 3.1 is a granted location from Eversource to install a total of seven feet of conduit in White Street from the Cambridge Somerville line to a point of pickup at White Street Place.

All right, I uh hereby declare this public hearing to be open.

Is there anyone here to speak on the item?

Jackie Duffy.

Hi, Jackie Duffy Eversos.

How are you tonight?

Well, thanks.

How are you?

I'm excellent, thank you.

We'd like to install seven feet of conduit in White Street.

This work is necessary to provide electric service to 14 White Street Place, which will be a 25-unit building.

All right, is there anyone else here to speak on this item?

All right, seeing none, I'll declare the public hearing closed.

Any discussion?

All right, seeing none, that item is approved.

Thank you.

Have a good night, everybody.

The next item will be item 4.1, a resolution by Councillor Mbaugh in support of public higher education in Massachusetts.

Counselor Bach.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

This resolution affirms our city council's strong support for Governor Haley's uh Drive Act.

A 400 million investment in Massachusetts public higher education system, including 200 million dollars from Fair Share Amendment Funds, specifically dedicated to offsetting recent federal funding reductions.

The Drive Act represents a bold commitment to stabilizing and strengthening our states, community colleges, state universities, and the University of Massachusetts system.

Institution that serves a powerful engine of social and economic mobility, equity and civic engagement.

Massachusetts public colleges and universities play a vital role in reducing inequality, fostering innovation, and building a skill workforce that supports local and regional economies.

Since the Commonwealth established free access to community colleges and expanded financial assistance programs, enrollment has increased across all sectors of public higher education.

Nearly 78% of graduates remain in Massachusetts, contributing to the prosperity and vitality of communities across the state.

Yet ongoing funding challenges, including federal cuts, growing reliance on student debt, threatened to undermine this progress.

In alignment with the will of the Massachusetts voters who approved the fair share suit tax.

This council calls on the legislature to dedicate at least 200 million dollars annually towards stabilizing public higher education funding and to continue expanding long-term investment to reduce dependence on tuition, fees, and privatization.

So at this point, I will sponsor you know three of our community members, you know, to speak to this resolution.

See no objection, uh please forward state state your uh name and not just for the record, please.

Uh yeah, thank you for having me tonight.

My name is Dan Rourke.

I'm a Somerville resident and a graduate worker at UMass Lowell, where I'm a member of UAW Local 1596, uh, and I'm also the chair of the UAW Massachusetts Cab Council, our statewide political committee.

So here to speak on behalf of the UAW.

Uh the vast majority of fundamental research, whether that's for vaccines and cures for cancer or for energy storage solutions for decarbonization, like what I work on is done at universities and is funded by grants from government agencies like NSF, NIH, DOE.

Uh and the slashing of this funding by the Trump administration is an all hands on deck emergency for higher ed.

I have seen my coworkers' grants get canceled well after they've been awarded, and I've seen emails getting sent out earlier this year saying that we cannot allow, we cannot admit any more PhD students for the coming year, which essentially freezes all research going forward.

Uh this not only jeopardizes the uh jobs of UMass law workers, but tens of thousands of jobs that ripple out from there in the sectors of higher ed.

This um sorry, in Massachusetts, especially with its meds and eds economy, it's an incredibly worthy and necessary investment to make sure that this research continues and we can blump the damage being done.

Um I'll close by saying that over the last few months, whenever I've been talking to co-workers who are stressing out about this, not able to find new funding, worrying how they're going to finish their degrees, and they feel like they can't pressure the Trump administration to change anything.

I've told them almost word for word that if Governor Healy and the state legislature wanted to fix this, they could.

We have the tax base to backfill this funding.

And I was really glad to see Governor Healy put forward the Drive Act and to do exactly what I'd been hoping that they would, uh, which, as Councillor Mbas said, would put 200 million dollars in fair share tax revenue to go towards filling this gap in funding.

Uh this money will save jobs, it will help crucial research continue to advance, and it will broadly benefit Massachusetts economy.

Uh, we need the state legislature to pass this bill, and I would greatly appreciate the city council's support in standing with us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I also call uh uh true to Joy Solon.

See no objection.

Uh Councilor Ba calls for it.

Can you I didn't catch your name?

Can you please say your name for and uh adjust for the record, please.

Good evening.

My name is Joy Salon.

Um, okay, hi, good morning.

Good evening.

My name is Joyce Alon.

I am a the program manager for the graduate programs at UMass Boston in the sociology department.

And I'm here to um testify in support of this resolution um that on public higher education urging the state legislature legislator to allocate 200 million dollars from the fair share surplus to stabilize the public higher education institutions to help fill federal cuts due to cuts to research and staff positions.

As the program manager, I work closely with graduate students and faculty members who have had been who have been directly affected by these federal cuts to research, and I have students who have lost their assistantships funding because they work for research institutes that have lost grants, and that means that they have lost um their stipend as well as their tuition waivers that they receive, and this step jeopardizes their education.

Um, these funds will preserve or create um funding for the students as uh in public higher education.

And UMass Boston is actually the third most diverse university in the country, and most of our students or many of our students are first generation college students and non-traditional students, which strengthens our social and economic justice.

Um notably these students that attend public higher ed educations um usually stay in Massachusetts and contribute back to the local community.

Um, so the this um resolution would help uh strengthen our communities.

Um, and I am grateful for the council for taking the time to hear my testimony and um for your service to our community and thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

President, and well I would like to welcome Marisa Freight to the podium.

See, no objection, please step forward, state your name for the record.

Hello, my name is Marissa Freed She Hers.

I live at 50 Prospect Street, and I'm a proud public educator, a fourth grade paraprofessional and student teacher in the Cambridge Public School District.

I'm also a master's of elementary education one to six graduate student in a Cambridge Cohort at Leslie University, as well as a master's of labor studies graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

I recognize and be forever grateful for the privilege I have with the Cambridge Public School District paying the balance of tuition for the forum program, as well as my state union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association for providing the opportunity to apply for an annual scholarship for the latter program.

Not everyone is as fortunate as me, though, and I'm here to lift up the importance of ensuring that access to free and affordable higher education is provided for all members of our community.

I would not be leading by the example I set for my fourth grade students who have recently began learning about civic responsibility.

If I was not here to fight for those without my privilege.

At the same time, we must raise up the importance of providing for my higher education colleagues, because without them, higher education students such as myself would not have access to the resources necessary to ensure that our studies lead us on a pathway to lifetime of success.

Since the Commonwealth of Massachusetts created free access to public higher education and additional financial assistance programs in community colleges, public uh enrollment and public higher education is up in all sectors.

Sorry, excuse me.

About um 78% of uh graduates stay in Massachusetts to the benefit of uh communities across the state.

However, the Trump administration is so in chaos in our state's public higher education system by freezing in canceling federal funding used to support research and other academic programs.

So hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.

But we could lead the way and make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to address the Trump administration's politically motivated tax on higher education by supporting Governor Moore Healy's proposed Drive Act.

Drive is a 400 million dollar investment, 200 million from Fair Share Amendment Funds, specifically earmarked to backfill the federal cuts made to public colleges and universities.

Voting in favor of our higher education resolution will support this continued and expanded access to higher education for all.

By lifting others up, together we rise.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I want to thank you know Dan, Joy, and Marisa, just want to, you know, let you know that we all reaffirm our vision for debt-free public higher education that ensures affordable access to all students while providing fair compensation and professional support for faculty and staff.

Supporting this higher education resolution expresses a collective commitment to maintaining strong, equitable and inclusive public higher education in the Commonwealth.

Because like just like Marisa said, by lifting others, you know, together we rise.

So I would like a copy of this resolution to be sent to us, the delegation and to the governor's office.

Any discussion.

Councillor Saint would like to sign on.

Councillor Burnley would like to sign on.

Councilor Wilson, Scott, and Council Camp and Councilman, the whole council would like to sign on.

Council Camp and have uh something to say.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Through you, I just want to thank our colleague and the speakers here tonight.

Um the the UMass system, the public universities in Massachusetts are just one of the crown jewels of this state.

And the idea that we have a federal government that is attacking them, as was said, for political reasons, but also they're doing it to give a tax cut to the richest people in the world.

Um it is just disgusting beyond comprehension.

Um and I'm incredibly uh thankful that this is um being being uh has risen up as a priority um for the governor, and I'm certainly happy uh that the the council is here tonight to support it.

So thank you all.

Okay, that item is approved.

Uh I think yes, actually, you're right.

Um the next item is uh so um we're gonna take a few items out of order.

The next one is just a couple down, but that's what caught me.

Um so uh the next item will be for section four uh item 4.7.

Uh we know some folks here um the uh uh to to be here to be speak and also just to be here for that item.

Um and we want to make sure that we uh we recognize those folks.

And then we got uh three c three topics that will are gonna take up a bit of time.

Um so we'll after 4.7 we will take up 7.1, uh, and then um 8.3 along with 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, and 8.2.

All right, items 4.7, please.

Yes, indeed, Mr.

President.

That makes the next item.

Item 4.7, a resolution by Councillor McLaughlin that this city council commends the members of the Charter Review Committee on their years of volunteer service to the community.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I wanted to recognize the women here uh who did the lion's share of all the work to get a new city charter, which will be on the ballot this year.

Uh it has been endorsed by every elected official in the city, every city councilor, every state representative, every school committee member, uh, and many former elected officials and other people in the community.

Uh this has been a century in the making, so I wanted to take the time to recognize people for that.

And I did before I turn over to our fearless leader, Bev Schwartz, want to uh look back a blast in the past.

And I just found an interesting article from the Somerville Journal on September 5th, 1899, which was the last time the city passed a city charter.

And there's a lot of insights.

What some things never change in the city and in the world, and it's just interesting.

I wanted to read this excerpt.

If the question of accepting the proposed new city charter were left to the more intelligent voters of Somerville, or to be more explicit, the voters who take the pains to examine the matter for themselves, there would be no doubt of its overwhelming adaptation.

Not but what are there some able and learned citizens who conscientiously oppose the new charter and are able to state their reasons, but that the large majority of those who've studied it stand strongly in its favor.

You can't please everybody, but the overwhelming majority of people who have studied this charter stand in favor of it.

Um if people didn't understand a word I said, that's understandable because no one speaks like this anymore, which is the exact reason why we need a new charter in plain speech, so that everyone can understand it.

A regular person can come off the street and read the charter and understand it completely.

But the final line is possibly the most important and the most interesting.

And I wanted to highlight this because that is one of the many changes we've made.

And it was made by a committee overwhelmingly of women.

Um there were a few men such as myself and a couple of other people, but it was almost exclusively women, and the women are the ones who followed through and made sure this happened.

We passed the charter, uh, we got it done at the city level.

They made sure we got it done with the city council, they followed up with the mayor, they followed up at the state house, uh, Bev made a website, Kat made a meme, awesome Golden Girls meme, to let everybody know about this charter.

So they've taken it upon themselves to see this across the finish line.

I wanted to recognize them, and I definitely want to recognize our leader Bev, but I want to give her a round of applause and thank you all for your hard work on this.

Council McLaughlin would like to sponsor Beving, Mr.

Speak.

So at the end of 2020, Mary Joe Rossetti sent me an email saying, would you be interested in this?

And it was Mayor wants to form a committee to study the charter.

I'm like, yes.

So I've been at this for five years now, because that's when I started, was when I applied.

Um I want to say that this has been the most incredible group of people to work with.

And to give you an idea of the dedication of the 12 of us who worked on this, seven of us are still working on this campaign.

One one person can't be here because she's got child care duties.

Seven of us are still putting our butts out there getting this done.

I also want to thank the city council because for six months, every other week you met and engaged with this material in depth and seriousness, and I really appreciated that.

So it's been a team effort.

And um just want to thank everybody who has brought us to this day.

And look at my website.

It's very cool.

Thank you.

So I will note I was at the Summerville Museum event just before this, and somebody who is relatively plugged in came up to me and said, So, question one is should we how should we vote on that?

And of course I said yes, but it just to remind folks that not everyone is fully plugged in on this even yet, so send them to Bev's website.

And if you have a view on it, uh please do share that.

Um let the word out and let folks know.

Um any discussion?

Go ahead.

My website is yes-on-charter dot info.

Any discussion?

All right.

That item is approved.

Thank you very much, everyone.

All right, so that will take us to item 7.1.

Yes, indeed.

Item 7.1, a request of the mayor requesting authorization to enter into a tax increment financing agreement with a full building occupant of a lab building.

All right, I understand the mayor would like to speak on this item.

Is the mayor present?

I see somebody hopefully going to collect the mayor.

We'll do a anyone have any jokes?

Song and dance requests.

It'll be a long night.

Get that sugar while you can.

All right.

I see Madame Mayor here in the chamber.

Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

Good evening, honorable members of the City Council and to our guests who are here in the chamber with us today.

Hi there.

Um and also to the viewers online.

Tonight I am here to ask for you to authorize me to sign a tax increment financing agreement that represents one of the most significant economic development opportunities our city has seen in recent years.

Somerville is making a strong play to bring one of Massachusetts' most dynamic med tech companies here to grow with us.

Currently is based in Andover, is considering Somerville's Assembly Innovation District as their new headquarters.

I want to emphasize their search is still underway, but this proposal is a vital milestone to advance our prospects.

Commercial real estate interest for large office buildings has slowed significantly.

This is our responsibility to our community.

This TIFF would help us secure a thriving homegrown Massachusetts companies expansion within the Commonwealth.

This would ensure the transmetics continued growth fuels local innovation, creates hundreds of high-quality jobs at all levels, and strengthens our region's opportun uh reputation as a global center for life science.

And there is a broader ripple affect.

This will fill an entire large life science building that currently sits vacant, bringing vital daytime business to our local shops and restaurants and energy to our neighborhoods.

The economic impact cannot be overstated.

This would be the largest new life sciences move in the region during the current downturn.

It will generate millions in future tax revenues for Somerville and build critical economic momentum, drawing attention to our many advantages.

Their organ care system is revolutionizing organ transplantation and dramatically increasing the number of patients who can receive life-saving care.

They employ everyone from highly skilled technicians and manufacturing staff to PhD level scientists and clinicians.

They exemplify next generation life sciences manufacturing, and importantly, they share our community's values around creating and investing in jobs, innovation, and opportunity.

This project would mark the first life science presence in Assembly Square, opening a new gateway for innovation along I-93 corridor and expanding the Greater Boston life science ecosystem.

Transmedic would join recent Somerville arrivals, arrivals like Ultra Gen X, Foresight Institute, Bristol Myers Squibbs, and Flagship Pioneering.

Continuing the momentum we've strategically built.

The structure of this incentive package is sound.

We're looking to repeat the success we built together with my administration's successful incentives and funding efforts approved by the Council for 299 Broadway, known as the Star Mike Star Market, former Star Market site on Winter Hill, which is set to break ground this fall and ultimately deliver 288 rental units, including 50% affordable units, retail space, and community arts gatherings and open space.

This TIFF, too, is designed to yield significant returns through job creation, tax revenue, and direct community investment.

Should Transmedics select Somerville, they are committed to becoming a valued and collaborative community partner.

I want to be transparent.

Nothing is finalized.

So we need to act.

Should they choose to do so, they need this commitment from the city to move forward.

