Hello, everyone.

I am Ben Wheeler, he, him pronouns, counselor at large, and finance committee chair.

It is 6 p.m.

on the dot, and I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, April 21st, 2026 meeting of the Finance Committee of the Somerville City Council.

This meeting of a city council committee will be conducted via remote participation following Chapter 2 of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Acts of 2025.

We'll post an audio video recording and comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels.

We are joined by Clerk Delaney Fisher Cassial.

Clerk, could you please call the role to establish quorum?

Absolutely.

This is roll call.

Counselor Link.

Counselor Strasbo.

President.

Counselor Hart.

Here.

Councillor Scott.

Chair Wheeler.

Here.

All right.

With that, we do have all members present, so we have Quorum.

Thank you.

We will be taking up our 19-item agenda in the order posted.

As a general note, if I pronounce your name wrong or I get your title wrong or use the wrong pronouns for you, please don't hesitate to interrupt me.

I want to get it right.

Okay.

So starting off with the minutes, ID 26-0640, approval of the April 7th, 2026 minutes.

Seeing none, that item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

A 125,000 grant for Dilboy Field Lighting.

Sorry, I let me read the actual text of the title.

Requesting approval to accept and expand a 125,000 dollar grant that requires a match from the Department of Energy Resources to the Office of Sustainability and Environment for Light Retrofitting at Dilboy Field.

We have Director of Sustainability and Environment, Steven Nutter here.

And I'm here to request your approval and acceptance of 125,000 from the state, the uh Department of Energy's uh Green Communities program uh to uh uh help the cost of replacing the lighting at uh Dilboy Field.

Um we originally uh had uh taken about uh $300,000 from the Energy Stabilization Fund earlier this year uh to pay for this grant uh to pay for this uh project.

Um and then in March, we were awarded a 125,000 from the state to cover that effectively reducing the cost of our um of our project to about 175,000, uh which reduces the payback uh significantly down to just over almost a about a year, 1.4 years.

Um here tonight to to ask for you to uh accept this grant.

It will uh one of our this one is one of our our key projects to do replace lighting uh around the city to reduce our operational costs, uh reduce our uh uh our uh and help d decarbonize our our facilities and operations in general.

Thank you, Director.

Members of the committee, do you have any comments or questions?

Um Director Nutter, how does lighting add to decarbonization?

Well, the the current lighting system there uh is um uh it uses pretty significant amount of energy and generates a lot of heat.

You might also hear a buzzing uh as you're as you're up in the that area.

Um these are LED lights, uh the you know one of the the latest that we have, and so they're very bright.

Uh they're they're also controlled uh remotely.

Uh so we don't necessarily have to go to be on site to do these things to turn them on and off and that sort of thing.

Um, just generally it's a much lower energy cost.

Thank you.

I see counselor Scott.

Uh yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, just one thing.

Uh I just wanted to make sure.

Uh, first I wanted to ask if you've uh identified and specified the lighting that's going to get procured and installed here yet.

Uh yeah, uh Chair, through you, I um we we have uh a consultant, AECOM who has prepared our uh our lighting design and program.

Uh I don't believe we've actually procured them yet, but it's been specified in the in the documents.

All right.

Now I just want to make sure that uh uh that y'all have uh paid attention to the you know dark sky requirements and uh like the frequency of that light.

You know, we sometimes we've had some uh lights procured that were very blue uh that are outside of our policy.

Is that something y'all reviewed as you were preparing it?

Um I I can't tell you um if I if it was reviewed uh during the process, but we did have a conversation um recently um with the public space in urban forestry um uh talking about some of some of these items.

Um I can follow up with you um after the meeting with specific information if you like.

Yeah, I'd I'd appreciate that.

Uh just want to make sure that we're uh sticking by the the ordinances we have on on file here.

So uh if you could uh just follow up with any later, I just want to make sure that um what we're procuring is not gonna be a mistake that we're gonna be stuck with for 50 years.

So appreciate it.

Uh thank you, counselor.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say.

Uh any other comments or or questions or concerns from committee members.

Okay, seeing none, uh that item is placed on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Uh, thank you, Director.

Okay.

Thank you.

Take care.

We have uh item three, ID 26-0506 requesting approval to accept and expend a $30,000 gift from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to the public library for library operations.

And I believe we have library director Kathy Piantagini here.

Director Piantagini, would you please tell us about this gift?

Sure thing.

Hi, counselors.

So um you may all know already, but each one of our existing library structures was built with Carnegie money back in the early 1900s.

And out of the blue, a little bit more than a year ago, the Carnegie Foundation reached out to municipalities that still have their Carnegie buildings being used as public libraries to say, hey, you know, in recognition of the 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence, um, we would like to make a gift.

And the gift is $10,000 per existing library.

So for Somerville, that was three libraries and $30,000.

Wonderful news.

Um any questions or comments from committee members.

I see Counselor Hart.

Hi, thank you so much.

And thank you for for being here tonight uh through the chair.

I'm just curious if you could tell us a little bit more about if you have already in mind um uh what you plan to use the money for or any priorities.

Thank you.

Um through you to the um to counselor wheeler or through counselor wheeler to you, sorry.

Um I don't want to put it is fine.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Um I don't have any uh immediate plans to use it.

Um I like the idea that it's gonna go into our consolidated.

I'm assuming it will go into our consolidated gift account.

Um and the gift is unrestricted.

So it could be a good opportunity to just supplement the services that we already you know are offering thank you.

Thank you, Director.

Um are there any other questions from members of the committee.

Okay, seeing none, uh I'm very happy to lay this item on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Um next one is also library related.

Uh item four, ID 26-0507, requesting approval to accept and expend a $300 gift from James and Linda Heisen to the public library for materials for the West Branch Library.

Director Piantagini, could you tell us about this gift, please?

Sure thing.

So from time to time, we receive donations to the library from individuals.

In this case, the Heisen family, it was a donation in recognition of a relative gay heisen who was a longtime volunteer for the Somerville Library, uh, particularly at the West branch, who passed away recently.

And because of the check that we received from the Carnegie Foundation.

So typically these checks of smaller amounts of money, when they're received, they automatically just get inputted and we send them off to the finance department.

But what I learned was that it seems like any sort of donation that's made to the library should go before the finance committee.

And so that's why you're starting to see this particular donation.

So this happens a couple of times a year, particularly around the holidays, excuse me, where we'll get uh, you know, a donation in recognition in recognition of somebody's wedding or you know, somebody passing, or because it's like the holidays, and that's what that is.

Thank you so much.

Unless there's any questions or comments, uh, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Uh thank you, Director.

Sure thing.

Thanks, everybody.

Okay, contracts and agreements.

Item five, ID 26-0512, requesting approval of a five-year extension to the lease with BWB Square LLC for Nibble Community Kitchen.

Um, I believe we have always need to check to make sure.

Yes, I think we have both.

Uh Program Coordinator Anthony Baum and ARPA Director Erica Satin Hernandez.

Uh, coordinator Baum or Director Satin Hernandez, can you please tell us about this lease extension?

Um absolutely.

Thank you, committee, for the time this evening.

Um, this is a five-year lease extension for the existing uh nibble kitchen location at Bow Market in Union Square.

And we are looking to expand our lease by five years, essentially to continue operations and to expand our our reach and our bandwidth.

Um the kit the community kitchen, excuse me, um, is sort of the physical location and central hub of the overarching Nibble um entrepreneurship or culinary entrepreneurship program.

Thank you.

Um, and director Sadina Hernandez, do you have anything that you wish to add about this?

Okay.

Uh thanks through you.

Chad Tony has covered it very well, and I'll I'll leave to him and I'll be supportive where needed.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I see Counselor Strezzo.

How's it going?

Thanks a lot.

Um, Mr.

Chair.

Okay.

So I had reached out to the administration earlier about this uh the rent uh price proposal form and the contract and the lease signature.

And uh wanted to note that looks like from the first year to the fifth year in that the lease price has increased $8,000 from uh 40k-ish the first year, now to 48,600.

Um, and with that, in a time where, as we've discussed in uh the budget conversation, what was it last week, two weeks ago?

How excise taxes are down specifically for rent uh restaurants and how um people aren't dining out as much right now because everybody's tightening their belts.

Um, a lot of people are not doing well financially, and there is a very good intuition that this will increase as Nivell Kitchen is a restaurant.

I was really hoping to also include in the conversation office uh either economic development or OSPCD to discuss what the with the financial plan or what the business plan going forward with Nibble Kitchen in the years to come with an $8,000 increase from five years of a rent um increase in a time where people aren't dining out as much.

Um what is a plan to make sure that uh everybody's okay financially and that if as many diners aren't going out to Nibble Kitchen?

What is what's the plan?

How uh what's the forecast or what are you thinking going forward?

So uh yeah.

Um yes, thank you for the question through the chair.

I would push back slightly on the notion that people are not dining out as much or their revenues are down.

Um our program revenues does that derived through um kitchen sales and through you know direct revenue are consistent over the last five years with with blips with ups and downs.

Um but during that time we had to endure COVID, of course, and also um pretty stark moments of inflation.

And our program revenues mostly derived through kitchen operations have been quite consistent throughout that time.

Um you'll you'll see in the memo that the estimate um that we will need to bring in through program revenues is five thousand dollars, and that's not restaurant revenue, that's program revenue from the contribution of our program users.

Um we operate on a profit sharing model um is five thousand dollars, and that we have consistently over the last five years that I've been in charge of this program, have consistently brought in between 4,000 and 4500 um in program revenue per month.

And that's without any specific decision making or without a clear goal in mind.

Um so I we feel quite confident that with this information, knowing exactly what it is that we need to um achieve in revenues and having a clearly stated goal that we'll be able to impact our decision making, um, we'll comfortably be able to increase that revenue from 4,500 monthly to around $5,000 monthly.

And also noted in the memo, we received um a jobs creation retention trust grant in the amount of $50,000 for the next two years.

And we feel that with both that grant providing a cushion and for uh future grants that we intend to apply for, we feel quite comfortable that we'll be able to derive the necessary revenues.

Uh uh through uh through the chair to you, Mr.

Baum, uh, thank you for that.

Uh I gently push back that it is not accurate that people are going out and uh not uh not dining as much.

We have the absolute numbers and statistics to prove that's true.

And even just you know, as I've mentioned before, the Boston Globe article very recently that people are eating more at home.

They're not going out to eat at restaurants as much.

Um yeah, there has been a lot of endurance between uh the pandemic when I first started serving.

Uh and and just oh my gosh, what are restaurants going to do to now?

And I'll make it clear that I I very much um appreciate Nibble Kitchen's presence in um our city and its importance because it is important.

So I'm I support this.

Uh there is no concern about that at all.

Uh I worry about uh with the bleak forecast of how that looks and wanted to know if there was a thought on that, and I appreciate your answer.

But yes, people are not financially doing well, and uh want to make sure and when we talk about this uh next time it's come up.

I I hope and I though just an open conversation about it and and make sure that you continue to do well uh in the years to come.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And just through the chair to clarify my point, it was only reflective of Nibble's performance over the past handful of years, not the industry as a as a whole.

Thank you.

I see Counselor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Um through you, I just want to say how much uh I I love um Nibble Kitchen.

Um I'm so glad that we're able to continue this.

Uh you know, it's um it's it's kind of in my nick of the woods, so I get to um go there regularly, see all these different um amazing uh like startup restaurants.

Um, you know, the uh my favorite being Caralicious, which has done such a great job starting in Nibble Kitchen and you know, just expanding.

Uh and it's really great to see that this, I mean, it's just it's it's such a great service.

It's such a great um you know, engine um to our uh our our restaurants uh you know it it's it's a it is a you know an amazing thing.

Um I'm very happy to support it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I see counselor Scott.

Uh thank you, Ms.

Chair.

Um I've I just wanted to point out that this is uh basically just a continuation exercising the option on the lease that the city already has.

Uh I wanted to check in on that because we are at the uh, you know, we would the original contract had a three-year extension option in it.

Is this just exercising that or are we uh tacking on extra years in the extension?

Through the chair, the initial lease was as you're stating for five years with the additional option of three years.

We have been in this lease, or we have um been in this location for the full eight years of the first lease term.

This is to sign a brand new lease um for five years with three additional years as an option at the end of that five years.

Okay, okay, okay.

Uh then I just want to uh so if I'm looking at uh the rent price proposal form, is that the uh is that the piece that I'm looking at here as the new five-year agreement?

Should we see on my screen is the memo submitted by the interim director, Rachel Strudd.

No, I understand there is a document attached here that says rent price proposal form amended.

So that's that's the new agreement.

Correct.

All right.

Uh okay.

All right.

So this is all right.

So this new lease mirrors the original lease of the five plus three.

We're creating a new five plus three based on that baseline.

I'm just uh this is a pretty standard 5% increases here.

Um is that is it a five percent increase that we're attacking on from year eight's rent in the new renewal year?

It is a 25% increase over the previous um lease and then five years annually after that.

Ah, okay.

So it's it's a pretty big step up here.

All right.

Just trying to understand if we were in the uh yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

All right.

Well, prices go up, but uh, this is a great program.

Um, and it is something that I think is is one of the better successes in terms of business development and uh actually putting folks on a path to success.

So 25% rent increase.

I know some of my constituents can sympathize, but uh uh I'm happy to vote in favor of this, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I have a quick question about this.

Um how do the finances work if uh more or less Nibble Kitchen is covering the rent with income?

Uh does this is the city sort of agreeing to be effectively on the hook for this rent if necessary, but that that may not actually turn out to be necessary, or is the city paying the rent and then um income is is being sort of kept in some other account.

My understanding, and Erica may be able to jump in with more detail.

Um, my understanding is that Nibble operates its own or has its own bank account system within the arts council's overall budgeting, um, and that our revenues go directly into that account and then rent obligations and other expenses are paid directly from that account.

So it is the arts counts, uh, you know, it's the city that is on the hook for it, so to speak, but it is nibble revenue coming in, nibble expenses going out.

So there is a clear delineation between Arts Council budgeting um and arts council expenses versus specifically for this program.

I see.

And and maybe that's why this is not a request for us to appropriate money for this.

It's just kind of agreeing to this uh to this contract, agreeing to this agreement.

Um I I saw a hand from Director Sadin Hernandez, but then I saw it go away.

Feel free to jump in.

Ms.

Chair, I just would point out that any lease uh over three years has to be approved by the city council.

There's an ordinance that council white passed a bunch of years ago.

So this would have to come up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um through you, I think you know, if we can ask a little bit more detail from I'm thinking our our law and procurement departments about the um ownership of the lease more technically, but um to Anthony's point.

Um yes, all of this is covered through uh revolving accounts and um not through the general fund to my knowledge, but we can follow up uh written afterwards.

Well, thank you both very much.

Are there any other questions or comments from members of the committee?

I could go for an AREPA right about now.

Appreciating Carolishus, appreciating nipple and appreciating what you do.

Um thanks a lot.

Seeing no further discussion, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Okay, moving on to item six, ID 26-0513 requesting approval to appropriate 46,500 from the street tree stabilization fund for fiscal year 2026 ash tree treatments.

Say that 10 times fast.

Uh and I believe we have urban forestry and landscape planner Vanessa Bukhili here.

Um planner Bukili, am I saying your name correctly?

You are, yes.

Okay, wonderful.

Uh well, please take it away.

Tell us about this appropriation.

Great.

Thank you.

Um, yes, this request is for our annual ashtree treatment.

This is a biannual treatment for all healthy ash trees in the city.

Um it's an injection of a neem oil based treatment that protects ash trees against emerald ash borer, which is an invasive species that has been um positively identified in Somerville as of 2018.

So we are attempting to successfully, I might say, attempting to preserve all of our healthy ash trees in the city by performing these biannual treatments.

Biannual, meaning every two years, not twice a year.

So we have received funding in the past for this treatment.

Um, not exactly received, but used street tree stabilization funds for this treatment in the past.

And um, we need it again this year.

Happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Director or planner.

Are there any questions or comments from the counselors on the committee?

Counselor Link.

Yeah, sorry, Chair.

Um just a quick question.

I'm just curious.

Uh, do we have an like approximation how many how many ash trees are are left?

Uh there's been we do.

Um through the chair.

We have um approximately 956 public ash trees in the city, about 750 of those are on city property, and the other couple hundred are on DCR and state other state land.

Not all of those are healthy, but um most of them are.

We've been treating for about 10 years now.