And we're operating under type time constraints with multiple stakeholders.

This aligns directly with our community's pursuit of smart inclusive growth that builds financial resilience and opportunity.

Tonight I'm asking you to authorize me as mayor to sign the tax increment financing agreement to secure an extraordinary opportunity for jobs, revenue, and long-term economic stability for Somerville.

Thank you.

I'd like to invite up Tom Galligani, Executive Director of OSPCD.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Director Galligani.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I just want to do a little bit of table setting.

You know how important this uh this item is this evening, and we want you to be as prepared as possible to make the decision uh tonight.

Uh first up, we're going to hear from the executive leadership team from Transmedics.

They're going to walk you through what they do, what they're all about.

Then there will be ample time for questions.

Next, our Director of Economic Development, Rachel Ned Carney will walk you through all the details of the tax increment financing deal as we've uh shared it with you.

We'll also have a chance to answer any questions you might have.

And we've got other folks in the room as well who can, including myself, including our uh outside counsel who can answer any questions you have.

We'll get right to it and invite up the leadership team.

Is Nick, you're gonna talk first.

Oh.

Oh, perfect.

Come on up.

Thank you.

Please introduce yourself.

Uh name and address or affiliation, I guess, for the record.

Whatever this is that that'll do, Madam Clerk.

Name and affiliation.

Perfect.

Good.

All right.

Good evening.

My name is Gira Hernandez.

I'm Transmedic CFO and company with a couple of colleagues.

Good evening, everybody, and thank you for having us.

I'm Nick Corcran, uh SVP for supply chain operations at Transmedics.

Good evening, I'm Farhan Zafir.

I'm the chief of Kyliothrassic programs at Transmedics.

Before we start, I would like to first uh share a couple of words from from our CEO, uh Walid Hasinen.

He sends his apologies for not being here today.

He's in a business trip that was previously scheduled.

Um so uh he really would have loved to be on this night so such an important night.

But at the same time, he asked me to uh extend his huge thanks for welcoming us here and and continue with the partnership that we have seen so far.

So with that said, I think we can talk about our uh what transmedics is, but before we do that, I think it's probably better just to sit down a little bit and see the video that we're gonna show.

I hope you enjoy it.

It really shows what we are, what we do, and and we'll get back.

It's around nine minutes long, so just stay with us.

Oh, do we have volume?

No volume.

Okay.

Take just a moment to make sure that everyone can hear you, both in the chambers and online.

We talk over.

Yeah, yeah.

If there is no uh audio, we can just play it and we can voice over, so no no worries about that.

Give give us a minute.

Sometimes sometimes it takes us just a minute to get all the right buttons, all the right toggles in place.

All right, all right, so we can we can let it run.

I think your suggestion to narrate the video sounds like an excellent one at this time.

So we'll let it play and uh tell us what we need to know.

Now uh before we start, uh uh you're gonna hear today three different accents, and that's just part of what we are.

It's a very diverse company.

I have a very Spanish strong accent.

We'll you'll hear a very strong Irish accent and Pakistani accent.

Yes, so if if if something is not well understood, please let us know, Mr.

President, we'll we'll repeat.

Well, here in Somerville, you're very at hard with uh different different accents from around the world.

Fantastic.

Go ahead.

So we'll we'll let the video run.

But the Transmedic has been uh working to transform the uh organ transplantation field for the last 25, more than 25 years.

And our vision is to increase the number of organ transplants, but not only that, all increase or improve the outcomes of of those transplants.

I'm gonna let the video run a little bit so that you can read what we have there.

If you don't mind, keep keep commenting on the moment.

So for those that don't know transmedics, Transmedics was founded in Andover, so pretty pretty local, obviously, uh, by Dr.

Walid Hassanin, uh, our CEO, which uh Gerardo had referenced previously as well.

Uh maybe we talk about the model.

Yeah, well can we pause the video there?

So the way we operate is we uh our CEO invented the OCS technology, the organ care system.

And it's a system that actually replicates physiology.

It keeps organs alive outside of the human body.

That was launched a few years ago, but then we saw that it was not enough because the number of transplants were increasing so much, and there was not enough uh capabilities to drive all those or to run all those uh uh missions.

Then Transmedics came up with uh we launched our NOP, that's where we're gonna see right now.

It's our national OCS program, and it basically what it has is uh our a network of 18 uh different hubs across the US, and each of the different networks we have clinical specialists, we have surgeons, we have inventory, and from there we deploy resources to the different transplant either centers or we deploy resources also to where we procure the organs.

Can we put play, please?

That is our NOP program.

And we are able to do that because a key attribute of the OCS system is that it's portable.

We can actually take the the device and put it in an airplane, or we can put it in in a car, right?

And we can move around.

You can see we have a fleet of around 22 jets so far, and that's that's exactly what helped us to increase to increase the number of transplants in the in the US.

Transparency is important, and what you can see in the video, it's uh uh an app that we have developed.

It's an app that allows us and the stakeholders to track every single uh organ from donor to recipient.

Uh and that app always allows to see and to measure uh and to assess the organ uh condition at any and function at any point in time.

Uh once an organ is placed in the OCS, around 98% of the organs are actually transplanted.

So we have a very high utilization of the organs that we actually use.

All that is controlled from our from our command center.

Can we pause there, please?

Our command center, it's basically the heart of the coordination of this logistic effort.

That's located in Andover, and from that room.

You actually visited and Tom, you guys visited, and it's it's impressive that place.

Uh from that room, we run 30% of the transplants of the US.

We're planning to increase that number from 5,000 to 20,000, 30,000, which basically means we're going to need to increase that capability by four or five times.

And the building that we are looking in uh the option that we have in in Somerville, it's a it really allows to do that.

It will allow us to do that.

Uh that's also an area that works 24-75.

And that's because at any point in time, there can be a donor, and any point in time we need to be ready.

At any point in time, we need to go, search the organ, and then take it to uh offer a second chance of life uh in the transplant center.

Can we put uh play, please?

There we go.

We can go and see get organs from everywhere.

The way it works is we have incoming calls.

Uh with we're advised there is a donor uh and the organ it's it's it will be ready.

So we capture all of the details of the mission, the cases submitted, we go to the with that in hand, we have a logistics specialist that actually uh uh defines or uh selects what's the best logistics route to go get the organ and then take it to the transplant center.

Um so that could be either in airplane or that could be on a ground transportation system.

Once let me cover that.

So as Ernesto mentioned, and we've seen it a few times being mentioned transforming uh the field of transplantation, and that's what we really did, and actually the case in the video that shows it.

Prior to transmedics, organs were kept local, going to nearby recipients.

With with the move towards national allocation organs were traveling across the country, and that's that's where this uh transformational technology enabled uh people getting organs from Seattle to Boston, and then that's why uh uh transmetics uh delivered that promise.

So once the mission is agreed and and the plan is accepted, we have our our group, our team travels from our different hubs to the uh donor uh center, to wherever the the donor is is located.

We will source the procure the organ, put it in the OCS, and then we'll take it to the donor center as we are seeing in the in the video.

At every point in time, every single point in time we are connecting with the transplant surgeon so that the transplant surgeon knows exactly the condition of the organ.

And that's that's very important because transplant surgeons need to know the health of each organ before they accept or not the organ.

Uh you're gonna see some strong images here that are hopefully you don't mind.

Uh, but that's exactly what we see uh and what happens in our OCS.

You can see how the surgeon is taking is sourcing one of the organs.

It's preparing.

By the way, Farhan knows that perfectly as cardiovoracic surgeon.

The the surgeon is preparing the the organ, in this case a heart, connecting the heart into the system, assessing, or start the assessment, and then the organ comes alive.

That's how we uh try to replicate the physiology in in within the OCS system, and Farhan is gonna talk a little bit more about uh about that.

We have you know you can see the heart beating, and that's a liver producing bias, so it's metabolically opt uh active.

We put it in the you know in the ground transportation.

I said that it was a long video, so okay.

With audio it was going to be easier, but all right.

Then, as I mentioned before, uh, as part of this effort uh two years ago, it became clear that we have to build our integrated logistics network.

Two, three years ago, uh Transmedics was missing around 20% of the emissions because there was no planes available to run them.

And that was it became clear.

That's with the volumes of two, three years ago.

It became clear that was the moment in which we have to invest in our uh aviation fleet.

Today, as I mentioned before, we uh operate and we own 22 uh jets that allows that are located in different areas of of the US and allows to be in any place of uh the continental US within two hours.

The device is in the jet in this case, we have full Wi-Fi connectivity, and that's important because as I said before, at any point in time uh we need to be communicated with the transplant surgeon, the transplant surgeon to continue to assess the the health of the organ.

There you go.

I think this is a case that is gonna land in in Massachusetts.

One of the key benefits of the OCS system is that it allows to assess the function of the organ at any point in time.

And with that, we can make let's say uh Farhan, you can help me here, but corrections.

And and manage the organ optimally to keep uh it in in more physiologically healthy state as it is inside the body uh until it gets to the to the recipient to be transplanted.

Thank you.

Uh a crew from Transmedic is waiting there, and then we take that organ to the transplant center.

The device uh the organ arrives to the transplant center, the surgeon, the transplant surgeon assesses and sees how the condition of the organ and accepts or not the organ.

As I said before, in the case of transmedics, 98% or more plus 98% of the organs are accepted once they are in in our system.

Um we're not only increasing the number of transplants in the in the US, but we are improving the outcomes.

You multiple times you hear why that after a transplant there are always complications.

That is reduced, and that's basically what was shown right now.

It's reduced when the organ is treated with the OCS system.

I think that's the end of the video.

We're gonna go through some slides and then I will pass the microphone to uh Nick and Farhan.

As Nick said mentioned before, uh Transmedics a company founded in 1998 in the in and now we're headquartered in Andover.

Our CEO, Walid Hassin was the inventor, the founder, and our current CCO, uh CEO, sorry.

Uh we are listed in Nasdaq up to up to today.

I think we're around 4.4.3 billion dollars company market cap, and we're certainly transforming the organ transplantation therapy globally.

I'm not sure if if you are aware of this, but in 2024, this is public information.

In 2024, in the US, we had approximately 17,000 donors.

That is people that die in a way that can donate the organs, which technically means that you have 17,000 lungs, 17,000 hearts, and 17,000 livers potentially available for transplantation.

In the case of lungs, only 20% of those 17,000 lungs were actually transplanted.

The rest were wasted.

In the case of heart, 25%.

In the case of liver, uh 60%.

If we take the average of that, I could say that we could do approximately three times more the transplant that happened today with the current number of donors.

So right now the opportunity, the way we see it is yes, increasing the donors is important.

But right now, increasing the organ utilization is it's certainly much more important because we have more than 50 percent, in this case, the close to 60 percent or 70 organs that are wasted in average from the from what we've seen.

So far.

Can I make a comment?

Yes, absolutely.

So I I mean we had a long video, so thank you for your patience with that.

If we could go back one just for a sec, please.

I think if you want to encapsulate what transmetics is, who we are, um, and the importance of the the program and project that we're here to speak about tonight.

This is the slide to look at.

This is the reason we invest in aviation.

This is the reason we're looking for a world class destination and facility for our future.

It's because of our commitment to advancing organ transplant, because we're obviously a publicly traded company.

We talk about our financials a lot, we talk about numbers.

The most important number for us is the lives that we we save and help save as part of uh the transplant community, and we're very proud to be part of that.

Um and just something I think we wanted to double click on a little bit uh for for uh for tonight.

Thanks.

Sorry.

Thank you.

We move to the next slide.

Traditionally, uh the standard of care for uh transporting or or preserving organs was a cooler.

So typically even in movies, right?

When when you have a movie when you have an organ that is going to transplant it, typically they they get a cooler put ice, and then the organ is on top of the ice.

But really, what happens the moment the organ stops having the flow of of uh oxygenated blow, it starts to decay.

And that's why that was one of the main limit uh limitations of why that organ utilization has been so uh low throughout the time.

We are changing that.

Today we have organs in the case of of uh of liver, for instance, that can be up to 24 hours in the device, and they're perfect for transplantation.

We're running, we're planning to run some uh clinical programs that will uh we're we're extending the time that also hearts and lungs are in the device from currently 10 hours to 24 hours.

10 hours, approximately 24 hours, which will allow to increase the number of of transplantations, right?

Um that that that's a big that's a b uh a game changer.

So if we move to the next one, I'm gonna pass it now to Nick.

So one very important part of the campus um for the future, uh, and a very important part of what we do today is is our manufacturing.

So you you can you can run the video, please, Kimberly.

Um this is an insight, uh a bird's eye view if you like of our manufacturing facility uh today in Andover.

Um we take this very seriously and and um keeping and maintaining uh control of our supply chain because of the nature of what it is we do as a business is something that's really first and foremost.

So our intention is to maintain internal manufacturing for our products.

Uh our quality is first in everything we do for obvious reasons.

When you think about again uh our role in in life saving um therapy and technology, our people driving innovation, so we will we have and we will continue to invest in the latest and greatest uh of technology and robotics and machine learning and AI, as everybody is talking about today, but we see great application for that, both in our manufacturing processes and in our floor as well.

And and the last point um that the video God bless you, that the video mentioned is probably the most important one from a manufacturing standpoint, or really for you guys to think about as well into the future, and that's the importance of our people.

Uh the people that are part of uh transmetics, uh, which the video showed as well.

Next slide, please.

Okay.

All right, as as Gerardo covered a lot of this um uh the OCS, the organ care system, uh, allows these organs that used to be uh traveling on on ice and uh metabolically inactive, now can travel as near physiologic as they l are alive inside the body.

Heart beating, lungs are breathing, you can see liver producing bile and and then uh uh kidneys producing urine.

So to allow organs to be assessed and uh uh to kept in the most optimal condition uh until they are ready to be transplanted in this in a uh recipient uh to give them another another life, another chance.

Next.

And and this is this is a very important slide, and and uh I think we've we've uh touched on this in the video.

But really, we've demonstrated this impact of organ care system on the number of transplants nationally.

This company in Massachusetts have allowed 20 percent growth in organ transplantation for the three organs we talked about from uh 2022 to 2024.

Without transmetics, that growth is 22 percent.

And you can see the numbers for yourself.

In 2024, transmetics was part of nearly 4,000 transplants.

That's 4,000 lives that were saved uh and organs added to the donor pool or to the organ pool for the country uh out of out of this this state.

Thank you.

And and not just that, we believe, we strongly believe that this is just the beginning of what our our mission was set to.

Uh we continue to innovate.

We have new platforms that are uh uh uh uh uh uh in development right now.

We're expanding across uh uh outside of US to other geography uh geographies to have the similar impact uh uh on other uh countries uh and uh comp coming out with innovative programs to to continue uh this momentum and then this growth.

And and this is all possible because of our our our unique position, uh unique capability of of having this uh state of the art technology, end-to-end service with clinical expertise and logistic, uh the most efficient logistics infrastructure.

Uh uh removes all the barriers within the system uh and and allows uh utilization of these organs uh that were otherwise discarded or wasted.

Thank you for our hand.

So let's zoom in uh for the next couple of slides if we're and if uh to the mayor's point, if if Somerville becomes our home.

Um it's probably not an example of the refactoration saying how the most important organ transplant facilities uh on the globe, on the planet.

Um also I would say unparalleled variety in terms of the breadth of operations and the things that will be um housed in in such a building.

Obviously, from uh an administrative standpoint between human resource, finance, IT, your sort of typical um operational functions, um command centers you saw in the video, such an important part of what we do today, and certainly to Gerardo's point into the future, or Vivarium clinical lab as we think about the next generation of products in a second or less far hand to maybe paint a little bit more detail about the activities that we have in our in our in our labs today.

Uh I mentioned manufacturing, we're talking about as I said, a commitment to US manufacturing, uh a commitment to keeping uh near and dear to us our most important um uh the most important part of what we do in many ways being our technology on top of uh the people that build our products as well.

Our research and development to keep us at the leading edge uh of technology in the space.

Um and then certainly uh sounds really fun.

Uh we look forward to seeing it, but our flight simulator, which is a really important part, it's cool, but it's also um a necessary oxygen in terms of the talent uh and the people that we will need to sustain um our aviation uh business now and into the future.

That will be part and housed in in our location as well, in addition to our or if all goes to plan or leadership for for the aviation business and a conference center.

And today, um, in the in the next couple of weeks, in fact, we will bring in world leaders in the transplant space uh for a meeting.

It's something we do on an annual basis.

That today we outsource.

But in the future we want to be able to do that within the four walls of transmetics HQ and are very excited by that proposition.

But let me uh let me just give Farhan a moment just to talk about our vivarium and the activities there, if you don't mind.

Thanks.

And we'll go back to one slide.

Thank you, Nick.

Uh so as Nick pointed out, um the the Vivarium space uh serves a very important function in transmetics today, which is it allows us to uh fulfill all the FDA required um uh preclinical testing um uh using uh um uh farm Yorkshire pigs, no other animal model, but just uh just pig models.

This facility is uh USDA inspected, ALAC certified, uh keeps all the animals uh and and and best health uh possible.

These we have uh solid enrichment programs for these animals, and and uh they uh are very essential to the development of our device and technology uh as the requirement by the FDA um uh to prove uh efficacy and and safety uh before these devices go out uh to serve uh uh patients.

uh using um um uh farm yorkshire pigs no other animal model but just uh just pig models this facility is uh usda inspected ALAC certified uh um keeps all the animals uh and and and best health um possible these we have uh solid enrichment programs for these animals and and uh they uh are very essential to the development of our device and technology uh as the requirement by the FDA um uh to prove uh efficacy and and safety uh before these devices go out uh to serve uh uh patients so that's that's that's very critical for us uh to have this vivarium space and and um again it it follows all the USDA regulations it's certified it's been monitored by an independent uh veterinarian uh uh that serves on the ICA committee for the organization as well okay so um this next slide talks about why the city of Somerville um we're we're we're preaching to the choir here I suppose um but the things that are really important for us many of them are listed here uh what comes to the top um you know we we as the mayor mentioned earlier we've we've um we we've searched um the area we we look at things that differentiate talent is really at the top of our of our requirement and that's when you think about the breadth and diversity of where we're going as a business um we think about our talent needs today but also how those will evolve and and uh adapt over time um the other thing I would say is and Gerardo mentioned it is the tremendous partnership and I do want to um add my my voice to to as he mentioned that really high class highly professional um involvement from the mayor and team and the broader team as well in getting us to this point uh really no stone has been left unturned to spent time with us in handover um and have been super accessible uh since that point as well and that bodes really well I think for for the future should um Somerville be um our destination for HQ so I do want to echo and and thank the team for for all their support one more please okay and then we we obviously feel like we have a lot to bring to Somerville as well um and and some of those points are are listed here we we buy in completely to the vision this this vision for mixed use development and life science as being part of that and we love that concept and we look forward to playing our part in in any way to foster and enable more companies like Transmedics to come the next transmetics perhaps we're we're we're very much we love the fact that this represents for us the the opportunity to it's a two-way street we talked about access to talent but but talent needs somewhere to go and and we we have committed as you guys will have heard about previously we've committed to you know as we scale more and more opportunities at all levels really in turn in terms of I'll talk about it on the next slide but but high school partnerships university partnerships in the district internships etc that's it's a two as I said a two-way street we will need that to sustain us into the future and of course it's important as corporate citizens that we're providing that level of of partnership and collaboration as well um and then finally probably no surprises here for those that have have seen these documents uh this I would say is the starting point um we're very specific with some of the numbers here um you know characterizing I mentioned about our our our commitments to the school district uh we think about the Fur Department and and the police department as well we're we're in the life saving business um and so we we love to reciprocate um for those that are like minded uh um and maybe share in the same motivators that we have as well but again I would stress this is the start uh this is the start of our commitment to Somerville should things uh work out I think that brings us to our last video which unfortunately doesn't have sound again I won't be able to do the uh but but I think it speaks for itself it talks to you know these the the one minute mile um you know the first flight uh and and you know landing on the moon and you know certainly we believe that our technology as has been proven and probably uh you would agree from the figures and numbers that you've seen so far but also our commitment to the future um we've done something that few thought possible it's part of our values actually um and that's our commitment for the future as well that's what we want to do.

Just one sure may you're just reminding me reminded me of one that thing that was not in the slide but because we talk about that recently but we we learned that robotics is very important in the town and we know that they're typically three but in a very high number so we're committed also to donate 3000 dollars a year to the robotics program.

So that I will be happy to do so.

Sorry.

No I think that's our final slide so uh there's one placeholder slide at the end Kimberly if you can yeah I mean we'll we'll certainly pause for questions but do want to to uh Mr.

Yeah, I mean we'll we'll certainly pause for questions, but do want to to uh Mr.

President to thank you and the council as well for your time.

Um video ran a little bit long for us at the start, but uh yeah, thank you for your attention and welcome any questions.

Well thank you for that.

Um and and uh uh thank you for uh speaking through the video.

Uh apologize for the for the uh technical difficulties.

Um I will note that these slides uh for folks, especially well, in the chamber, if you want to take a look at them afterwards or folks at home, the slides are available on the uh city council website in this agenda on this item, so you can take a look yourselves.

I assume the videos are probably available on the company website um or or to some extent.

Um are some are.

And if if they're not, we'll we'll see to it that the orders are.

Very good.

Well, I'm sure I'm sure folks can get more information on the company anyway anyways, uh, if if they want to dig a little deeper.

Um but uh thank you for that.

Questions?

Councilor Scott?

Uh thank you, Mr.

President.

And uh thank you for the presentation.

Really excited uh to uh at this possibility and hope you do find your way to Somerville.

Um if you do, I can guarantee you'll have more nice places to eat than just the chateau.

Uh no comment.

That's all right.

I'm allowed to cash it on other communities.

Uh but that said, uh, you know, in researching about um about your company, uh I'm I know you bought Summit Aviation a few years back and you you operate your own uh network of uh planes.

Um is that is that a high utilization uh plane network right now?

Is that is that entirely in-house flights?

Yeah, we actually typically announce that in our earnings earnings call every every quarter.

So I I I cannot talk about the latest number, but I can talk about last quarters, right?

And it's typically a close 80%.

So our our network is typically used at around 80% uh utilization.

Okay.

And uh just uh through you, Mr.

President.

Uh do you also lease out your planes or uh take on charters for any other outside entities, businesses or government?

100% of our planes are only used for organ transplantation.

Wonderful.

That is exactly the answer I was hoping to hear, Mr.

President.

Um just boy, I hate that I have to ask that question.

No worries.

We we we know exactly, yeah.

We have Transmedic has been disrupting years of maybe uh uh monopolies, if you will, right?

And uh as you try when you disrupt those processes, typically you you will receive some some punches back, and that's one of the typical, but no, all of our hundred percent of hundred percent of our plane utilization is for transplant transport of organs.

Well, uh I appreciate it.

One of the values of Somerville is absolutely about protecting our neighbors and keeping them here.

So I'm glad you wouldn't be a part of anything like that.

So you president just one more point to that is uh uh the reason why we got into aviation is is uh as Gerardo was saying, uh there was a day uh of Kentucky Derby that there were organs could not fly on on any charter plane not available because these are not dedicated to transplants.

So that is one primary reason when we decided yes, we gotta have to solve this problem so that any life-saving organ uh does not have to be affected by an availability of a charter plane.

Thank you, sir.

Council Ewan Campin.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um through you, thank you all so much.

Uh this is uh obviously just completely extraordinary work.

Um like this is a very exciting opportunity.

You know, I'll I'll just say that for for me what matters on this decision, of course, has nothing to do with how extraordinary the company is, it's whether it's this is a good deal for Somerville.

Um so for my perspective, you know, most extraordinary company in the universe.

If you're proposing something that's a terrible deal for Somerville, obviously not gonna support that.

Um having reviewed this, I I do not think that's the case, but I think um what I'm most interested in is discussing the details of the TIFF proposal.

Um and and I just want to thank you for this, you know, incredible uh presentation.

Other questions?

Discussion.

No.

Uh Council Burnley and then Councillor McLaughlin.

Thank you through you.

Uh thanks for being here tonight.

Um this was an incredible uh presentation.

I think the technology that the you've all worked uh create and uh disseminate uh is really incredible.

Uh and I can imagine the future uses of it that are uh expand uh the market uh for this company greatly.

I mean being able to operate organs outside of the human body opens up a lot of possibilities.

Um of which frankly are uh scary quite uh for like the the lay person as myself.

Um frankly are uh scary quite uh for like the the lay person as myself um I guess I'm curious because this is what we've seen is very incredible and positive and I think life-saving.

Um but uh I always have to play this uh the cynic and the skeptic uh as a counselor.

Um is there any worry about um I don't want to put this any external uh existential threats for the company uh moving forward.

Uh I did notice though there was uh a class lawsuits that had been filed uh this year against transmatics uh with various uh complaints involved.

Uh how do you guys see your path forward uh and as you want to deepen your roots in a community like Somerville?

Thank you for the question.

Uh I I think what you've seen is what typically publicly listed companies have and publicly used that companies face, right?

Uh nothing that is nothing special that affect transmedics in that in that case.

The future, the the way we see it today is bright.

Uh as I said before, there are multiple uh areas of growth.

One is to increase the organ utilization.

We saw this the slide that that I shared, which we have a huge opportunity to increase.

We we have a huge opportunity to increase even our market share or the OCS utilization as well.

We have opportunity to grow outside of the US, and that's that's why our CEO is actually not with us today.

There is a deal very important thing for for us, right?

So we we are confident and we have plenty of conviction that there is plenty of runway to grow.

That's why we are actually looking for a larger space.

And just as a quick follow-up on that, uh in terms of the international market, I I was really impressed by the the increase in terms of the the life of the organ outside the body.

Um I'm curious, you know, if I'm if you get a request somewhere in Massachusetts, and there's I know you there's work being done in Italy as well, and it needs to go to Italy.

Uh is uh is a US organ viable over there?

What kind of uh protections do you all have to ensure that you know these organs are kept safe, not only in terms of their own natural life, but in terms of uh being taken by someone.

Yes.

There is no organ uh from the US that goes to Europe or from Europe to in in case of our organs.

Uh what we are developing in Europe is specifically for Europe and will have its own resources, its own uh uh network, infrastructure network.

It's completely let's say separated from the US.

Um in the case of the US, from time to time we actually have donors in Canada, right?

We have from time to time, and we we are able to go to Canada and bring those um organs into the US.

Now, what it's important is the transparency.

Each transplant has a code and it's publicly controlled or federally controlled.

So by looking into the app that I showed in the video before, we can have close track of every single transplant, every single organ that uh transmedics touches.

That gives a level of transparency that it it's uh it can get better than that.

If I if I could um you know, I I really welcome the question as well.

Uh as I think as Herardo said, but know that ethics for us um and our value of integrity is not optional at transmedics.

And as as uh hopefully as the team has got to know us, um, and and hopefully if things work out as you get to know us in the future, you will see that.

It's in everything that we do.

It's in how we conduct ourselves in in uh in a search like this process.

It's the the level of attention and seriousness and uh responsibility that we feel for um and take for every organ that we we um we transport.

Um that's who we are.

So I I I really thank you for giving us the opportunity just to zoom in on that a little bit because it's um it's near and dear to us.

Thanks.

Okay.

Uh Councillor McLaughlin and then Councillor Brentley.

Uh sorry, Councilor Bach.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um very excited to dive into this and thank you all for coming.

Um I'm very excited as a representative of East Samoval to see this happen.

I thank the mayor for seeing this through and all the city staff.

I just want to thank the decades of people who worked on assembly row as well, going back to our previous mayor.

I see representatives of the Mystic View task force here.

Uh counselor Bill White, who now lives in assembly, who fought to make sure things like this would happen.

So it wouldn't be just big box retail.

It would have mixed use uh development with a huge project like this coming in.

So this is not something that has just happened overnight.

It's been decades of work from other people uh to see this moment through.

And I'm excited about it.

I'm ready to support uh what's necessary to make this happen.

And I do want to add, you know, for anybody out there who's thinking, you know, you're giving a tax deal to a major business, uh a multi-million dollar billion dollar corporation.

I see a headline today from Cambridge Day that close to a quarter of Cambridge lab spaces are vacant right now.

And Summable has, I believe, three or four vacant lab spaces, soon to be one fewer, hopefully.

Um in the long term, this is gonna be a huge deal for Somable, and we'll hopefully draw other lab spaces into the region, which will only contribute to our tax base.

I have one request today from all of you is to please uh come and eat in East Somville on East Broadway.

Uh we have a number of immigrant-owned businesses, it's 70 percent immigrant-owned small businesses in our community who are all struggling to uh survive right now.

And as uh immigrants and uh uh non-Americans yourselves, I hope you can come down and uh enjoy our many restaurants here.

Don't think about just assembly, think about east summable as well.

I'm excited for this and I'm ready to support it.

Thank you.

Uh Councilor Ba.

Other questions.

No.

Okay.

Thank you, gentlemen, very much appreciated.

Um we have details on the uh the numbers to to come next.

Director.

Shalower.

Uh so good evening, everyone.

Uh my name is Rachel Ned Carney for folks in the audience, and I am the director of economic development for the city.

I'm going to walk us through the TIFF agreement and and the details of it.

Um we have a a 10-page legal document that is available.

If anyone wants to read the full language, it's available uh attached to the item.

Um but for the slides, what I'm going to do is is really walk you through graphically what is a TIFF agreement and the details of the specific one.

So the image you see here is going to be the basis for this the whole conversation tonight.

Um this is a graphic from the Massachusetts Office of Business Development outlining the the structure of how a TIFF works.

Um tax recruitment financing uh is uh at the end of the day, it is a it is a tax incentive um specifically tied to the investment made by a company uh that is making both a capital investment and adding jobs.

Um there are specific uh standards that are written into the the agreement around the commitment to that um investment in the capital side as well as in the job growth.

Um and so the way it works is that you build your um your area of play, the amount of the tax increment off of the capital investment, and then the commitment uh is tied to the job growth.

And so if the company fails to meet their job uh uh commitments, uh there is a clawback provision that is a standard for a TIFF agreement.

So let's talk through um we'll we'll break this down.