Anything that's um healthy and reasonable in a good good enough condition and in a reasonable spot to treat.

And the other ones are we we take them out as needed, but most of them are doing really well.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

I see Counselor Hart.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, and through you.

I was just curious.

Do you know where the where do the funds in the street tree stabilization fund come from?

Is it a specific um allocation?

Great question through the chair.

Um the funds for the for the street tree stabilization fund come from various sources.

Um sometimes there's um a lot of it is from um mitigation payments from our private tree removal um ordinance.

Uh, most of the recent ones, or if uh street tree is illegally removed, we will um receive mitigation payment fines for that as well.

Um before that, I think some funds have also been transferred into the stabilization fund from other capital sources.

Um, but I can't recall offhand what those may be.

Thank you.

I see counselor Scott.

Yeah, I just wanted to echo that that uh most of this money comes in from uh payments that we get from uh folks uh uh let's say belatedly complying with our tree removal ordinance.

So um uh just another great feather in the cap for the advocates that fought for that uh way back in the day.

And uh glad to hear it.

Glad that we're getting to use that money to keep protecting trees.

Great.

Any other comments or questions from members of the committee?

Okay, seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Uh thank you, planner.

Thank you.

Okay, uh on to item seven, ID 26-0603, requesting approval of a transfer of $31,800 from the communications and community engagement salaries account to the communications and community engagement professional and technical services and printing and stationary accounts for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and programage.

And I believe we have communications director Denise Taylor here.

Uh Director Taylor, would you please tell us about this transfer?

Sure.

Um, through the chair to the full committee, uh, thank you for being here.

Um this is a request to move uh from personal services lag monies from that part of our budget into our OM budget, um, primarily to cover two um unplanned and unexpected expenses for WCEG compliance.

This is the ADA compliance for all digital um services that municipalities have to comply with.

The original deadline uh was April 26th of this year on Friday.

Uh the Department of Justice announced that they were extending that for a year.

But that was about five days, five business days before the deadline.

So we've been assuming that we had to meet the deadline.

And we realized that there wasn't a plan for two of the arts council websites, their main website and their art move Art Space Moves website.

For a cost of $18,800, we needed to get them into compliance.

The SPD website also needed compliance help for a cost of 12,500.

SPD was able to chip in 2,000 for that.

So we are looking to cover 10,500 of that.

And the final 2500 roughly is for unplanned signage for Year of the Neighbor and another wave of loyal to local signage, which was greatly appreciated by businesses across the city, and in particular in Davis Square, which was where that project was the spring project was hatched.

We'd like to put up some new signage to get us uh through spring, summer, fall.

And uh the total that we would we are requesting to move is 31,800.

Thank you, Director.

Any questions or comments from members of the committee?

Counselor Link.

Uh yeah.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Through you.

Uh I'm so am I right in understanding that the police website currently is not um accessible?

So there are very detailed accessibility uh requirement upgrades required through this round of WCAG compliance.

And no, um, neither the SPD site nor the arts council sites were compliant.

Um I should share that because of the seriousness of this requirement coming from the DOJ, that um what we did is we um what is the phrase you borrow from Peter to uh steal from Peter Pay for Paul.

I don't remember the exact phrasing.

Um so basically we went ahead and paid for it um with uh other monies in our budget that are going to cause us some real pain if we are not able to move in money to cover it.

Um, but they are both in compliance now, and I'm looking to restore my budget so that I can continue to pay for necessary uh software and services through to the end of the year that I will have to put on hold, otherwise that would normally be renewing in the next couple of months and or taking place in the next couple of months.

Great.

Uh so uh just to follow up on that.

Um I'm I'm through the chair.

Um uh I'm trying to understand like was um are the the new requirements.

It sounds like they were it sounds like either they were extremely onerous because the the amount of money that it cost, or that we just weren't accessible at all.

And I guess and uh I'll just follow up on that so then I can shut up.

Um then if that's the case, uh you know, how are we making sure that we're not um that we're not falling into that trap again?

Like we should be uh I think especially for like something where there it's uh you know public safety website um be designing with accessibility first.

Sure.

So accessibility requirements were updated according to the new requirements.

So it's not that the site was completely um uncompliant, it's that there were just so many things that didn't meet the new requirements.

I wouldn't call them onerous, but your uh uh assumption, your first assumption was correct is that there was so much to do and so much of it new to get it into compliance that yeah, it was um fairly expensive.

Um what we so WCAG is usually not updated all that frequently.

So we will work to stay in compliance.

One of the other things we're working on is um procuring some software that will help with creating compliance on an ongoing basis that can be applied to all of our sites.

Um and uh maintaining staffing on this team is also part of that.

And then the long-term goal to move more of our micro sites into the main site will also help with that so that they are not off on their own growing out of compliance without the same attention that the main site uh gets.

So uh there are uh this is really important to the full team.

I would argue it has been like our most important priority for this fiscal year.

And we are not going to let it slide once we get past the compliance.

Thank you, Director.

And director, just to clarify the terms.

So WookAG, I've never known how you say that as sort of an acronym.

That's the web content accessibility guidelines.

And as I understand it, that is uh, you know, one of these standards like ISO standards, where there are people who are appointed to terms and they get together and they they do work and research and then they articulate some kind of set of rules that uh that then have versions that supplant previous versions over time.

Is that correct?

Yes, absolutely.

And um, I'm not sure if we're pronouncing it correctly either.

That's how everyone I've ever heard say it says it.

Um, but I would note that um the DOJ itself um found that the requirements, maybe your term owner is uh appropriate here.

Uh I they they found their own compliance um requirements so excessive that they extended the deadline by a full year, like I said on Friday, they announced that.

Um and uh we were not going to play with this and have been really working hard to meet it.

So we've we've met it.

Um our our sites are now in compliance.

They can start going out of compliance tomorrow if something gets posted that needs to be addressed, but we've got a team in place now working on that.

And as I mentioned, software coming as well.

Um, but yes, they get together, they decide the new requirements.

This time they re-evaluated and realized that it was um too burdensome for most municipalities to meet the deadline.

Thank you.

And this um this recent uh approval that this committee made of um the 100,000, if I'm remembering correctly, for uh an outside contractor.

Um is it your hope that that work will set us up to be in a position to sort of more flexibly address issues like this in the future?

So that funding um is uh intended to overhaul and or update the website.

Um I think uh we're all aware that this is a difficult budget year, and this may not be the year for a full overhaul, but that funding will help us take care of the um greatest needs on the site at a minimum in terms of updating the actual uh functions on the site, pathways on the site that make it possible to find information easily for users.

Um and so that is that is really for web site overhaul.

Um getting into compliance.

Um the key thing that's gonna help us stay in compliance is the software I mentioned, as well as being fully staffed.

Um we've not been fully staffed for um some time now, as uh I believe some of you are aware, and uh that position is posted.

And uh we hope to start scheduling interviews next week.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments from members of the committee?

Okay, seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Uh thank you, Director.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next items are related to the Community Preservation Act.

Item eight, ID 26-0518, requesting the appropriation of 400,000 from the Community Preservation Act Fund for approved improvements to the Kennedy Schoolyard.

And it's my understanding that this also relates to um the bond item.

That's a few items down on the agenda.

Um Clerk, do you have an opinion of whether it makes sense to take these two up together or just deal with that one when we come to it?

I know bond is different from an appropriation, even if one is the cause of the other.

Um I also not familiar enough with the content to advise on that.

Um, I mean, we couldn't take it to the open.

Okay.

Okay, great.

Um, sorry for that.

Appreciate it.

Uh, and I believe that we have Community Preservation Act manager Roberta Cameron here to speak about uh this appropriation.

Uh manager Cameron, uh please tell us about it.

Thank you for having me.

Um so I will talk about all of the appropriations related to the Kennedy School at once.

Um this item, as you mentioned, the following item requesting the transfer um of 228,000 to the open space reserve.

And as you pointed out, related to reducing the bond appropriation.

So the story is I'm sorry to interrupt you, Director Cameron or Manager Cameron.

Clerk, why don't we take those three items up together then?

If Manager Cameron's going to speak about them, and maybe I'll just read them in really quickly if that's necessary.

Yes.

So sorry, to confirm we'll take up eight, nine, and eleven together.

Correct.

Great.

Okay.

So we will just need to read those into the record and then we can proceed.

Okay.

So we will also take up item nine, ID 26-0517 requesting approval of a transfer of $228,000 from the Community Preservation Act undesignated fund balance to the CPA Open Space Reserve.

And we'll also take up item 11, ID 26-0519 requesting approval to reduce the borrowing authorization for the Kennedy Schoolyard Renovation Project from $2 million to $1,600,000.

Okay, back to you, Manager Cameron.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So the Community Preservation Committee, after expending all of the funds for the applications for funding this past year, saw that there was an opportunity to save some future revenue by applying the balance of what remained of this of the current year's revenue to the Kennedy School Yard project and thus reduce the amount of the bond by 400,000.

This is going to save approximately $30,000 of interest payments over the life of the project and potentially make it possible to reduce the bond further next year by delaying having to start utilizing the bond right away.

And of that a portion is coming from the I believe it's the undesignated fund balance and from the budgeted reserve or no, it's coming from the open space reserve.

And in order to transfer it from the undesignated fund, in order to spend it from the undesignated fund balance, it has to be first transferred from the undesignated fund balance to the open space reserve.

So that's the reason for the transfer in item nine.

And then the reduction of the bond in item 11.

Thank you, manager.

Members of the committee, any questions or comments about this.

And that project is also going to involve some amount of uh stormwater mitigation.

So even though this is a big ticket item, we're hitting, we're feeding several birds with one scone, as the uh as the preferred saying is.

So uh about the bond.

Uh is there any other speaker who uh might be present with a desire to speak about the bond?

I don't I don't see anybody from finance.

Okay.

Just wanted to double check that before we uh we talked about that one.

Um these three items, uh, is there any more discussion from anybody?

All right.

So for all three of these, these items are laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

And then we will go on to another community preservation act related item, uh, item 10, ID 26-0509, requesting the approval of a time-only contract extension until May 31st, 2029 for the Mystic River Watershed Association for the Community Preservation Act fiscal year 2023 grant for design of the Blessing of the Bay Linear Park Improvements.

Manager Cameron, could you please tell us about this extension?

Yes.

So the Mystic River Watershed Association has been overseeing design of the improvements to Blessing of the Bay Linear Park since they first received a grant in FY23 to initiate this project.

Now the CPC and other funders have also supported the implementation of that project with additional funding.

And the extension of the design contract will enable Mr.

Cover Watershed Association to oversee the construction administration throughout the construction period of the project.

Thank you very much.

It's just saying that the existing terms can keep going for a longer period.

This is a wonderful project.

So I'm excited to hear about this.

Any comments or questions from members of the committee?

Okay.

Then seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Thank you very much, manager.

I think you are free.

Yeah.

Okay.

That brings us to item 12, ID 26-0515 requesting authorization to borrow $8,284,000 in a bond and to appropriate the same amount for the recurring fiscal year 2026 water main rehabilitation program.

And I believe we have uh director of infrastructure and asset management, Rich Raish here to speak about this.

Director Raish, could you please tell us about this bond?

Good evening.

Thank you, Chair Wheeler, members of the Finance Committee.

Uh, as the title implies, this is our annual uh water main rehabilitation uh project.

Uh we uh by and large, our uh water mains are adequately sized for what we need them to do.

However, they are um on average 100 years old.

So those pipelines need rehabilitation.

Uh this is our our annual uh program to do that.

Um we escalate the dollar value each year so that we can get to roughly the same linear footage um every year.

And we've been doing that uh at least for the past seven years on a on a risk-based um algorithm, uh, knowing the types of water main, basically the materials that they're made out of, uh, some fire flow tests, uh knowing you know the kind of soil conditions that they're in.

Uh and we do um move around the city uh doing that.

In the past, we've done Broadway and Holland, we've done the states, Pearl, Cross.

Um, this year we are focusing on the McGrath Corridor.

Um, this is partly to get out ahead of the anticipated grounding of McGrath uh Mastodot uh program, um, so that we'll we'll rehabilitate our water mains in that corridor uh ahead of them.

We're we're really focusing here on water mains that needs some rehabilitation, largely from sort of the Medford Highland Ave intersection near that pony truss uh down to Washington Street, um also with some tie-ins to Chester and Cross.

That's with past uh programs like this.

Uh it's a it's a mix of construction types uh depending upon the needs of the water main.

We're very often able to do a lot of it trenchlessly.

We can dig some pits and rehabilitate the water main from the inside uh with cleaning and lining and replace all the valves uh along the uh that corridor as well, which is very important for the operation of the system.

Um we do also have some locations in this contract where that's not a viable um uh rehabilitation method, and we actually have to do full dig and replacement uh of some of the pipes.

Um, so that's on tap for this year.

This uh the design is complete.

We are ready to bid uh and this uh appropriation and bonding request will um allow us to bid that project uh for construction this uh construction season.

Thank you, director.

Members of the committee, do you have any discussion or questions?

I will just say an item like this is hard for me to know how to exercise oversight because it's such an area I know so little about, but it's such a you know, a big ticket cost.

It's helpful to know this is a recurring year-to-year big ticket cost, and I see from previous years, you know.

Um we've been we've been doing this, we've been getting a lot out of this.

Uh one thing I'm always curious about when we're talking about going to bid is to what degree are we confident that we're getting competitive bids where um you know where there isn't a situation, you know, where we're uh one or a small number of contractors effectively have a monopoly and are able to charge us more than maybe some municipalities in other states or other parts of the state might have to pay.

That's a great question.

For for these types of projects, we do have um uh a decent field of uh contractors that are qualified for this for some of the bigger sewer separation projects, like you know, the the one we just finished um Spring Hill and the one that we're uh anticipating bidding next year, um uh MROS, those are bigger projects that that narrow the field to larger contractors with that bonding capacity.

Um, but we are we are able to get some some good bidders on that as well.

This this has a wider field of contractors that can bond um for this.

Uh we've also had frankly some some success in attracting more contractors.

There was a point in time uh when uh Somerville was not an attractive place to work, um, but with professionalization of the engineering department, um, having construction liaisons on, having professional project managers and engineers.

Um we've built up a reputation of being good to work with.

Certainly not, you know, uh anyone that would roll over, we keep the contractors to task.

Um, but you know, it's certainly a place where where um contractors want to work.

And we've seen uh a fairly competitive bid environment, and we always index uh our bid responses to to our neighbors, um, Medford, um mostly Cambridge, uh Boston, uh, and and we we get uh good bid prices and and a good field for uh work like this.

Thank you.

Uh in terms of how the sort of repayment of this bond works.

Um is this a setup where repayment is made uh with funds that are designated from residents' water bills?

Correct.

Yeah, that's so so this um bond uh will lean against the water enterprise, water enterprises exclusively um funded by water bills.

Um so yes, essentially the the work we do here, um the water bills over the next 20 years will be repaying it.

Thank you.

Um I think that's the end of uh of the questions that I was able to muster for this.

Any other thoughts by members of the committee?

Okay.

Seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Uh thank you, Director.

Um, but stick around because uh item 13, ID 26-0516 is requesting authorization to borrow $2 million in a bond and to appropriate the same amount for the annual fiscal year 2026 sewer system rehabilitation in McGrath Corridor.

Uh Director Raish, could you please tell us about this bond?

Thank you, Chair.

So this is a similar story, but on the uh sewer side.

Um the sewer system is a little bit more complicated in terms of rehabilitation and reconfiguration in the water system.

Uh with the sewer system, there are areas that we need to do sort of wholesale replacement to meet modern needs, you know, like the Spring Hill sewer separation and the future MROS sewer separation area.

Um, but there are areas where you know the the basic size and functioning of the pipe um are adequate.

Um, however, again, they're about a hundred years old and are subject to to failure.

Uh we've been proactively, after not doing it for decades, uh inspecting those sewer pipes uh with closed circuit television, uh identifying pipes that are uh at at risk of imminent failure uh and and going out and repairing them proactively.

Again, we use a mix of trenchless rehabilitation when possible because it's much cheaper, uh, or if the pipe is too far gone, uh full dig and replacement.

Um we've been moving around the city, uh, you know, doing pipeline rehabilitation for the sewer, same sort of thing.

We've done the um the avenues area, we did extensive work in Ward Two.

Um we've done sort of lower Broadway, we've done the sort of Tufts neighborhood as well.