So staying on this slide for sorry, staying on this one for one minute, um, want to walk you through the elements of it and then we'll build for our specific agreement that we're talking about tonight.

On the base uh access here, you have a years.

A ta a TIF agreement is specifically for a number of years.

Typically in Massachusetts, that's five to twenty years.

Um during the time that the TIFF agreement is in place, uh taxes are continuing to be paid on the base value of the building.

So whatever the bill, the whatever the property was in its state before the company comes in and makes investments.

The their the expectation is during the life of the agreement.

Taxes are still paid as if it was before.

There is a that's number one, that's the the blue box at the bottom.

Number two on this graph is the baseline growth.

There's always an assumed baseline growth that the taxes also is paid on that as well.

So uh we'll get to that to the details for Summerville in a moment.

Number three, the green all the way on the left, that's the actual investment made by the company.

And number four, that light gray at the top that angles up, that's our area of play.

That's the taxes that are paid specific to the investment made by the company, tie linked to the that investment in that change in the value of the property.

At the end of the TIFF agreement, the full assessed value of the property is used to generate the taxes going forward.

So the TIF agreement is only for that period of years.

After that, the full assessed value is utilized again to generate the taxes.

And that's number five all the way on the right.

So we're gonna break this down again going for the specific agreement.

The agreement we've been negotiating with Transmedics is a 10-year tax increment financing agreement.

Again, taxes are paid on the base value of the building.

The building here is 188 Assembly Park Drive.

And then there's the uh background growth.

We've modeled this with a 3% background growth.

3% is has been our 10-year average for background growth in our our tax um in our taxes.

So what we are estimating for the taxes that would be will continue to be paid throughout the period is a total of 51.28 million.

So over the 10 years, we'll receive 51.28 million on the base value of the property.

Transmedics is intending to make a substantial investment in this building.

Our empty lab buildings look done from the outside.

On the inside, they are not.

When you get into one of our vacant lab buildings, it is a concrete floor and a grid, no ceiling.

Open space, not a single wall.

That's what is 188 Assembly Park Drive looks like today.

Transmedics is doing a very intensive build out.

They're gonna be building those clean room manufacturing spaces, the flight simulator.

There's a lot of specialized investment that they are going to be making into this property.

They're anticipating that their added value to the property is 175 million to 225 million.

So we've been modeling at right in the middle of that at 200 million dollars of anticipated investment.

Next.

What that would generate is an additional 41.28 million dollars of taxes before the TIFF.

So our area of play, the increment that is generated by their investment is that 41.28 million.

That tenant fit out that they'll be doing represents 45% of the total taxes generated from the building overall.

That's pretty typical for our lab buildings.

Um for each and every single one of our vacant lab buildings, 808 Windsor.

Um 495 Columbia, 74 Middlesex Next Store.

Each of those is in the similar position.

They are all fairly similar in size.

So think about this this this breakdown.

Each of them is underperforming right now by 40 to 60 percent.

What we're looking at here is a tax, what we've been negotiating is a uh TIF value, a total value to the company of 18 million dollars.

18 million dollars is approximately 44% of that increment.

Meaning that should this all proceed, um, the city is still generating above the base another 23.28 million over the course of the 10 years.

That was important as we've been negotiating this to Councillor Ewing Campin's point, um, making sure that the city is generating more than um than we are giving in in the deal.

Um total revenue to the city over the 10-year period is $74.56 million.

That's the two, the gray and the uh and the blue combined.

At the end of the 10 years, uh again, they would be paying the full taxes on the assessed value of the building.

That starts in year 11 at 11 million dollars and goes up about 3% again after that.

So on an annual basis, the building, the this location would be generating 11 million dollars each and every year from our 10-year mark forward.

Want to break down what actually looks what this looks like in the document.

So what is agreed to in a TIFF agreement is a number of years and a tax exemption for each of those years.

That's that's what's written into the agreement are these first three columns.

Um, and then for to help everyone understand the details of this, we've added here the column of what are the actual taxes that we're expecting the city to collect in each of those years, and the value to the company.

The last column is the value to the company.

So let's go through this chart one by one.

I'm gonna take it sort of two years at a time.

In years one and two, that's fiscal year 27 and 28, we would be giving a tax exemption of um 1%.

So that means we are reducing their tax bill by 1%.

That's only $20,000 in the first year.

Where that comes from is that actually a TIF agreement is a three-party agreement.

It's an agreement between the city, the company, and the property owner.

So in this case, the property owner is Biomed Realty, they are the owners of 188 Assembly Park Drive.

The the two part, the other two parties, Transmedics and Biomed have agreed that Biomed will be paying the tax bill during the first two years.

Those first two years are when Transmedics is going to be doing their fit-out.

They're going to be doing lots and lots of construction.

They won't be 100% occupying the building until year three.

They'll be in the building before then for sure, but that's when there's at 100% occupancy.

So that is also the time that the tax relief really comes in.

So years three and four, it's 85% reduction in their tax bill.

Years five and six, it ratchets down to 75% reduction.

Year seven, 55%, year eight, 45%.

I want to call out on the very bottom that we actually didn't meet $18 million in our in our math here.

We're only at 17,999.

And those years nine and ten, one percent are important.

So what we've written into the agreement is a provision that is that this is a deal for $18 million, not a penny less and not a penny more.

And how we will get there is in playing with the percentages in years nine and ten.

If everything works out, and we have achieved $18 million before year nine, or at any point in those years, once they've reached 18 million in relief, it drops to zero from that point forward.

If we have not reached 18 million, the 1% in the in years nine and 10 ratchets up a little bit.

So that's what's written in to our agreement.

Before I shift into questions, I do want to take a couple minutes to talk about the the what ifs.

The if not this now, then what?

Um and that's really the opportunity costs.

Um we do see a real challenge in in the lab market in Greater Boston right now.

It's been mentioned a couple of times tonight.

There's approximately 10 years of available lab space for what we're expecting the market to produce for companies.

Companies are gonna need space going forward in Greater Boston for labs for sure.

But we've produced a lot in the last few years, and there's 10 years of supply available right now.

If we were to forgo this and wait for another opportunity, the next time we would expect an opportunity of this scale again, is is several years in the future.

So let's assume it's five years out.

We would there's there's five years of lost of lost um tax revenue to the city.

Realistically, though, what we truly would expect is if we that these are rare circumstances where a company is really looking for a whole building.

Uh, more typically, and all the developers are anticipating this, they're designed the buildings are designed to be able to handle one tenant or many tenants.

And so what we would expect instead is is a smaller series of smaller tenants moving in over time that further um uh reduces the the value over the during that ten years.

And then the last slide here it is is really represents the the true circumstance that we're in.

Each and every year that a lab building sits vacant, its value is going, its assessed value is going to go down.

We are going to start to see that point happen fairly soon where we're gonna start to see assessed values of our proper of our lab buildings start to diminish.

So again, when you combine that, we're really seeing here that the potential for revenue to the city starts to drop, uh drop off.

And then to conclude, and there's no more slides for this.

Um, I want to go back to what the mayor was saying, and counselor McLaughlin as well.

There's a lot of momentum that this brings.

Um moving a full ten a full building tenant in takes 500,000 square feet of available lab space off the market.

It also is a is a really strong signal to the rest of uh the world that Somerville is part of the life science ecosystem.

This is a place you absolutely want to bring your business.

That's a great thing for 74 Middlesex next door.

It's a great thing for all of our other lab buildings as well.

Um it's also a fantastic thing for all of our smaller businesses in Assembly Square and East Somerville, our hotels, um, our restaurants.

Um again, they're a three, they're a 365-day a year, 24-7 operation, um, a really diverse team.

They're bringing their commitment here is 900 employees coming in, that's 900 people going out, buying lunch, getting a birthday card, going to the gym.

Um that's that's what our businesses and our business directors have been clamoring for.

Um, and so we're really thrilled from an economic development standpoint.

Um I often talk about the fact that our work uh covers three different streams of of activity.

We are engaged on real estate development and thinking about the commercial tax break tax base for the city.

Obviously, this is core to that effort.

Uh, we also are involved in small business development.

Those 900 people out and about, that's part of our small business development goals.

And then we're really focused on workforce development too.

That's the third stream of our work.

They are going to be growing by 600 employees.

That's 600 new jobs.

Some of those are gonna be high school diploma only necessary assembly jobs.

Some of those are PhDs.

There's an opportunity really here to to work and grow in our community.

They've committed in the TIFF agreement to taking a pool of six high school interns from Somerville High and our other high schools here in the community every year.

Uh that's six high school interns that are gonna be able to grow with this company each and every year that they're here.

So from an economic development perspective, worthwhile.

Thank you, Director.

Councilor Ewing Kappen.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Through you, thank you, Director.

Um so I I just wanted to ask two questions from the perspective of you know members of the public who they hear tax break, they're skeptical.

I I totally understand that.

Um so through you, my understanding is this is extremely similar to the TIF that we did for the 299 Broadway.

I think this was mentioned, right?

The the abandoned star market.

Can you just confirm that?

Yes, so the TIFF that we the total TIFF package for the UCIF uh is the program that that is under, that is a 17 million dollar deal.

Okay.

And I think that you know, the reason I I think that that's important for folks to keep in mind.

Um so when you think about a tax incentive, you you're you're trying to make something that otherwise wouldn't happen.

We're trying to make it happen.

Um, you know, the abandoned star market, that's uh 50% affordable development.

And we don't we don't need to ask ourselves was that gonna happen, because we have the counterfactual in real life, which was it was abandoned for over a decade, right?

It was a scourge.

Um it's the same thing in this situation.

In my we have these vacant buildings.

We we don't need to ask whether people are clamoring to get in them.

We we're we live in reality right now where they're vacant.

You know, I none of us like vacant buildings.

Um I also understand, this is my second question from our assessor that the vacant lab buildings we could expect are gonna start to go down in their appraised value, like as soon as upcoming year, is that correct?

Yes.

One of the stipulations in this agreement is there is um to hold steady their 2025 um assessed value and carry that into 2026, and so it's stabilizing it.

It's not going to go down at all.

It would stabilize and and then go up.

Excellent.

So thank you, Mr.

President.

Through you, I I think you know, I I want to congratulate your team and the mayor.

Um I I think this makes a lot of sense.

Even just holding the appraisal steady, that that's a huge thing.

And you know, based on the numbers we were shown tonight, basically for the next 10 years, we'll be looking at something like seven and a half million dollars in tax revenue foregoing 1.8 million that we otherwise could have gotten.

And the question is, is that worth it to make this happen?

From my perspective, it clearly is.

Um I'm I'm excited to uh support this, and I want to thank you for all the work that went into it.

Counselor Wilson and Bach.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

President.

I want to thank our colleague from Word 3 for laying out for the public very clearly.

Uh, you know, I'll say how I look at this as well when making this sort of determination.

Uh we're looking at what we're gonna get in terms of of the uh the benefits from this, weighing that up against the opportunity cost, what we're giving up uh in terms of what we might get otherwise.

Uh it seems to me very clear that those benefits outweigh uh what we're leaving on the table.

Um for that reason, I I think this is uh a smart deal for the city.

I do worry about uh what we see on that chart there in front of us from the city's uh financial uh perspective that uh three million dollar hit coming uh in year three in 2029 uh of our estimated taxes collected, that's gonna be a challenge we're gonna have to try to figure out.

Uh but certainly not a reason to uh to say no to this.

Uh I'm I'm fully supportive of this.

Counselor Bach.

Uh thank you, Mr.

President.

I also share the sentiment of my colleagues.

But I guess I have two questions.

Is this going to be like a template, you know, that we're gonna use for other empty buildings around the city?

Our our approach has been that it's it's uh truly a custom conversation each time.

Um we have to get to know the company, get to know what what they're all about, what they're trying to do if it's if it's a match.

Um and but we have started to have other conversations with other property owners to say, hey, we're willing to talk to you.

If you have somebody who's live that's considering becoming a tenant, let's talk.

Let's see if we can help with the package to to fill a space.

Um no one else has taken us up on those conversations yet.

Um, but we have we we have introduced that as a concept to other property owners as well.

And it would be n true, Mr.

Chair.

So it would be nice, you know, for the city to you know like calculated impact of this tax revenue based on this on the other properties, so we can see, you know, if I thought they actually had the same deal, what would that be, what would that look like I'm thinking about how that would work, but yes, uh uh we've I've been in touch with um uh throughout this entire process.

I'm thinking about how that would work, but yes, uh, we've I've been in touch with um uh throughout this entire process, we've been working very closely with uh Ed Viene, the city CFO, and Frank Gold and the city's assessor, and they both are uh feel really confident about this approach.

Um again, one of the key things that we did throughout this negotiation and development of this TIFF was really thinking about um you know what does this look like relative to the city's budget and finding the and and tuning to a line that really says does this work for us and and our long-term financial goals?

Uh counselor Burnley and then Clinton.

Thank you.

Uh through the uh president.

My question is also on the benefits.

Uh we heard from uh the representatives of the company that they are uh gonna be offering $30,000 to robotics per year.

Uh we heard from you another benefit.

Could you just talk to us a bit about all the benefits that are in the uptiff beyond just the tax revenue?

Sure.

So the the TIFF is um the TIFF does not include everything that they that they talked about tonight.

So the TIFF outlines uh and this is again this comes from Mass General Law, there's there is a standard uh clawback that's tied to the employment.

What it the commitment in a TIFF is on on the company side is to one, make a capital investment and to add new jobs.

It can't be a job that's moved.

So somebody like Bristol Myersquid when they move to Somerville, they were not eligible to have a TIFF conversation because they were consolidating from other locations.

They weren't adding new jobs.

With this organization, they are adding 600 new jobs.

Um at a minimum, right?

And so they have what they've written into this is a commitment to bring in total 900 jobs, 300 of which um are their current employees, and they are committing to um to those goals.

If they don't meet 70 percent of their goal, there we can um they have to report every year what their employment growth is and there's target dates.

If they don't meet those their target goal of at least 70 percent, the city can actually reduce their um reduce our our our tax uh relief.

Does that make sense?

Do the chair.

Uh it does make sense.

Um is that 70 percent that is that on just the new jobs or is that on the overall 900?

I believe it's actually on the 900.

I'm double checking it.

So that's I believe it's the 600.

Am I reading this right?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brian.

Yes, so it's the 900 is the commitment, so the 70 percent uh line is 600.

Um and then you were asking about other benefits that are listed in the document.

So in the document, what is listed is a commitment to uh host a minimum of six uh high school interns uh for uh each of the years that the TIFF is in place.

Um and then to um have conversations really with um my team as well as the public schools, uh specifically the career and technical education program to really be thinking about how we can align our workforce development uh initiatives to support folks who won might want to take a job at Transmedics in that 600 new job pool.

Um and then the third item here is is really thinking about training programs that if they when we're building out those training programs that we're really working in tandem to make sure that Somerville residents have the best chance of of participating.

So let's say they they produce a pro training program um specifically targeted around you know their manufacturing.

Um and so maybe it's a collaboration with Bunker Hill if I let's use them as an example.

Um how do we work to make sure that Summerville residents are most represented uh and have the opportunity to take advantage of that?

Okay, Councillor Clay.

Thank you, Mr.