Uh and again in anticipation of uh uh mass dots uh grounding in McGrath, we're getting out ahead of that and rehabilitating some pipes along that corridor.

Um this uh appropriation will be both for the for the design uh and uh construction of that.

We've got the CCTV inspection records.

We know what pipes we want to do.

Um, and we'll we'll hire one of our on call engineers to put together a uh uh bid package based on that uh and turn that uh around fairly quickly because this is this is by means of comparison, but you know, you can tell by you know uh a fourth of the dollar value of the of the water work.

Um this is more focused.

Um it's it's less focused in terms of of of location.

It's sort of spots all along that McGrath corridor, um, but it's a smaller number of pipes, linear footage of pipes that need to be rehabilitated.

Um, sort of anticipating your your uh question here.

This is the same story, um, except on the sewer enterprise.

So this would be a bond repayable over 20 years, and so um sewer bills will uh pay for that uh debt service.

Thank you.

Uh any members of the committee have questions or comments.

Just to clarify, Director Raish.

Um, you know, you mentioned the uh the work that we do elsewhere in the city on uh sewer separation uh to deal with these combined sewer overflows.

It sounds like this work is entirely about repairing existing pipes, not introducing separated pipes.

Is that right?

That that is correct.

You know, the it about 10 years ago, um we had uh nearly weekly pipe collapses.

Um so we we entered on the on a program of inspection and and rehabilitation to prevent um those sort of pipe collapses.

So these are this is just keeping the system operational um and uh avoiding very costly emergency repairs that are also very disruptive to the neighborhoods.

Okay.

If there's no other questions or comments from members of the committee, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Uh thank you, Director Raish.

Thanks, Masha.

Good night.

Okay.

Fire department grant and gift acceptances and transfers.

Item 14, ID 26-0524 requesting approval to accept and expend a 48,866.25 cent grant with no new match required from the Urban Area Security Initiative to the fire department for the purchase of a vehicle for the fire department auxiliary.

And I believe we have fire department chief Charles Breen here to speak on it.

Can you hear me then?

Yes.

Uh Chief, please tell us about this grant.

Thank you.

Good evening, uh committee.

Um this is basically these funds were initially um accepted for Asher training by the police department.

And when it came to be known that they weren't going to be able to spend all the funds, um, I had been in conversation with Chief Benford for a while about trying to better the equipment for the auxiliary.

Um we um we got in touch with UASI to see if we could repurpose the remaining funds for the training uh to purchase them a van.

And uh the uh UA gave us their approval to do so.

So this money's gonna go to purchase a brand new van for the auxiliary flight department.

Uh they report to me, but they also do work for the police at crime scenes and whatnot.

They do um work for the DPW emergency management.

And I think if approved, uh, this will be the first new vehicle that they've ever had uh in the history of the auxiliary flight department.

They used to get in hand-me-downs.

Um and uh recently I had to come before you um for uh to get them a used ambulance.

And um the you know, the equipment is run down.

It's it's usually at end of life by the time they get it.

Um so uh, you know, I was thankful to Chief Bentford for maybe uh repurposing these funds for for this purchase.

Thank you, Chief Brain.

Um, and sorry, just just one point of clarification before I go to you, Counselor Scott.

Um the conditions for this grant are from the FEMA fiscal year 2023 agreements.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh Counselor Scott.

Uh you read my mind there, Mr.

Chair.

I just did want to point out that uh these this is from uh fiscal year 23 USC, so the terms and conditions are not the ones that we are concerned about.

Yeah, that's correct.

And but you know, happy, happy to hear the auxiliary is gonna get a nice new van and uh appreciate.

I think this is a fine rebirth purposing uh uh USC money.

I'll I'll also add it's uh Kismet, you might say that this item's coming after Director Raish was talking about the water uh repairs, because as I understand it, that's one of the things that the auxiliary's been been really useful for in the past is when there's been a a water main break.

Yes, that's correct.

Uh they uh they do a lot of pump out.

Uh well, thank you very much.

Any other questions or comments from members of the committee on this one?

Okay, seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Thank you.

And the next item is also firefighter related, item 15, ID 26-0523, requesting approval to accept and expend a $30,380 grant with no new match required from the Department of Fire Services to the fire department for firefighter safety equipment.

Chief Breen, could you tell us about this grant?

Yes, to the committee.

Uh we have seven uh new recruits that'll be uh coming on board uh very soon.

They'll be coming before the uh council for appointment, um, I believe in the next uh at the next meeting to be referred to committee.

Um and this will offset costs of purchasing them their fire helmets, gloves, hoods, boots, uh, bunker coat and bunker pants.

Thank you so much, Chief.

Any questions or comments from members of the committee?

I'll say the one thing that comes to mind is I know that in the past there have been uh chemicals that have been judged to be unsafe in some firefighter gear.

My guess is that now they're making it without those things.

But um, you know, I I assume that's something that's on your radar as uh a question to be asking about the the gear that we're buying, Chief.

Absolutely.

It's on my my radar, it's on the union's radar.

Um this this gear does contain some PFAS.

Um, but um we're gonna be just one manufacturer deal right now that's come out with PFAS feed gear.

And I'm sort of and I've talked to the union president about it.

We're sort of in a holding patent to see how this stuff is gonna hold up.

Um and um there's also movement afoot by the state to to open up some funds for departments to replace gear.

So it's my hope to, you know, do a little more um investigation on this on this new PFAS free gear to make sure it's gonna, you know, live up to what they say it's gonna live up.

Uh what we do what we don't I what I don't want to do is jump into something and it falls apart in like two years.

So um we're definitely we're definitely this is not like we're not like Quincy.

Quincy's been in the news recently.

They this year was not the gear that Quincy had.

It was highly contaminated with PFAS.

This has this does have some PFAS in in it.

Um, and we are aware of it.

And um, you know, we we uh we are looking into at some point.

Um, we'll definitely, you know, they they all the manufacturers are gonna have to go completely PFAS free.

And um, I'm just sort of in a holding patent to see what our manufacturer and what the other manufacturers are gonna do before jumping in with one particular manufacturer.

I sort of want to play the market and see what's out there, and uh I'll work with the union um, you know, to to make sure that uh we buy the right gear for everyone.

Thank you.

Uh I appreciate you speaking to those concerns.

And um, you know, it it's something that it's it's reassuring to hear that you're in communication with the union about that.

Um, you know, I I would I would love in the process of this just to somehow hear from the union as well, you know, their confirmation that that this is a direction that they feel like makes sense.

Okay.

Members of the committee, any other questions or comments?

Okay, thank you.

Um no more discussion, then this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

And thank you, Keith.

Thanks.

Okay, police department grant and gift acceptances and transfers.

Item 16, ID 26-051.

Requesting approval of a transfer of $35,000 from the police department salaries account to the police department animal control salaries account for an expected deficit.

And I believe we have uh Summerville Police Department Director of Finance and Administration, Emily Wisdom here to speak about this.

Director Wisdom.

Thank you so much, Chair.

Um, so I we are asking to move some of our lag money from the salaries account to um the animal control salaries account, as um we have had to so uh as you know that the the animal control department is only two members.

As um we have had to so uh as you know that the the animal control department is only two members and one of those members had to go out on an extended leave, um, which caused extensive overtime uh that has not been previously budgeted for um or has happened in this uh as far as I know has happened with their uh personnel services accounts in the past.

So um we usually keep uh a relatively small amount of overtime and um a very tight salary amount in the personnel services line to cover just those two positions and their typically anticipated amount of overtime.

Um however, we did have to um borrow from the personnel services are uh the salaries line to cover the overtime um that was caused by the uh member picking up extra shifts while the other person was out on the extended leave.

Um so that is why we are asking to transfer this money.

Thank you, Director.

Uh members of the committee, does anyone have questions or comments about this?

I'm just curious, Director Wisdom.

Uh I I remember um the the second uh police canine um that was given to uh Somerville at the end of last year.

Um is sort of is this tricky financial situation that we're in, partially because of taking on this the second canine or absolutely not.

Um that that is completely covered by the um police department OM budget.

Um any expenses uh uh new around fluff or missy are being paid for from that account.

Uh the the police department technically has three separate personnel and OM lines for the three departments.

Uh we have per we have police, we have animal control, and we have the E911.

Um so this is only for the animal control.

Um that's two members.

Um they make up a team that that handle the animal control matters in Somerville, and one of the two was out on leave, um personal leave.

And so we uh basically the other one picked up shifts of overtime that depleted our account.

Thank you.

I appreciate your indulging uh my ignorance.

There's so much that I don't know.

Uh it are the kind of animal control situations we're talking about here, like raccoons.

Anything where a animal control person who was the uh the person that was off shift, um they basically work a rotating schedule so that that at all times one of them is kind of on shift or available.

Um and so that could be any call that came into the police department that would have required someone to come out and attend to any animal.

It could be um uh a a lost dog, it could have been a raccoon, it could have been any, you know, wildlife of any sort.

So um it it happened for many re reasons.

Also, um there the matter of it was also that um while the second member was out, there were still animals that had to be cared for in the evenings or in the mornings, depending on what shift that person was working.

And so they picked up extra shifts to to continue animal care um while that person was on leave.

Thanks.

And I'm sorry, pardon all my questions on this.

Um what sorts of animals needed ongoing care?

So my understanding is typically um like dogs and cats that um are rescued and they're trying, they haven't been able to foster yet.

Um if they come in one like one evening, um, they provide the care until they can find a suitable foster or an adopted home for those animals to go to thank you.

I, you know, I I very much of course appreciate the the work of caring for these animals and and all the different the the wide variety of situations that uh some rural police officers respond to.

Um I can't help but wonder, and maybe this is a broader conversation or conversation for another time, um, if maybe our city could save a little bit uh overtime in situations like this in calling in uh the SPCA or or other organizations um that uh that can take animals and uh either are operating on a volunteer basis or just otherwise not costing us time and a half.

Um and uh Chief Benford, uh Counselor Scott, I'll come to you.

Um to this point, sir.

To this point, okay.

Uh Counselor Scott, please.

The animal control officers are separate from Summerville Police Department.

There are two of them.

They're lovely people.

I recommend you have a conversation with them.

Um, but they absolutely work with uh with Cambridge Alley cats and other organizations here.

So um uh I assure you uh they're not they're not uh this the problem in our overtime budget.

Thank you.

I appreciate that clarification.

Uh Chief Benford.

No, thank you very much.

I think the council uh captured it appropriately.

I would just add that, you know, anytime we talk about the disposition of work, um, we we do have labor implications uh with our unions and so forth.

So uh that there is a broader conversation to be had there, but to the uh councillors uh comments, uh they do uh work with our partners across jurisdictions to try and minimize those expenses, uh, but regrettably we do have cost that we have to cover.

Thank you.

I appreciate that clarification and uh pardon my stumbling into this new matter.

There's there's a lot that I don't know, and I appreciate everyone's educating me.

Um on this item.

Uh do any other counselors have questions or comments.

Okay.

Seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

And that brings us to item 17, ID 26-0510, requesting approval of a transfer of $325,000 from the police department salaries account to the police department medical and dental services account for medical procedures for current and retired employees injured in the line of duty.

Director wisdom, could you please tell us about this transfer?

Of course.

So one of the things that the police and fire both um are required to do under, I believe state law is um 11F injury.

Um we are required to take care of uh the injured employees medical bills that are associated with line of uh line of duty injuries.

Um so we have, of course, there are current people that are um on uh that fall into this category of 11F, but there are also retirees who have been retired due to medical needs that are under 111 F also.

Um this year there were many, many procedures um outside of the normal amount of procedures that are typically uh done in a year that usually fit within our budget.

Um I'm just trying to make sure that I I don't I stay HIPAA compliant and don't share any personal information.

Um so I'm not trying to be purposely vague, but I don't want to uh single anyone out or point any medical history out or anything like that.

So I'm I'm just trying to be careful with my wording there.

Um so um typically, like in the past few years, um, we've maintained a typical average.

We that's how much we typically ask for at the beginning of the year based on what we've spent last year.

However, um, as we all know, medical bills are sometimes unpredictable.

And when there's a really, really big um issue uh that comes from an injury of someone who is required to be paid for those uh medical bills um out of our funds, um, we are required to cover them.

So uh this is a these medical procedures have been approved by the city's um medical panel.

Uh so we all we verify that they're um uh they're uh appropriate.

Appropriate, yes, that's a good question.

Appropriate no, I appreciate that.

They're appropriate that they are necessary to pay.

Um this the amount of the uh medical interventions are high dollar amount, and so we are requesting from our lag money um to be able to take that money to pay for the rest of these medical procedures um that we've had come in.

Thank you.

Uh members of the committee, uh, does anyone have comments or questions about this item?

Counselor Hart.

Thank you, Chair Wheeler, and through you, um, Director Wisdom.

Could you just explain more to help me understand the lag money and why why there's this amount that's not needed for other um things in the salaries account?

Of course.

I would be happy to.

So um at the beginning of the year, we were budgeted for a certain number of positions.

Um, and throughout the year, we've had um at least two retirements, as well as um we've had some um typical people uh leave to go to other places.

Um attrition, I guess you would say, retirement and attrition, um, as well as some uh people who've been promoted due to that.

So that leaves us uh throughout the year, we've kind of had a rolling um rolling vacancies that have been filled and then have emptied have been um available again.

So through that we create basically we have cost savings from the retiree salaries for the year.

Um we have uh from the from the nutrient while we're filling those spots um and promoting within, and then um as well as while we're recruiting new recruits to go to the academy.

Um that does leave money in that personnel line that we are choosing to utilize um to pay for to request to pay for these medical bills.

Thank you.

Of course.

Thank you, Director.

Any other questions or comments for members of the committee?

Okay, seeing none.

This item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting.

Oh, thank you.

Uh and that brings us to item 18, ID 26-0378, requesting approval to accept and expend at 231,635 grant with no new match required from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security to the police department for body worn camera program.

And uh I would like us to take that up together with item 19, ID 26-0636, Alexandra Thorne and Daniel Wong submitting comments regarding item 26-0378 grant for body worn camera program, um, since those comments um are directly uh on this item.

Um so we have Director Wisdom and uh Chief Benford.

I didn't introduce you before.

We have police chief Shaman Benford with us as well.

Um so Director Wisdom and Chief Benford, uh, would you please tell us about this grant?

Sure, Mr.

Chair, uh thank you so much uh for uh for your comments um and uh for the committee this evening.

Um I'm gonna provide uh a high-level overview um of the uh of the grant um in some context uh to help guide our conversation.

Uh I want to obviously acknowledge uh the committee as well as my city colleagues, uh my SPD colleagues, uh our union partners, the mayor's office, uh, as well as our community partners.

Uh the body warned camera program uh was uh settled um as part of a prior year uh collective bargaining agreement uh with our respective uh unions.

Um as you uh well know, we are very uh open opening, open and welcoming uh community.

So body warm cameras uh is a tool and a resource that really helps us speak to our commitment around accountability, trust building, and transparency.

Uh over the years, uh particularly in the last six to seven years, uh body worn cameras have become um a best practice uh in policing.

Certainly uh it was part of the discussion that we've had around commitments uh to the future around uh relationship building and trust building with our community uh during our accreditation uh process.

Uh body warned cameras also help uh in the 21st century um around validating uh the overwhelmingly positive uh interactions that we have uh with our community members.

Uh back uh in 2020, uh the state published a report um around uh body warm cameras and subsequently afforded uh state funding to help municipalities uh support the implementation of body warn camera programs.

Uh the state has funded uh in the neighborhood of 144 local police departments across the state uh in support of standing up a body worn camera program.

Uh many communities uh that surround uh Somerville as well as the Metro Boston area to include Boston, Medford, Cambridge, uh, and uh Somerville Housing Authority police officers all have body one camera programs.

Uh the Boston Police Department uh is in the midst of a major expansion uh in their body worn camera program to include not only uniform personnel uh but plainclosed personnel as well.

Uh Somerville uh through its robust uh community process uh also uh you know uh uh produced reports uh by way of the public safety for all uh reports as well as the staffing study that uh both spoke to uh the importance of uh body worn cameras and helping us, particularly with accountability and trust building uh with the community.

I'd also like to report to uh uh excuse me, reference the 2015 President's Commission on 21st century policing.

Uh there were six uh pillars uh that were defined to help uh promote and support and guide and advise departments in producing uh quality policing programs uh in the 21st century.