President, through you.

Um yeah, I look forward to supporting this deal.

Um thank you for my colleagues who um laid it out so uh plainly for for the public, uh the the position we find ourselves in.

Um, you know this uh in a perfect world.

I mean we know Summerville's cool.

I mean, everyone knows some school in a perfect world, you know, be people be knocking down the door to get in these buildings, but as things stand now, um I think this deal that the city has worked on, I want to thank the mayor and her team for working out for working out this deal.

Um I want to thank the team for coming up this evening uh to come before us.

Um I like what I hear in terms of the company ethics and and so on, um, as far as uh it's a publicly traded company, it's a big company, but it but it feels very personal to all of you and very um uh private, you know, like very hands-on.

Um and so that's important.

So I like what I'm hearing uh um as far as the company goes.

Um I do think that I don't know what the competition looks like in terms of what other people are offering, but I can tell you that Somerville is by far uh the best in terms of the competition.

Uh we we lead the way, we're number one in everything, uh, and we have the coolest, the coolest city.

Uh so I'm happy that um to be in the running and I'm happy to support this deal.

I would just say one thing.

Um I know that you all are in the business of transporting organs, um, but I don't know how much uh experience you have in the business of building and and and build outs uh you know in Andover, I'm not sure what what the situation was when you all first moved into that building.

But um being that you did talk about um ethics and and uh integrity.

Um I would just ask that um you know whoever you're using for your build out um have the same community standards that we have here in Somerville uh in terms of labor practices and also uh the same standards that you all espouse to.

So uh that we know with that said though, I'm happy to support this deal this evening.

Thank you very much for all coming up.

Thank you to the mayor and her team again uh for getting us here.

Councillor Said.

Uh through you, Mr.

President.

Uh first I would like to thank the team and uh the mayor and city staff.

Um I'm also uh going to be supporting this.

I really like the mission.

Um I did have a question.

Uh thank you for um sharing the benefits again with us and summarizing that.

Um I think also Bernie asked a similar question.

Um just like want you to explain if possible, what is the process for amending like the benefits part of the TIFF, or if it's something I know right now it's we're the initial phase, and it sounds like a TIFF can be amended if both parties can agree to that.

But I'm just wondering about like as the company's growing and putting roots here in Somerville, um, these partnerships with the district, uh, is this something we can do?

Yeah, so um uh as um Harada was mentioning they and there's in the transmedic slides that they wherever they go, they know they were going to be a strong corporate partner and they've uh committed um uh some some numbers, right, to to ways that they could be uh they would intend to be a corporate partner in Somerville.

Um we are we specifically actually did not include that in the TIFF agreement because the clawback of a TIFF agreement is specifically tied to the employment goal.

Um and so if they let's say one year they only are able to find you know you know budgets are real tight one year and they only find ninety thousand and not a hundred thousand that they can contribute to the schools that that moment.

Um we wouldn't want to sink the whole TIFF around uh something that is not core to the TIFF legislation that exists at the state level.

So we are specifically putting that in a separate conversation in a separate agreement uh that would not live with the TIFF but would live separately other questions?

No, okay.

Yes, sorry.

One that we also forgot to mention that is in here, but is not on the slides.

Um part of the package that we have here as well has been um that we've offered with trans we've negotiated with trans is a as a partial reduction in their um building permit fee.

Their building permit fee is going to be north of four million dollars for this build out.

Um we have um we have offered a what we've negotiated here is a two point, I believe it's 2.275 million reduction in the building permit fee.

Now that still means uh most likely two million dollars in building permit fee additional coming into the city on top of the two million dollar building permit fee associated with the building that exists as it is today.

So I want to make sure that we didn't forget about that because that is a detail in here um that it did is not you know typically a quarter a TIFF, but it's we did include that in this document.

Can you talk just in terms of the structures a little bit more about the the what the other agreement you you said that the just what is that?

When will it what what's the status?

What what what will it be called?

That'll probably be some sort of it'll be some form of a covenant.

Um you want to add anything to this.

But we have not yet we have not actually gotten to that point yet.

Um, and all those details.

If I may, this is kind of snowballed.

Um every time we talk to these folks, they're like this is th this is what we mean by planning our roots.

And they and they think they keep adding more to the tally.

So we we haven't sat down and actually put pen to paper on the contributions that they're excited to make if they choose this location.

So more to come.

Just so we understand.

So that so that's something what once i if and when the decision is made, then pen to paper on everything that's been discussed.

Okay, just so folks, so we can answer that question when it invariably comes.

Other questions or discussion.

Councillor Scott.

Uh thank you, Mr.

President.

I've reviewed the document that's before us tonight.

Um I really appreciate the work that our team and their team obviously has done uh to put the agreement together.

Uh it's been responsive to some of the concerns I had earlier.

Uh, and I'm fully prepared to support this.

I'm wondering if a motion to approve would be an order.

Let's do it.

Motion to approve, sir.

Council Scott moves to approve.

Any discussion on the motion.

On the motion to authorize the mayor to enter into a tax increment financing agreement with a full building occupant of a laboratory building.

Councillor Wilson.

Yes.

Counselor Ewan Campin.

Yes.

Counselor Scott.

Yes.

Councillor McLaughlin.

Yes.

Counselor Burnley.

Aye.

Councilor Saeed.

Yes.

Counselor Strazzo.

Yes.

Counselor Klingon.

Yes.

Counselor Mbaugh.

Yes.

Counselor Davis.

Yes.

With all counselors in favor?

That motion is approved.

Councillor McGoth.

Councilor McLaughlin.

I've had second thoughts, Mr.

President.

Uh and I would like to make a motion for reconsideration in the hopes that reconsideration fails.

Council McLaughlin moves for reconsideration in the hopes that reconsideration fails.

Anybody wish to change the vote?

See none.

Reconsideration fails.

Now let's clap.

Take about a four-minute recess just so we can all catch our breaths.

All right, I'll call this meeting back to order.

One, two, three, four.

Yes, we have a quorum.

Madam Clark, next item.

The next item will be item eight point three, an officer's communication from the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management conveying the draft combined sewer overflow plan.

Director H.

Thank you.

For your record, uh Richard Rach, Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management.

It'll come as a surprise to no one that I have slides.

Okay, we can go to the next one.

So uh the the slides that are attached to the item and were distributed uh uh uh out to counselors earlier this week are are sort of broken into into two pieces.

This is a a very important topic uh and and I think it uh bears uh all of our attention.

Uh I want to be able to convey a lot of information to you, but uh realize that tonight was a very busy night.

So I split it into two parts.

Really the the essential pieces I will present here formally.

Um, and then there are a number of supplemental slides um that we can use to facilitate questions here either tonight or if it seems as though we want to drill down uh even more uh we could refer to committee and and uh go into a little bit more depth there, or um as always happy to uh meet one-on-one with anyone who wants to uh take an even deeper dive into this.

So with that sort of preamble, what is it that we're talking about?

We are currently in a formal regulatory process to develop uh a a extension of the long-term control plan for combined sewer overflows.

This is an extension of work that was started in the eighties.

Uh it is a formal process that was envisioned back in the 1990s and formalized in variances for water quality for the Charles and Mystic.

Uh that for uh on back, not quite yet.

Um that uh process named three parties, K City of Somerville, City of Cambridge, and MWRA as the formal entities responsible for drafting and executing the plan.

And by executing, I mean paying for the plan.

Uh DEP, uh Massachusetts TEP and Federal EPA review it.

Uh and we've had uh input and comments from the Charles River Watershed Association, uh Mystic River Watershed Association, save the OIF Brook, our neighboring cities and towns, uh, and a number of other bodies.

Uh the uh process also defined a schedule for us.

We've been working away at this since 22.

We have to submit the draft report by the end of this year.

Uh and it is very likely that the technical teams will be typing away furiously until about midnight on December 31st to hit that deadline.

Uh that then will put us into a public review on this draft recommended plan.

That's essentially 2026.

And that will finalize the plan.

DEP and EPA will then issue a formal administrative order based on that final plan and we'll have to start design and construction right then in 27.

So what does it mean for Summerville?

Well, clearly we we have a legal and one would also say a moral obligation to mitigate CSOs.

And it will result in a federal and state administrative order that will essentially bind our sewer CIP for a generation.

And since we have a limited pool of resources within the city, it will have impacts on our future capital investments across the whole uh suite of assets.

And because today's capital project becomes tomorrow's debt, and the first thing you have to pay is debt, it will also have implications for our future operating budgets.

So if you're all suitably scared, um, you know, that the the uh council item that is before you tonight, you know, what what is that the action?

Formally there is no action that needs to be taken by the city council for us to submit this draft plan.

Um that is what it is, I guess, under our charter.

We didn't get that into charter reform, uh, but you know, that's that's where we are.

However, this CIP will drive the the rates for decades.

Um, and therefore it will essentially influence future council actions uh on the rates.

Um so what I'm hoping for either tonight or referred to committee and coming out of committee within uh two or so weeks is is a sense of the council's position on this issue and on the draft recommended plan so that we can incorporate um that as sort of Somerville's position, not just sort of the director of infrastructure and asset management submitting this plan.

So from from a high level, uh, you know, what do we what are we talking about?

Uh the the mechanics of drafting the plan has uh has a few components.

As with everything, we had a community engagement process, we have monthly meetings with DEP, we had six community meetings, four workshops with stakeholder groups, two presentations to the city council, uh to the Somerville City Council, one hearing with the Cambridge City Council, uh, we had been tabling at events, and we also have asynchronous uh uh engagement through our website.

Uh we've leveraged computer models uh that we uh built to uh understand the how our sewer system works, and just a quick thank you to the Kurtatoni and Ballantyne administrations as well as the Board of Aldermen and past city councils over the past nine years who have funded um that.

Without that funding, without growing that capability within the engineering uh division, we would not be on par with our partners, Cambridge and MWRA, and we would not have been able to sort of look out for Somerville's interest as we prepare this plan.

Uh we also used MWRA's receiving water quality model uh that takes those CSU lows as well as uh stormwater pollution lows and uh predicts uh changes to water quality in the river.

Those models uh are used over a range of uh rainfall events, so there are a couple of vocabulary terms that are uh good to understand.

The first is typical year.

Uh when doing a long-term control plan like this, EPA guidance uh requires us to evaluate what's called a typical year.

That has always been in the history of the republic, a backwards-looking statistical analysis.

You look back through the historical record of rainfall, look at the number of storms, the intensity of storms, the total number of rainfall in that year, pick the most average year and use that as your baseline.

This long-term control plan update is the first in the nation to actually look forward and incorporate climate change into that typical year.

So we we call it the 2050 typical year because we're projecting out to to a 2050 time horizon, looking at in increasing uh rainfall trends, and essentially simulated what the trends uh indicate will be the future rainfall conditions.

Uh that then brings us to the next sort of term of art here's level control.

We don't just look at that um that typical year, we also look at larger storms than that typical year.

So uh a five and a 25-year storm.

So a 25-year storm happens once every 25 years or four times in a century.

Those are very much uh larger, larger storms, and and we assess the impacts of that.

Uh there is also uh what almost every long-term control plan that the technical team is aware of typically allows for a small number of outfalls per year.

The rest of uh the MWRA system and all that work that happened in the 90s through 2015 does allow for um uh outfalls uh in in other parts of of uh Massachusetts Bay, then everything else in Arraganta Bay, Haverill, Springfield, they all have a certain number of spills per year.

Uh so uh to to get there, the team evaluated 39 different alternative uh projects, you know, think things that we could do to the system uh to to reduce those CSOs.

We rated those against a number of criteria, including cost, risk, timeline, construction impacts, code benefits, all trying to uh incorporate stakeholder impact into that.

Uh all of that will be documented in the draft plan that goes in.

Um happy to discuss it with anyone, but I won't get into the details of those mechanics uh tonight for part of this presentation.

Uh but I will uh highlight a few of our high-level conclusions.

Uh the first is that while on on the face of it, um a sewer separation might uh appear to be an obvious solution uh to a combined sewer problem.

Um but full-scale sewer separation is not the recommended plan from the technical team.

There's a number of reasons for that.

Keeping stormwater out of a separate uh sanitary sewer system is a very difficult thing.

There's stormwater gets in there.

So our upstream neighbors like Belmont and Arlington and Medford, who are ostensibly separate uh systems, do have quite a bit of stormwater that gets into their system and that flows into the MWRA system.

Uh the second piece is that there are downstream constraints in the MWRA system.

Deer Island can't be much bigger than it is, because it's on an island and there isn't much more land to expand it.

There are a number of pump stations between here and there that are also limiting factors, the Delore Pump Station, the Chelsea Headworks.

All of those are space constrained, particularly given where they are in Chelsea, um, so that the capability to upgrade those systems uh is is minimal or expensive.

So if you look at those upstream stormwater contributions and the downstream uh constraints, even if we fully separate, um we still have the net result that uh this the MWRA system gets overwhelmed and our our local systems get overwhelmed, and we have essentially sanitary sewer overflows that then make their way into the river anyway.

Um so it sewer separation does not solve the problem of keeping sanitary waste out of the receiving water bodies.

Uh the other problem is that you know, full sewer separation is a very difficult readexpensive thing to do.

Cambridge Somerville and Boston were built around pipes from the 19th century, and we simply cannot build pipes large enough in those narrow streets that it can accommodate these uh larger storms that we see with climate change.

Um so what we would need to do is build some additional facilities.

We would need to um have a decent amount of land taking uh to build the capacity within our dense city systems to accommodate that those range of flows.

Um so essentially that adds up to a prohibitively expensive solution that doesn't solve the root problem.

Now that's not to say that sewer separation isn't in our toolbox and we're not pursuing it.

It indeed is, but it's in targeted locations where we see CSO benefits or in targeted locations like especially in War II, where it helps us alleviate flooding.

Um so sewer separation is in the mix, but full-scale sewer separation for the nine square miles uh of combined in Cambridge Summer in Boston is not a recommended solution.

So the next high-level conclusion uh shared by the the technical team is that a 25-year-level control can't be achieved by this variance waters CSO plan.

In most basic terms, the the that storm, the you know, uh almost eight inches of rain over 24 hours causes widespread system failures coincident with flooding.

Um so that that combination, again, sort of like like the the sewer separation story, uh because the systems are completely overwhelmed, we have sanitary uh sewage coming up out of the manholes in the street, we have flooding in the street, then those two combine, get back into the catch basins and make their way out to the rivers.

So again, even if we uh um try to uh achieve that level of control, we we have uh an indirect routing of sanitary to to the rivers.

Uh the other thing to remember is that stormwater itself contains a whole host of contaminants, including bacteria.

So the MWRA receiving water body uh model was run uh and indicated that if you only remove CSO and ignored the stormwater component of the problem, you wouldn't have a significant increase in days that attain fishable and swimmable water standards.

Because the stormwater is such a large clearly getting solving the CSO problem does a lot of good and and on the face of it, it's something that should happen.

Um but uh you're you're not appreciably increasing area water quality unless you also look at at stormwater, which is not part of of the uh of this CSO plan.

Now that brings me to sort of uh in an important point is the inherent limitation of this regulatory process that we're in, what we're talking about here.

So again, what we're what we're looking at is opportunities to improve the system in an area of about nine square miles between Somerville, Cambridge, and Boston.