And two of those pillars spoke to two key areas, building trust and legitimacy, and also pillar three, uh using technology uh to help do that uh again in the 21st century.

Uh in 2020 uh three uh that report was reformed uh through a renewed call to action with a focused on whole of government and whole of community uh whole of community approaches to transfer uh transformational policing.

Uh and in there it talks about uh due process and again uh encouraging transpellent transparency, accountability, and preventing and highlighting any images and uh experiences of police misconduct.

Um as we look at uh the body worn camera program, uh the mayor has uh you know designated this a priority for implementation on the backs of many uh different priorities that I've outlined earlier, particularly with uh the PSFA reports as well as the staffing study reports.

Um I would also like to report uh point to what we've experienced as a community, quite frankly, and a country uh with the overwhelmingly aggressive tactics uh by ICE and Homeland Security with regards to immigration enforcement.

And I just point to uh legislative and government uh colleagues and payers in Washington that are calling for body one cameras as a key component of reforms that they're looking for moving forward um as part of funding efforts uh for uh Homeland Security ICE and other uh programs.

So uh Mr.

Chair, with that said, um, I'd like to pause there and again uh acknowledge my city colleagues that are on with us uh that join um in this conversation uh to um help respond to questions and um comments that may come out of this uh conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Um Chief, were you referring to anybody else who is in attendance who might also want to speak about this item or just speak were you speaking sort of more generally?

Uh thank you very much.

I think more generally, um, but I would acknowledge uh I um I can't see uh everyone uh in the galley, but I would acknowledge our partners are from um IGA uh that are here uh as well.

Thank you.

Members of the committee, uh does anyone have questions and comments?

Chair Wheeler, if I could just quickly hop in.

Umantics thing, but I would suggest we don't take these up together.

Um as they were the first one was sent for recommendation and the second was sent for discussion.

Um the the narrative of this first item won't necessarily tie in with the second, because the second we would just mark were complete.

Um so if you're open to that, I suggest we take them up separately.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

We can take them up separately.

Um I will just note on that uh on that point um to briefly summarize what the the public comments um say because it it relates to some of the sort of logistical questions before us.

Um those public comments uh suggest that we wait uh to make a decision about this grant until the legislative matters committee can make a decision about the surveillance technology impact report uh item relating to body worn cameras that's before that committee.

Uh just logistically, I want to point out to everyone that um there is another finance committee meeting uh on May 12th before the May 14th City Council meeting.

Uh that May 14th City Council meeting will be the first city council meeting after the next legislative matters meeting.

I have no predictions about what any other committee is going to do, but were the legislative matters committee to uh to discharge one way or another that item and have it be taken up in that city council meeting.

Uh it it could make sense whether we discharge this item in one way or another today uh and it um is in control of the the city council again uh or we keep this item in committee and discharge it one way or another at the next finance committee meeting.

Um I'm just saying we have we have this meeting and another finance committee meeting before that uh surveillance technology impact report uh could be back in the city council's hands at uh at the first opportunity.

Just purely logistics.

Um and thank you for allowing me that.

Um okay, members of the committee.

Um I see Counselor Scott.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I just uh procedurally if you would like to kick this can down the road, we can kick this can down the road if you'd like to discuss it tonight.

I absolutely willingly I I I would like to discuss this tonight.

Okay, great.

Uh did you want to lead off or uh would you like me to start?

No, I was I was going to um to cede the the lead uh off roll to any members of the committee who would like to begin with questions or comments.

All right.

Well, I'm I'm happy to yield to any colleagues that would like to go first here.

All right, seeing none, I'd just like to oh some oh um from the city.

I'm I'm gonna ask uh uh Yasme Radasi intergovernmental affairs liaison.

Please.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um I just wanted to flag for the record that we did submit a memo with some of the figures for this item.

So just um wanted to put that out there for everyone.

Thank you.

Yes, I appreciate that.

And um Leez and Radasi, oh, okay, great.

I was wanted to make sure I was telling anybody listening and interested where they could find those.

Um are those attached to I I see they're attached to the entire committee meeting.

Um for anyone who doesn't know about this, this is this additional location where attachments can sometimes be found.

If you go to the calendar in Legistar and you click on meeting details and you get the list of all the agenda items, there can be attachments that are attached to the meeting itself.

And that is the case here.

One of these uh items, I believe the third one.

Um or is it 0378?

Uh yes, it is the the first one, sorry, um, has a uh financial uh estimates of the ongoing cost, uh the cost in the first and second year and then year three and beyond.

Thank you, Lea Sarmadassi.

Uh uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Please, Counselor Scott.

All right, I appreciate it.

Uh I'm glad that you called attention to that memo because I also wanted to call attention to that memo.

I'm gonna just start right there with what the um costs of of accepting this grant.

Uh this is a grant to uh start off the city and commit it to a course where we will be spending uh uh an annual, let's call it 100,000, 95,833.

Uh that there will also be there is also already negotiated in the police contract that if any body worn cameras are implemented, uh, that there's an automatic two percent raise for every member of the police department.

So that's uh an additional uh 215,000 estimated for uh this uh according to this minimum.

Uh I haven't gone back and double checked that number to see if it lines up with uh what we what we say we're we're spending in salaries, but I'll I'll take the take the memo at its word right now.

Uh and then also it notes that there are extra costs to administering a program.

Uh a full-time civilian employee, uh, presumably to just manage the program, manage the data.

Uh, and then uh other minor costs for additional batteries and replacements and things like that.

So when you put all that together, uh conservatively, right?

That's 450,000 a year that the city will be on the hook for uh notwithstanding any increases to costs.

Uh you know, we we know the cost of cost of everything doesn't go up over time, right?

So I look at this as an extraordinary uh increase uh given that our police budget is uh currently 21 million dollars a year.

Uh that's a that's pretty big increase uh in our police budget.

Uh I also you know, I have concerns from a policy standpoint, though I understand that uh we're gonna be taking that up in legislative matters uh in about a week.

Uh but I I have particular concerns about uh accepting this just procedurally.

Um, you know, moving forward tonight procedurally on this, uh, in the absence of approval from uh legislative matters of a technology specific use policy.

Our uh City of Summerville ordinances around uh surveillance technology do specifically call out that the uh the city can seek approval uh or can seek but not accept funds without approval from the city council, uh, and that uh details regarding the nature of surveillance technology as well as the uh surveillance technology impact report for that uh have to be uh accepted.

So I not to get too specific in the timing, because I think the timing of this could be a very easily setable settlable thing uh if we come to the conclusion that uh that I'm inclined towards here.

Um but yeah, it is it is enormous cost for uh a uh let's say dubious game.

When I look at the requests that were made by Justice Somerville back in 2020, uh their requests were for civilian oversight and for a number of other reforms in the police department, but uh in no way were body cameras requested.

Uh when weighing the potential benefits of this immense surveillance increase in the city uh versus what's been called for, what's been asked for uh from our communities most impacted.

Uh and what's been called for in uh the numerous studies that we've had over the years, I don't see the benefit to signing up for an extra half million dollars a year uh that will increase over time.

I'd also point out that uh as it stands, we don't have any uh guarantee that uh even if we did have a um even if we did have a civilian oversight committee that was uh created, passed, established overnight here.

Uh we have no guarantee that they'd have access to that camera footage.

Um so I I have a uh a great many concerns here.

I don't think I need to get into the full dissertation of them tonight.

Uh keeping it strictly to the financial aspect of this.

It's a half million dollars a year that we're uh accepting this money puts us on the hook for an extra half million dollars a year expenditures, and uh I for one am not inclined to do it.

So I appreciate your forbearance, Mr.

Chair.

I'm happy to hear the discussion like others.

Thank you, counselor.

Counselor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, I just I guess I have to um echo a lot of what uh the good counselor from Ward 2 uh just said.

Uh and you know, um it's not lost on me that that we're uh hot off of a meeting where we're talking about like what do we have to do to tighten the belt and our schools gonna need to you know do more with less.

And uh, you know, while this while the full cost won't come for this current budget year, uh there certainly will be a cost.

And uh, and then you know, there's there's no I don't think we have any reason to anticipate a windfall in uh subsequent years where we're going to uh find ourselves in a different position.

Um and uh I think as uh my colleague said that you know there's there's a lot of reasons to have um reservations about um about this, but looking at it strictly from a financial standpoint, it it seems um it would it doesn't feel appropriate to me um to to be um spending this money uh in this way.