Um that's that's sort of the box in which we're operating.

If you and if you also acknowledge that stormwater is the root of the problems, both in terms of water quality and stresses on the system that causes other overflows.

Um other regions in the country that have been able to do this successfully, look at much larger areas and look at stormwater and flood control.

If you look at Philadelphia, New York City, Milwaukee, Washington, those are all ones in the in the industry that are sort of cited as success stories.

They're not looking at nine square miles.

They're looking at 140, 300, 350, 980 square miles in their district.

And they are in a unified way responsible for sewer and stormwater discharge.

Here in Massachusetts, on that land area for stormwater control, you're talking about 60, 70 different cities and towns for that same area, and each one of them has their own permit and is responsible for their own stormwater.

So coordinating at that scale is very difficult in this in this region.

Uh oh, just a quick aside, by the way, if you know the the supplemental slides, we've got some like really cool maps that Mike Hanley, um our inside uh GIS guy put together along with some help from uh Gina Cortez and uh Stephanie Almeida, a couple of our project managers.

I just want to highlight that again, with the support of the two administrations and the city councils and being able to build out the the faculty of the engineering department, we can do stuff like that in-house.

I'm so excited about that.

And just want to thank thank the council again for his continued support on that front.

Um back to business.

Uh so we concluded that we we can't um achieve that higher level of control with the constraints on on our um uh on our system.

Uh but there are other things at foot that can help look at that larger regional um uh goal.

There are several bills currently in committee, um, mostly Christine Barber's committee, uh, that uh look at or requesting uh CSO uh elimination.

Um there's also one uh put forward by the Charles River Watershed Association uh and uh a representative and a senator uh that looks at regional stormwater control and flooding.

Um those are avenues that I think Somerville, Cambridge, and MWRA really need to focus on on working with the legislature and and sort of breaking this parochial paradigm that is putting us into this box.

Um on a more local level, as you know, we're moving forward with the stormwater fee.

Uh that one of the primary motivators for that is so that um private property will manage stormwater on site.

So the less stormwater gets off their site into our system, uh the less CSOs we have.

Um so uh there's more to come on that.

The again, that same in-house technical team is is working on that, and you'll be hearing more on that.

Um the final high-level um uh conclusion that I do want to highlight uh in a second, we'll get into the into the details of what we are proposing.

Um, you know, we are cognizant um at least every May on concerns on uh the water and sewer rates, and you know, would it would we uh want to put forward uh a plan with very minimal control um as I say, most uh plans are approved for a number of out uh overflows per year.

Um EPA has given a strong indication and the the watershed advocates um are looking for a higher level of control than than what we're seeing nationally or or other places in the state.

Um so we're not looking to to minimize that, but we are trying to strike a balance between what's practical, as they say sewer separation and 25-year level of control doesn't do what we need, um, but we're not looking for uh a bare bones uh uh plan.

So with that, we can now talk about what the what the recommended plan actually is.

Uh and and first we'll sort of step through uh the the projects on a on a watershed by watershed basis.

Uh the first is the the alewife watershed.

Uh this plan is for some limited sewer separation, two storage tanks in Cambridge, and a nine-foot diameter one mile long was called micro tunnel uh spanning from Massav in Cambridge to Dilboy Stadium parking lot in Somerville.

Um those tanks and that tunnel provide what we call storage.

So what would have otherwise overflowed into the Alewife Brook will instead go into those tanks during those storms, and then after the storm is over, that water will get pumped back out back into the MWRA system and sent out to Deer Island for treatment.

Uh you know, we estimate uh the construction period for that to be 13 to 18 years to complete, uh, and cost for that program to be uh 340 million dollars, which would be split primarily between Cambridge and Somerville, uh, with MWRA picking up part of that bill.

Uh turning to the Mystic, uh the plan is for sewer separation in Winter Hill uh near Frost Park, which relies on the construction of the new drain and stormwater outfall in the Mystic River.

Uh I think a lot of people are familiar with the MROS project.

Um that's this one.

Go back one slide.

What is that meaning about available?

Um I'm gonna get to that in three slides.

Um so this is essentially MROS plus a storage tank in Assembly Square.

Um we envision it largely to be in the parking lot of the target uh what's uh uh I'm sorry, not target, um staples, uh uh the parking lot of staples, uh and we have been uh working with OSPCD and the P and Z staff on the development plans down there uh and and preserving uh an area for that tank under roads open space uh or or parking lots that will persist.

Um so you know we're we're planning ahead for the capability to do that.

Um that the uh the construction period for that is five to ten years, largely because we have a head start with MROS uh and the cost for that is around 170 million, which would be split 50-50 uh between Somerville and MWRA.

Uh finally for the Charles doesn't really sort of directly impact us.

We don't have any projects in Somerville that that contribute to this.

Uh but the plan is for targeted sewer separation in both Cambridge and Boston, plus storage in both those uh cities.

Uh you know, given the extent of that work and their lack of a head start, uh the completion time for that is 38 uh is up to 38 years.

Uh estimated cost is uh 360 million, and the cost for that is split between MWRA and Cambridge.

Um I will also point out that any cost that MWRA pickup indirectly filter to us because we get wholesale bills from MWRA.

Um so to uh Councilman Mabaz question what does that mean in terms of CSO limitation uh uh elimination?

Uh so for the uh upper mystic, um that does still keep us in the category of limited CSOs in a typical year.

We go from eight under current conditions to two uh and from uh total discharge of about uh 30 million gallons per year to about seven million gallons per year.

I will also highlight that that is a treated discharge.

MWRA currently has a facility under 93 um that screens and disinfects that they hit it with chlorine, declorine screen it, um, so so it is a treated discharge.

In the alewife, uh we get to that level of control, which means zero discharges in the typical year.

So for for that future 2050 typical year, we would expect to have no discharges uh from any of the outfalls in the Alewife.

Um in the over in the Charles, that is also uh a limited CSOs in the typical year.

Um that the number uh doesn't dramatically change uh in terms of the number of spills or the volume, but what it does do, it focuses on reducing the untreated discharges.

So the majority of what of that large number that remains is a treated discharge from MWRA's cottage farm facility.

So what it means is that in a typical or average year, there would be no discharge to the Illwife Brook.

But what it does mean is that in those big storms, which frankly we're we we are having problems system-wide anyway, and we're gonna have sanitary sewer overflows in the streets.

Um in those big uh storms, there is still sanitary component that that makes its way to uh ill life.

Now I understand that this concept of a typical year is a difficult one, and and I I didn't set up counselor mabad to ask these questions, but the next two slides help help um sort of give a better sense, right?

Um so this isn't something that we typically have to do, but I asked um our uh consultant Dewberry to run the actual rainfall record um uh through uh uh for for this new plan and compare it to what has actually happened.

Um it takes a very long time for this model to um to to run.

Uh so it the computer's been chugging away for about two and a half weeks, and we have a decade worth of uh worth of data.

He's gonna uh continue uh cranking out some more data for us uh so by December we'll have more.

But if you look back at the past decade, which we've had some very wet years and some very big storms in these years.

Um the reduction to so for Alefe Brook, we go from 109 events in that 10 year period down to nine spills.

Um the the so that's like a 92 percent reduction uh in activity.

Uh and if you look at the volume goes from 107 to 35 million gallons, uh again, about an 80 percent reduction.

So you can see that the red bars were the historical what happened and the blue bars are are what we predict will happen uh with the with the new system.

So you see there's there's a good number of years where there are zero discharges, a couple of years with one, and a couple years with two or three.

Um looking over at the mystic, the performance is actually um surprisingly better um than I was expected.

Uh again, we we go from 102 events to six over that uh 10 year period, and from 240 down to about nine or 10 uh million gallons in that 10 year period.

So uh it's it's decent performance.

Um so that then brings us to well, that's great.

What what will it cost?

Um now the counselors might remember some of my past uh discussions about this uh and around rates.

EPA has uh guidance and guidelines around financial capability.

Um so we we've run these through in and the numbers that I'm showing today are provisional.

Uh we're still refining some costs, plus we need MWRA to run their rates first and give us you know what their rate projections are, and then we can do ours.

We did some some estimation.

I don't think that the numbers are gonna change radically.

So I I think we're in the right ballpark, but these these numbers are gonna change by the time you see it in December and then again in May.

Um but the upshot is that that EPA methodology states that Somerville has the financial capacity to undertake this plan on this schedule.

Um and and while they they don't like to term use the term affordable, um, they say that it is not a burden on our ratepayers.

Um so we don't have any relief to go to anything lower than this essentially.

But what does that actually mean?

Again, you you should recognize this uh dashboard from our our rate discussions.

Uh one of the things to uh that um you know Ed Bean and I have have repeatedly said is we don't just look at next year's operating budget when doing the rate increases.

We have to look forward at the capital plan, and there are a number of key indicators that we need to keep positive so that our bond rating stays where it is, that we can uh you know afford to borrow money.

Uh you know, the the debt to service ratio, um, you know, the the total debt.

And given the magnitude of the projects ahead of us, what we need to do is start building up cash so that so that uh these projects that we're talking about aren't exclusively debt funded.

We can use a combination, a strategic combination of cash funding and debt funding.

So what that means, and again, these the we're gonna be working on these numbers and refining them by the end of the year, and again by May when we come with the rate um request.

We can expect that the requested rate increases for the next five years will be in the 20 to 15 percent per year um range and then starting to level off, and then after after we build up the rates and build up our capability to bring in cash, we can then lower it down to like the five to two percent per year.

So what are our next steps?

Um so next week, my counterparts at MWRA will be presenting to their board.

Um their board actually does have to vote to authorize them to um to submit it.

So the MWRA board presentation will be next week, and their vote will be at the subsequent meeting.

Uh we'll be finalizing and producing this report and submit it by that deadline at the end of the year.

2026 is the sort of um public review process.

Uh the will then take in all those comments, refine the plan as needed, resubmit it by January, uh, and then uh following that uh DEP and EPA, if there still is one at that point, uh, will issue an administrative order and the clock will start ticking uh for us uh on on executing these projects.

Um so it again, you're just thinking about what our next steps are.

Um, you know, we want to discuss the the council's reactions to this, get that in there.

You will then see um probably me again um in the May time frame for the uh 27 rate, and and as I say, we're we're thinking is probably gonna be in the 15 to 20 percent um for uh for that rate adjustment.

So thank you for bearing with me through this after already a long night and then a huge information dump.

Um I'm happy to take some some questions and and we can jump to the supplemental slides if if wanted.

Councilor Ba?

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I guess um those fundamentally like MWA communities, they're like a million communities.

There's there's 61 communities in the MWRA service area.

Yeah, so like how much does MWRA, you know, how much are they contributed to this project?

So the the negotiation of the cost sharing um uh has been tricky.

Um the the initial position of the authority at the end of the last um uh long-term control plan, and knowing that this next set was coming up in in the late 2020s and mid-2020s, their position had always been it's gonna be the community's problem.

It's gonna be Cambridge and Somerville.

Um somehow Boston overman outmaneuvered them.

I'm not quite sure how they they managed to do that, but Boston got free of it, and all of Boston's combined sewer area was assigned to MWRA.

Um so it's taken some negotiation to get MWRA to own some of the cost associated um with the alewife and and the mystic.

Largely it's tied to permit ownership of specific outfalls.

Um philosophically, I don't think that's a great thing, but it is what it is.

Um and so um what MWRA has agreed to to pay for as as an authority are mitigating flows associated with specific outfalls that are in their permit.

Um so they have a number of outfalls on the Charles, all on the Boston side that somehow got assigned to them.

Um the the outfalls essentially on the Cambridge side were assigned to Cambridge, so the Cambridge is responsibility.

The Mystic Um is named to both of us, so that's why we're splitting that one 50-50.

Um the ALWEF has uh a Somerville uh a Somerville outfall that spills quite a bit, um, a number of Cambridge outfalls that spill less, more frequently but less volume, uh, and then a very small um MWRA one.

So their contributions to the ill-wife side um are lower, at least as we've negotiated it thus far.

Um which is also why I bring it back to the larger regional effort and the the bills that are in committee.

Um I think that we need to look at this more as a larger regional problem um and and not necessarily Cambridge Somerville MWRA problem within the small box.

Um and if we can raise revenue through another mechanism to fund these things, all the better.

Because as everyone on the council well knows, when we're talking about affordability for us, we're under a constraint under Massachusetts law, the same uh utility laws that regulate you know EverSource and National Grid for electricity and gas, that utility bills can only be based on your use of that utility, and there is no income means-based for the utility bills that allow for adjustment on that.

And that holds true for Somerville, it holds true for all the MWRA communities.

Um you talk about affordability and impacts to low-income people, there is no relief if we look at this solely as a sewer utility um problem.

If we look at it from a regional benefit problem, and and you know, uh Mystic River Watershed Association and Charles River Water Studies Association are very articulately making the point that the success of the CSO mitigation program through the 80s and the 90s into the 2000s radically transformed Boston Harbor and the Charles River from what was something that was you know toxic that you had to stay away from to the fact that they have open beaches, urban beaches in Boston now.

That was unfathomable in the 80s.

There's an economic development component that goes along with this that isn't necessarily tied to sewer ratepayers.

Um it's it's a it's a regional economic uh uh growth uh uh element that has to be considered.

And in treature, I mean like because it one thing that is clear is that the MW are the MWRA is using you know ALY broke as an overflow, you know, see what for the uh on the size in the regional sewer system.

So and the that if you look if you think about it, you know, the created you you mentioned that was created by the state legislature for the express purpose of fixing you know this problem of you know, MWA must largely fund the elimination of seaweed pollution.

So at the Aloy Brook, so I really think that with a million households, you know, in their seaweed communities, they can afford it.

Don't you think yes.

Um but or and uh when you go deeper into MWRA's enabling legislation, um it it specifically it they're not technically in the stormwater business for all the communities.

Uh and and that's really part of the the mechanical problem here.

Um I think that it's certainly worth some conversations, um, and particularly at the state level, uh at uh what is MWRA's charter, and I do have to um admit I am uh the the chair of the MWRA advisory board.

Um so you know I I uh I I hear from my counterparts in the other 61 communities about um cost impacts um for these and and we have to be cognizant of of that.

So um there certainly has to be more discussion around how how these costs are shared, uh, because I'm I'm very much of the position that Somerville and Cambridge shouldn't be doing this all on their own.

Um and I am sympathetic towards MWRA's um desire to keep its rates low, knowing the pressure it has from the other 59 communities.

No, but I would just conclude by saying that the CSO was why MWRA was created.

Yes.

So yeah, so fix it.

Yes.

Mr.

President, can I ask a question on this point?

On that point, Council Union Camp and then Council Burnley.

Uh thank you, Mr.

President.

Through you.

When you say that uh the MWRA was assigned the outflows in Boston or you know the who is the doing the assigning.

Uh essentially DEP and EPA, and and this is why philosophically I have a problem with this.

Um the named assignments were essentially generated in the 80s when a permit writer was writing a permit and needed a throat to choke for each one of the pipes.

Um and really there's a because particularly on the ALWEF, there's so much symbiosis on those on those outfalls.

What you do at one affects the other.

And we had to fight MWRA to increase the size of that that you know input into it to correct for the fact that Camp 4 had now been closed.

There's so much intervalation that from a philosophical standpoint, I have a difficulty with it, especially since it was just an administrative way for a permit writer to have someone responsible for a thing.

Okay.

And so through you and when we're talking now about in these negotiations, is that pursuant to EPA and DEP who who pays what, or is it like you're as you write this plan, you're kind of negotiating as you go and we've we've been negotiating it as as we go.

Um DEP and EPA have wanted us to sort it out.

I mean, honestly, at one point in time, it was going to be three separate plans.

And it took Cambridge and Somerville insisting that that was absolute folly, that it would be three entities writing three plans not coordinating with each other, and and got everyone to agree that it had to be one plan.

Um which, you know, honestly, I I I should give some some shout outs that this has been an amazing process, and I think to the strength of the plan that we have three parties with their own army of consultants all working on this.

Um and particularly in the past year, um, we've spent a lot of time together, um, often disagreeing and then coming to consensus on on a lot of things.

Thank you.

Uh through the president, can we go back a slide?

Some questions on the previous uh let's keep going.

Slide 20, actually.

Slide 20.

Um a few clarifying questions.

Uh firstly up top, provisional bill impacts, 2008 percent increase from FY26 to FY55.

Is that accurate?

Okay.

Yeah.

And again, these the uh this provisional, the numbers are going to change, but not radically.

Um so you know, a 200 percent is a threefold, because like 100 percent doubles.

So it you know, what what it's looking like is is a threefold increase, a tripling of of the bills over the the next 30 years.

And it's provisional, partially because we don't know what the MR MWRA is inputting there.

Yeah, and and there we're still massaging some of the cost estimates and the the funding plan.

Like we we we sort of very quickly went through knowing we had to do it again, but like the the balance of cash fund versus debt, like the we we've got a lot of refinement on this to do, but I think you know that the the general ballpark that we're talking about is accurate.

And I think I saw on another slide uh through the chair that part of the uh decision making in terms of like the which level of increase per year happens is we're trying to front load um some of these costs so that we can plan out uh for expenses in the future, is that right?

Correct, yeah.

Essentially to it as as you know, Director Bean would say, what we what we need to do is maintain the health of the enterprise fund so that we can keep that positive bond rating.

So if these financial indicators get out of whack, then the bond companies will will downgrade our bonding capability, which will make it more expensive.

So we have to be forward looking on a number of financial indicators.

So essentially we have to jack up the rates early, start bringing in cash and then strategically fund through debt and cash.

And so I don't know what's going on over there.

And so the argument against that so for example next year, the FY27, uh that 20 percent usage rate increase, the argument against making that 15 percent uh then having some that other five percent basically spread among um for example like FY2032, FY33, 34 would be if we don't uh increase it that much next year, um what?

What we don't we're not gonna be able to get this work done, we're gonna we risk our bond rating going down to double A.

Yeah.

I mean it it's good questions.

We don't have all the data, we haven't played with all the numbers yet.

I think we'll play out with some of those scenarios, but but the general gist is is yes.

It it it um it puts us in worse positions in in later years.

And just uh beyond the the numbers, which I do think are very important and this council has talked uh quite a lot about uh the impact on uh rate holders uh previously.

Um but in terms of the combined sewer uh separation, you know, this is something that the this administration and previous administrations has put considerable amount of investment into uh uh particularly uh um around this area, around Highland Av.

Do we have a sense of where we're thinking about for where that separation needs to happen uh moving forward for this plan?

Yeah, uh so through through the president.

The the MROS is uh the the project that's currently in design.

We're gonna have a community meeting after the election.

Um counselor Strasov had the brilliant idea of delaying that for us.

Um is uh uh that's about 90 acres in Winter Hill that will be fast-tracked.

Uh uh we also have some uh sewer separation targeted for um Dane and uh Perry and Boynton Yards.

Um there may also we're we're also looking at some localized stuff in sort of the Capuano neighborhood, um, because there's this some problems uh over in the Capuano neighborhood that you know sewer separation will help.

So it's really targeted and and strategic um just not wholesale.

Uh I'll hold my fire for now.

Thanks.

Okay.

I saw a hand over here earlier.

Counselor Klingon, Councillor Scho today.

No.

All right.

Council Straussel.

There are a lot of things I wish to say, but I will uh speak off out we will Mr.

President through you to our director.

Let's talk.

Okay.

I am not let's talk.

Councilor Scott, and I will note that is it is my inclination to send this to finance for a deeper discussion in committee and then an opportunity for us to follow up when it comes back in hopefully three weeks, which I think is the next council meeting.

Um but by all means continue.

Um Councilor Scott.

Uh thank you, Mr.

President.

I just wanted to thank um Director Rage and his team.

Uh the very thorough supplemental materials.

There's some great stuff on page 54.

Uh and I'm very glad that you did not present all those slides to us.

I always love a good stormwater conversation.

I think my uh bottom line takeaway is that a lot of different um approaches to mitigating this were evaluated.

And yes, we're looking at a 3x increase in bills over a 30-year time stretch, but the actual full sewer separation wouldn't solve our problems and would result in a roughly 8x uh bill increase.

So I appreciate the the deeply technical work that's gone into this.

I'm sure we'll have a very long discussion in finance about it, but uh in general, my my historical opposition to raising the uh water and sewer rates have had more to do with the management of the department than the uh realities of the uh ongoing billion dollar infrastructure problem we're facing, and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to move forward in a different manner in a few months.

Thank you.

You and I spoke this week about this, and I asked your question about the um the makeup of that increase and and sort of a little bit of nuance there.

Can you speak to that just so folks uh in terms of the um pervious surface billing plan and how that plays into how an individual homeowner might look at the numbers that are up here and and make sure that folks are looking at it?

I I sort of um thank you, Mr.

President.

Um as uh I alluded to, we're moving forward with the stormwater fee currently.

Um all the sewer bills are are based on water use.

Um we are adding a factor, part of it will be based on water use, part of it will be based on impervious area.

Um so that's an important thing to remember as as we move forward.

While the the cumulative, you know, sort of citywide revenue generation needs to increase by threefold, because we're shifting to that impervious area, it won't it won't be the same across the board.

And and in addition to incentivizing property owners to to handle stormwater on site, um the other uh uh uh uh reason why we're doing that is to bring fairness to it.

So the the um the targets, the areas that the the properties with large impervious area will actually be bearing more of that increase than your your typical two or three family home will.

Um so certainly that the two or three family home built will be going up, um, but not by that threefold number.

Um and and uh by the time uh we're talking about rates next year, we'll have those those use cases for you so that you can see exactly how that breaks down.

Thank you.

Uh any further questions or discussion at this point?

No.

All right.

Um let's send this to uh finance for discussion.

Say that again.

Finance.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

All right, next group of items that we're gonna take up together out of order.

Madam Clerk.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

The next items that we will take out of order are 7.2, 3, 4, and 8.2.

And those are a request of the mayor requesting approval of the amended 90 Washington Street demonstration project plan.

A request of the mayor requesting approval of an amendment to the memorandum of agreement between the city council and the redevelopment authority regarding the redevelopment of 90 Washington Street.

A request of the mayor requesting approval of the development objectives for the redevelopment of 90 Washington Street, and an officer's communication from the executive director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development, conveying a summary of the 90 Washington process review and development objectives.

All right, excellent.

Um we have uh members of the administration here just to speak on this, uh which you introduce yourself for the record, and you have the uh have the floor.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

My name is Ben Demers.

I'm a senior planner with the economic development division of OSP CD.

And if you'll give me just one second to bring up slides, you can't do that.

Well, good to go.

All right, right.

Three, Mr.

President.

So as I said, my name is Ben Demers.

Um, I'm here to talk tonight about a few different items related to the 90 Washington Street uh development.

Um I am a senior planner with economic development.

I also do a lot of our coordinating work around uh redevelopment authority projects, so a lot of projects related to urban renewal uh and any properties that the redevelopment authority owns, including 90 Washington Street.

So tonight I'm gonna talk about a few items related to this project.

First, I'm gonna be revisiting the guiding documents for this project that lay out the high-level goals as well as the process for development, and I'll talk through a couple of small changes uh that we'd like to make to clean up the documents while leaving the process essentially the same.

Uh and then second, I'm gonna preview the next step in that process by presenting the development objectives and the program of uses that we would like to include in an RFP uh to select development partner.

So, first part buttoning up the documents, second part sort of moving forward in that process.

I'd like to be clear up top, we're not asking for any votes tonight.

There will be a council approval necessary for confirming any changes to the documents and also for confirming any development goals uh and a program of uses for the RFP, but we're gonna ask for that at a later time.

Uh tonight we're really just looking for feedback to kind of get the conversation started, answer any questions.

Um we're also intending to host a public hearing at the land use committee on November 6th.

Uh so there will be no votes requested until we've had that public conversation, uh, and then we'll come back to the council.

Um I'll also try to move quickly through some of this context given the time.

But just to walk through the agenda, so I'll do some quick context.

I'll talk about the first item that I referenced, so um the guiding documents, and then I will talk about the development objectives and the program of uses for an RFP, and then I'll talk about some next steps.

Any questions up top?

Okay.

So this is the part that I'll try to move fairly quickly through as a reminder for anyone tuning in.

This is 90 Washington Street.

Uh, this is a four-acre parcel that the Somerville Redevelopment Authority owns in uh on the border of East Somerville and the Interbelt neighborhoods at the intersection of Washing Washington Street and New Washington Street.

As you can see, it's kind of an interestingly shaped parcel, it's triangular back from the intersection of Washington and New Washington, and then it also has what we call this sort of tail section down in the southeast corner of the parcel that wraps around a few different buildings at the adjacent Cobble Hill apartments.

So the SRA took this property back in 2019 to serve as the site of a new public safety building, along with complementary transformative development, and also to remove the existing Cobble Hill Plaza, which was a vacant commercial plaza at the time.

So without getting too deep into the finances, again, for those who probably know this history, the SRA and the city have paid a total of 39 million dollars towards this site.

This is a combination of the initial $9 million that were spent at the taking, and then the SRA was successfully sued by the former owner.

And the resulting judgment required a payment of about $30 million between land value and interest.

Obviously, this unexpected expense impacts the city's ability to offer other key services and pursue vital capital projects.

So for this reason, in January 2025, the city announced a bit of a shift in direction that it would focus on the sale of the property for private redevelopment without including the public safety component of the project to try to recoup more of the funds that were spent in this taking.

So the goal tonight is really moving us more in this direction.

So as we're talking about shifting direction, let's go back to the documents that lay out the process for 90 Washington Street as well as the high-level goals.

These documents are the 90 Washington Street Demonstration Project Plan.

This was the basis for the original taking in 2019, and this really kind of lays out more of the detail of the process.

And then there is also a memorandum of agreement from 2019, so signed at the same time that the demonstration project plan was moving forward.

This includes some expectations that the SRA and the city council had for each other in this process, but it primarily includes the same process that's laid out in the demonstration project plan.

So each of these two documents name the goal of developing a public safety complex and then the complementary transformative development as the goals for the project, and they lay out various project steps.

So the DPP, the demonstration project plan names these process steps with a little bit more detail, so I'm just going to walk through them.

The first is approving the demonstration project plan.

So as we know, this is completed in 2002.

The second is the acquisition of 90 Washington Street.

So this also moved forward in 2019.

The third phase of the development is project delineation and design.

This is ongoing.

This is related to the discussion later in the second half of this meeting.

This was intended to include the work of the public safety building committee around the public safety component of the project.

And then it was also the public engagement process to determine what people wanted to see from the private redevelopment portion of the project.

And any of that would need to be approved by the council before moving forward.

The fourth step that's laid out in that process is a request for proposals, so soliciting proposals for development on the site.

From there, the SRA is meant to negotiate a land development agreement as they do with all development deals, and then that land development agreement would also need to be approved by the council.

And then the last point that I'll talk about here is the fifth phase, so project implementation.

In this phase, it's quite broad.

This really just talks about SRA and staff working with the selected developer to implement the project.

And it notes that any project needs to break ground within three years of the date of the land transfer.

So for any changes in high-level project goals and process that we just talked about, we need to amend the demonstration project plan and the MOA.

So I want to stress we're keeping these changes very limited.

It's really just about cleaning the documents up since we're largely looking to use that same process that we have just talked through.

So the first thing that we are recommending to do, and I should note that there's more detail on this in the documents that were shared with the item, and which will be discussed more at the November 6th land use committee hearing.

But the first step is that we would remove the high-level goal of creating a public safety building.

So just explicitly take that out of the plan and then add an explicit goal of recouping funds from the sale of the land.

The second change, this is really also just a cleanup item.

We would replace reference to the technical advisory committee with the civic advisory committee.

So for those who do not know, the 90 Washington Street Civic Advisory Committee is a group of uh community stakeholders who are invested in this project, and they advise the SRA on implementation of the demonstration project plan.

So they have already been meeting since I believe early 2023.

This is again just changing the process that is in the plan to match what we were already doing, and this is the current standard for uh SRA projects that the council has uh helped finalize.

And then the final note here is uh to lengthen the time in which a developer can break around on a project when selected.

So this is to allow for greater flexibility in developer discussions and negotiations that the SRA would lead.

Um the goal here again, just making sure that we can uh have a successful negotiation that allows us to recoup as much value as possible from the parcel.

So that is kind of the first half of what I wanted to talk about.

As I said, we'll talk more about that at the November 6th meeting.

Um I did want to leave time for any questions now before going into the development objectives.

Councillor McLaughlin and then Brentley.

Uh Councilor Bradley first.

Thank you through you.

Um what happens if the ground isn't broken in three years?

So currently, what is um what is referenced in the demonstration project plan is that if ground is not broken within three years, the redevelopment authority retains what is called the right of reverter, so the right to take back the property for no cost.

So it's a strong incentive that the redevelopment authority is able to use to make sure that projects happen within a time that people want to see them happen.

So we definitely understand we still want to see this project moving.

We understand that a major goal of this is to eliminate blight on that property.

People want to see redevelopment happen there.

It's really just to allow for a bit more flexibility in the negotiation process.

Just quick follow-up.

And so I I understand the lengthening of that time.

But a provision of that sort would still be uh in this uh updated plan, yes.

So yes, the we would still be able to keep the right of reverter, um, like the SRA would still be able to keep the right of reverter in the land uh development agreement that they could negotiate with that development partner.

Thank you.

Council McLaughlin.

Other questions?

Okay.

Okay.

Let's move to the second half of things.

So the other substantive item I wanted to talk about this evening is previewing the development objectives and the program of uses.

And again, I'm pulling this language from the demonstration project plan.

So really it's talking what is the more detailed description of what people want to see on the site, and then kind of what is the mix of uses that would be a part of the project.

Um, as I mentioned quickly, phase three of that process in the demonstration project plan.

Um notes that these objectives and program of uses need to be approved by the council.

And I'm just gonna say again, we're not asking for a vote tonight, we just want to introduce them ahead of future discussions.

Um these objectives and the uses reflect what staff heard and engagement between primarily between 2022 and 2023, um, and then that have also been refined over the past few years with the 90 Washington Street Civic Advisory Committee.

Um so that engagement asked people primarily what they want to see from the private redevelopment that was meant to complement the public safety complex.

And so we have extrapolated to apply to the entire site now that we're focusing on private redevelopment for the full property.

Um we also sought to um also include the financial priorities that the city has articulated given the increased value paid for the taking.

So just to walk through these, and again, this is essentially language we're looking to include in the request for proposals.

So the first is recouping a significant portion of funds uh paid for the taking of 90 Washington Street.

Um we have this first because we want to be very explicit that this is a top goal and should factor in heavily to how uh a development team responds to this RFP.

Again, the SRA has committed to repaying at least a portion of the funds paid for the taking.

So they also have stressed that this is very important to them to be explicit about and to say explicitly in an RFP that this is something that they will weigh heavily.

The next objective is to achieve some or all of the following land uses.

Um these are fairly straightforward.

One is new housing.

There's been a lot of discussion at the Civic Advisory Committee about wanting to see new housing on this site, um, including affordable options, a range of sizes, and then also new commercial space.

We've especially heard about a desire for ground floor retail, um, and more specifically for things like grocery stores and dining options and pharmacies.

Uh so this is really looking to replace some of the things that used to exist at the Cobble Hill Plaza on the site.

Uh we then also hear a desire for new civic space, and it's a little civic space here is a phrase talking more about spaces for nonprofit organizations, community groups.

I know we can talk about it in Somerville more as kind of a park, but that's really what it's getting at for the RFP for a broader audience.

And then also green space, so active and passive recreation and gathering areas.

We've obviously heard the importance of that in this area, especially from the neighbors at Cobble Hill.

Um, and then the third point here is around various development objectives.

And this gives a better sense to the kind of project that people really want to see.

So, as I mentioned, mixed use building formats, people want to see housing generally above ground floor retail.

Um, this is something that came up a lot in CAC conversations and from engagement.

We also heard a desire for uh dense development on the site that introduces significant new housing.

So we've given the guidance that this should match density in our two densest zoning districts.

Um we also though want to be respectful of the neighbors of this parcel.

And so we're giving the direction that as much as possible we want that density to be uh concentrated on the western portion of the site, closer to the MBTA station, and so further away from the adjacent Cobble Hill apartment buildings.

To this end, we also uh want to see flexibility in form or massing.

Um this is really to encourage respondents to think about okay.

If we're asking to see greater density on the site, uh are there ways in which you can push the building forms that we currently have available within the Summerville zoning code, especially given kind of the unique um shape of this parcel, the tail that comes off of the main portion.

Um so just thinking how that they can be creative in using that space.

The fourth is sustainable design, so compliance with Somerville Stretch Energy Code and demonstrating leadership in resilient design.

Fairly straightforward.

The fifth also fairly straightforward, no surface parking.

So this is about complying with um the Summerville zoning ordinance given the proximity to the transit station.

The sixth is that we want to encourage robust urban canopy and natural landscape.

Uh and the the parts of this that I want to pull out, so especially thinking about how we can use green space to create an appropriate buffer to the adjacent Cobble Hill apartments, whilst uh and also preserve viable existing trees where possible.

This is something we heard a lot about from Cobble Hill residents.

And then the final piece here is diversity equity and inclusion in the development process.

Uh so people want to see a high proportion of women in minority business, uh, women and minority-owned business enterprises participating in various uh stages of the development.

So I have one other point about um implementation, but it this probably makes sense as a place to stop to ask if there are any questions about um the development objectives and the program of uses as they're laid out in this language.

And I should note we've discussed this with the Civic Advisory Committee, and we've also discussed it with the SRA ahead of this meeting this evening questions or discussion on that section of the presentation, Councilor Scott.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh this all sounds great, and it sounds uh in in the general form like what we should have been doing from the very start.

So I I appreciate this revisitation of it.

Uh I will say though, after uh being downright gas-lit uh based on the language of the last plan that we passed, uh, I'll be giving this a very clear read and a very careful read uh while it's in land use.

So look forward to the discussion there, and uh I'll be sure to follow up with any any comments in writing uh to the planning department when it's or OSPCD when it's time.

Thank you.

Other discussion questions?

Council McGovlin.

Uh no questions tonight, Mr.

President.

And I believe you're gonna send this to the land use committee.

Uh as was stated, we will have a public hearing on this on November 6th, 6 30.

Uh it's gonna be a hybrid meeting, so we'll be meeting in person with a remote option.

Um I will have a lot more questions after that public hearing, so I'm not gonna spend time tonight asking questions.

Okay, nothing further this time.

Mr.

Breish.

Yep, okay.

Um I did just want to make one uh last note on implementation here, uh, which is just related to the general plan for rezoning the parcel.

Um so currently the zone the site is zone civic.

Um this is gonna need to be rezoned to allow for the type of transformative mixed use development that we want to see on the site.

Um so just want to articulate the current intention is to rezone the parcel in response to um proposals we get to the RFP process.

Uh so in partnership with a development partner that responds based on the proposal that they bring in uh and how they see fit to meet the goals that we have laid out in those objectives.

Uh so there are strengths to both both approaches to rezoning prior and to also rezoning in response to uh the proposals that we actually get in from the RFP.

Um ultimately we felt that it made sense to have that flexibility in the process.

Obviously, any proposal that comes forward for future rezoning needs to come before the council.

So there will be many future discussions about zoning.

Just want to articulate clearly that that's currently our approach to rezoning the parcel.

Other questions or discussion?

Mr.

Vice President, we take the chair for a moment.

Gentleman Davis.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um thank you for this, Mr.

Demers.

Um, I uh concur with my good colleague from Ward 2 that this seems like uh uh excellent reflection of what perhaps we might have done from the get-go um had we not taken the detour that we took.

I think my propositions are all twisted around here because the hour is late.

And yes, I'm channeling Bill White intentionally because I believe he he was uh famously characterized that uh union square zoning process as being um pass Accords um and uh and I I share that view and I have said uh a number of times over the years that I don't want to see that happen again.

Um I do agree that in this case this is the right sequence and the right approach.

For a number of reasons, it's a much smaller parcel.

Uh it's a single parcel, could become multiple parcels, but nothing at the scale of of union square that unit square was.

Um and we have the opportunity to have learned from the lessons of union square.

Um we have examples like the old powder house school where the RFP process, you know, very clearly laid out what we want as a community.

We have the civic advisory committee that has put countless hours into uh you know uh informing the administration uh you know what they would like to see.

Um so I'm optimistic uh about this approach.

Um I will very much um uh uh bear in mind the lessons learned in Union Square when we do get to the zoning stage.

Um I I think you know uh if while while there is an uh I'll say an underlying goal, you presented it as sort of the the the top of the line to to recoup the costs.

I I look at this as we are where we are, and we need to do what's best for the city going forward um as a whole, and to me it serendipitously, those two things are almost entirely overlap.

Um making the highest and best use of this parcel, which is almost directly on top of a mass transit stop.

Um the community has expressed a strong desire for dense housing.

Um all of those things are are are the same things that we would do uh to to maximize the the amount of of uh you know money that we can recoup.

So um I I look at it from from you know what I see as the first point like let's do what's best here.

Um I I think that'll also help us recoup the the the funny but the money, but that's not that's not to me that's not the number one goal.

Uh the number one goal is let's get it right this time.

Um so I look forward to that.

Um thank you for for taking this approach.

Um thank you for the for the presentation.

I'm excited to have this conversation in land use and uh let's you know we'll we'll get something good here uh finally.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further question or discussion at this point?

Is that everything from your end, Mr.

Demurs?

Yes, that's everything for me.

So this will be referred to land use with a copy to the planning board involved in that one too?

Yes, copy of the planning boot and the SRA.

Um this uh as count as the good counselor from Ward 1 noted, the um public hearing is already scheduled uh for November 6th.

Uh that is posted on the what city's website uh so folks can uh take a look at the call there.

Um these slides are uh available on this item on the city council's agenda.

Okay.

Uh so folks can uh catch up on those as well too.

Very well.

Thank you.

Thank you for the time.

I am inclined to press forward and and if members need to uh take a quick break, then they can do that uh as we get going.

But um since we're about to start the night's business at 1013, um let's let's press forward.

Um Madam Clerk, back to the top of the agenda.

Yes, Mr.

President.

Councillor McLaughlin.

Mr.

President, I would like to waive the readings of items number 4.2 to 4.6 and move for approval.

These are all items that I hope the next mayor will take very seriously, whoever they may be.

All right, those items are approved.

Seeing no objection.

The next item then is item 6A, a report of the committee on finance meeting on October 21st, 2025.

As we discussed the reports, I will remind the chairs that all of these meetings are on video, available to the public.

The reports are available on the uh city council's website in this agenda.

And we have the opportunity tonight to hear any really important bits of information that you might feel necessary to share.

Counselor Wilson.

Mr.

President, on that note, the finance committee met on Tuesday, October 21st with all five members present.

We took up a 10-on agenda over the course of a 27-minute meeting.

And we unanimously recommended that you approve tonight.

All the things listed on the agenda for the finance committee.

Uh I will ask the committee report be accepted as submitted.

All right.

Discussion on the report.

Uh seeing none of the report is approved.

That puts four items before us.

That's correct, Mr.

President.

And if the council is so inclined, you can take those all up together.

Why don't you give us a quick summary of those just in case anyone?

It is uh appropriating $56,215 and 42 cents from the bike share stabilization fund for installation and startup costs of a blue bike station at the 495 Columbia Street Development Site, appropriating 147,724 and 7 cents from the COVID-19 stabilization fund for the 2026 warming center.

Uh creating the brick bottom infrastructure stabilization fund and accepting a payment of 763,814 and 81 cents from off-site infrastructure and other contributions outlined in the brick bottom district project development covenants for the purpose of funding public infrastructure projects that mitigate the impact of large-scale development in the brick bottom district and creating the Boynton Yards Infrastructure Stabilization Fund and accepting a payment to the fund of $384,000 from off-site infrastructure and other contributions outlined in the Boyton Yards District Project Development Covenants for the purpose of funding public infrastructure projects that mitigate the impact of large-scale development in the Boynton Yards District.

Any discussion on any of those four items?

Seeing none, then uh no objection to taking them up uh together.

Uh Madam Clerk, on all four of those items.

Counselor Wilson.

Yes.

Counselor Ewan Campen.

Yes.

Counselor Scott.

Yes.

Counselor McLaughlin.

Yes.

Counselor Burnley.

Aye.

Counselor Said.

Yes.

Counselor Strezzo.

Yes.

Counselor Klingon.

Yes.

Counselor Mboss.

Yes.

Counselor Davis.

Yes.

With all counselors in favor, those items are approved.

Very good.

Thank you.

The next item then is going to be item 6B, a report of the Committee on Legislative Matters, meeting on October 20th, 2025.

Counselor Scott.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

We met for a brisk 10 minutes.

And just reviewed language that had been requested at previous uh that will put an item before us after this report is hopefully uh accepted, uh, which is simply approval of a home rule petition which raises the thresholds by which the city can use an abbreviated or preferential purchasing process uh for small number jobs uh as long as the businesses awarded are disadvantaged, diverse, or small and local.

Uh so it's just a way following our procurement study that we long awaited uh to actually start to address some of those inequities.

Mr.

Chair, how do we determine whether business meets those categories?

Uh well, it has to meet uh certification by the supplier diversity office of the city of Boston, or by virtue of another certification process approved by Summerville.

Thank you.

Any uh anything further?

As that the report be accepted as submitted, sir.

Any discussion on the report.

All right, seeing none, the report is approved on the on the HRP.

And on the Home Road petition to raise the sound business practices and written quote contract thresholds under Mass General Law Chapter 30 B for city contracts with certified disadvantaged businesses.

Counselor Wilson.

Yes, Councilor Ewan Campen.

Yes.

Counselor Scott.

Yes.

Counselor McLaughlin.

Yes.

Counselor Burnley.

Aye.

Counselor Said.

Yes.

Counselor Strezzo.

Yes.

Counselor Klingon.

Yes.

Counselor Mbaugh.

Yes.

Counselor Davis.

Yes.

With all counselors in favor, that item is approved.

Very well.

The next item then is the report of the committee on public utilities and public works meeting on October 15th, 2025.

Council Klingon.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Through you, all members were present.

Uh I think it was like a half an hour meeting, just a couple of items in the box.

Um, I'll just quickly say uh one because um it was kind of a pretty big deal in the McGoon Square area with all of the uh power outages.

Um I'm good.

Uh the power outages uh in the McGoon Square area.

There was a um really good memo attached from the utility company uh attached to the agenda, so I recommend the board counselor and um uh take a look at that.

Um and then uh we had a discussion about uh MBTA furnishings and standardizing that that was kept in committee.

Uh yeah, so the video is online.

I uh I asked that this report be accepted as submitted.

Any discussion on the report?

All right, seeing none, that is approved.

Mr.

President, can I move to waive the readings of items seven five to seven nine and ask those to be sent to finance?

See no objection, those items are sent to finance.

That brings us to item 7.10.

Uh request of the mayor requesting approval of the surveillance technology impact report for use of an unmanned aircraft system at the high school.

Mr.

President, I request wave the readings of 710 through 713 and send those to legislative matters.

Those are all uh surveillance technology impact reports for new technology or well, new reports for technology, so folks can take a look at those.

Those will all be sent to legislative matters.

Thank you.

Item 8.1 is an officer's communication from the chief assessor requesting to appear at this council's November 13th, 2025 meeting for the tax classification public hearing and the determination and adoption of tax levy percentages for fiscal year 2026.

That item is approved.

Item 9.1 is a public communication from Tufts University conveying its fall 2025 accountability report.

That item is placed on file.

Item 9.2 is a public communication from Harvard University conveying its fall 2025 accountability report.

That item is placed on file.

Item 10.1 is an officer's communication from the city clerk conveying block party licenses issued.

Woohoo, block parties.

That is what block party.

No, but block parties are awesome.

And since there's only one in this list, if you don't have a block party, you should call the clerk's office and find out how to do it, because they're great.

That item is placed on file.

Council Brentley.

Item 10.10.2.

Um through the chair, I'd like to waive the reading of item 10.2 to through 10.5 and ask that these all be approved.

All right.

Seeing no objection, those items are approved.

Item 10.6 is a public communication from Bill Valletta submitting comments regarding item 25-1557 requesting approval to create the brick bottom infrastructure stabilization fund.

Council Wilson, do we send that want to send that one to finance?

Yes, Mr.

President.

Uh well, actually that just came out.

So, uh on the item, Mr.

President.

Uh I would recommend uh placing it on file.

Um it's and I would recommend everybody actually read this.

It is an absolutely withering indictment uh of a problem that many of us in this chamber have complained about, which is their stabilization funds.

They have funds sitting unspent.

Uh and the tracking of all this has been woefully understated.

So uh much as my colleague from Ward 1, I appreciate this.

I hope everybody takes a look at it, and I'm I hope the next mayoral administration will be uh cooperative in helping to address this.

Thank you.

All right, very well.

That item is placed on file.

And that brings us to the end of the agenda, Mr.

President.

Are there any late items?

There are no further items before this council.

All right.

Councilor Wilson moves to adjourn.

We are adjourned.