Thank you, counselor.

Counselor Strazo.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I know that some of my colleagues uh will uh I uh uh vote against this no matter what, um, because of the way they feel about things, and I respect that.

And I'm always open to the conversation as well.

Uh I've been listening to these conversations uh since, of course, uh now my fourth term uh for a while now, and I always appreciate learning something new.

Uh but to point out that the NAACP recommendations include, and I've asked and checked every single time, uh include the uh uh recommendation for body worn cameras, and also uh, of course, the civilian oversight uh committee and here in Somerville, for those some of our counselors who are new and haven't been following this uh conversation for um the many years that this has been in conversation.

Some of that we had our police over um, I'm sorry, our uh reimagining uh police civilian uh uh uh public task force.

And one of the members, uh Ben Struel, uh is I've been speaking with him as well.

And uh, Mr.

Chair, if it's possible, I'd be interested in sponsoring him to speak tonight now.

Yes, I'm open to that.

Um I see him in attendance.

Um clerk, is it possible to uh promote him to being able to speak?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just to confirm this is Ben that we would like to sponsor.

Yes, Ben Strull.

Okay, Ben, you should be able to speak now.

Um thank you, Mr.

Chair, and uh thank you, counselors.

Um I um appreciate the opportunity to speak.

I uh will give the briefest possible introduction.

I um am the executive director of a research center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Um, and we have directly studied uh the adoption of body worn cameras in the city of Boston.

Um as part of our research center, we have uh my respected colleague Cynthia Lum, a distinguished university professor at uh George Mason University, who has done a systematic review of every single study of body worn cameras um evertaken.

Um I'd like to particularly highlight uh some of the research of my colleague Morgan C.

Williams.

Um he's a professor uh at uh Barnard College at Columbia.

And his um research interest and specialty is um uh the economics of crime and incarceration policy with an emphasis on racial inequality.

Uh the most consistent findings we have on the research around body worn cameras is that they reduce uh citizen complaints about the police.

And um I think uh there's a lot of variation in how these different uh programs are implemented, uh, with some being um what you would uh uh clearly see as being the worst possible implementation of the idea that officers are equipped with cameras, uh camerridge footage is uh taken, stored in a vault, and no one ever gets to see the camera footage or interact with it in any way, which uh, as you might imagine would not create uh any possible benefit.

But looking at uh the wide range of studies of these different types of programs, you can see this consistent finding that uh body worn cameras reduce citizen complaints about the police.

And uh in Boston, we found that body worn cameras reduced officer use of force.

Um my colleague um Morgan Williams at Barnard um did a cost-benefit analysis of body worn cameras.

And uh this is uh publicly available information uh that I'd be happy to share.

Um he found that body worn cameras uh create about five dollars in benefit for every one dollar of cost spent upon them, and that um about a quarter of those budgets might accrue directly to the city budget.

So uh, you know, a quarter of five, right, being um 1.25 dollars for every dollar goes to the city budget.

Now, uh this is an average of what he found in different results of studying this.

And uh the benefit to Somerville um financially could be lower if Somerville does not have a lot of complaints against the police.

But um, this is what the uh large body of research says.

Um, you know, we do, I think have uh pretty good idea of the fact that these generate benefits in many cases, and uh the state of Massachusetts has put together a very thoughtful task force report, uh, which is also publicly available on what sort of policies should accompany body worn cameras.

And um you can also look to some of our uh neighboring jurisdictions like Cambridge for what kind of policies uh they're implementing.

I my understanding is Somerville is interested in adopting similar policies um for this.

I guess my final um thing I would mention is that this is one area where uh there is uh actually relatively very little concern for um for outside groups to gain access to surveillance data.

Um we have seen increasingly across the country in places we worked, uh federal government entities gaining access to government databases uh in all sorts of areas uh that they had never had access to before, often contravening the law.

Uh so this is a very uh good general concern, but uh the amount of difficulty it would take for uh such agencies to access uh and peruse this type of footage would be uh prohibitively difficult.

Um I think uh those basic uh elements of the research are really valuable.

Maybe I'll I'll just sort of close and say uh having observed um the reactions in Cambridge after the uh shooting of Sayed Faisal in that city, uh that shooting really had a negative impact on the community that reverberated for many months, in part because there was some real uncertainty about what happened in that incident, uh, which really really divided the community uh afterwards and led to uh Cambridge deciding to adopt uh its own body worn camera program.

Um I think the benefits of having public transparency on elements like this uh really uh cannot be always stated economically.

Um so thank you very much.

I really appreciate it, and I'd be happy to take any questions if there were any.

Uh Mr.

Chair, I just really quick uh forgot to mention his uh credentials for the the minutes.

Uh Mr.

Struel is uh executive director of the crime and justice policy lab at the University of Penn Pennsylvania.

He um uh launched the executive uh director of Center of Crime and Community Resilience at Northeastern University, uh leading projects in seven U.S.

cities and ten countries.

Of course, Somerville resident, very proud to say, uh, has worked at MIT's poverty action lab and uh worked for the mayor of Boston, Boston Public Schools, Center for American Progress, including uh uh and as a data analyst for senator and then President Barack Obama.

So he may know a few things about what he's talking about, uh, but I'm very uh interested in hearing what our colleagues have to say as this continue uh conversation continues.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Strezzo, and thank you, Mr.

Struel.

And I'll also mention another credential.

Um, chair, I believe chair of uh Somerville's Public Safety for All Task Force Um, as uh I think Chief Benford uh was referring to uh earlier.

Counselor Scott.

That that was the clarification I was looking for was uh his role in the public safety for all task force.

I didn't uh didn't see him on the on the task force page.

So I appreciate it.

Other members of the committee.

Um I I could speak.

Uh this is a big topic.

It's hard to know where to begin.

And um there's uh a lot of different perspectives.

I've spoken to uh to a number of different people about this.

Uh I I really do take to heart some of the benefits that um that uh uh Mr.

Struel was describing.

And, you know, the the way that camera footage can provide a shared uh a shared grounding of um of understanding of what happened in a given interaction uh in a way that could help move understandings and and perspectives uh towards each other as opposed to to how they um too often separate out between uh police officers, members of the public, um, other people observing.

Uh one thing that I want to share that I I haven't heard mentioned in this conversation is that there are a number of defense uh public defenders and defense attorneys who also describe uh appreciating body worn cameras for the way they provide an additional set of facts uh beyond what's often just one person saying he said she said uh in many court cases.

And um that at least anecdotally, there's a sense among many public defenders that the body worn camera footage um reduces both the uh the false positives and false negatives.

Uh it it helps make sure the people who who are being violent, there's more evidence demonstrating that, and people who may have been wrongfully accused or the victim of a misunderstanding uh to have context to to clear their name.

Uh that's something that that matters to me immensely.

It in reading the public safety for all task force uh report and um and other reports about best practices, I do see a lot of discussion of having patterns of professional review within police departments and uh and involving both police officers and other groups uh in the context of Somerville.

Those other groups could include civilian oversight uh bodies yet to be created, and could include um the core uh group that's part of the police department now.

Uh when I'm thinking about the version of Body Worn Camera implementation that I would feel most confident in, it involves um really clear uh practices of of review uh both internally and with other other bodies, uh not so much in a spirit of finding misbehavior, but of uh professional development.

And there's a pattern in many industries.

I come from education, so I'm the most familiar with that of um communities of practice, where people who are already working professionally and doing a good job are able to develop their uh their expertise through reviewing what other practitioners uh are doing, through reviewing, you know, even what people who may have observed them teaching uh have to report.

So uh those are pieces that uh would make me feel more confident that if we're talking about taking on this pretty large uh recurring spending commitment that we'd really be uh investing in our staff expertise um in the long term.

Uh it's tricky the timing of our talking about this right now, and there's a sense I think among some in the public that the conversation is rushed.

Part of that is just that there is this grant before us.

Um I think something I've gathered from a few of my colleagues' comments is uh if you look at the essentially um counselor Scott said conservatively 450,000, my math put it at 430,000, but uh we're talking about the similar similar size uh dollar item, either way.

Um if we're talking about that as an ongoing cost, uh, and here I I'm adding up this 117,000 full-time employee, the additional um spear cameras item, um the salary bump and this um this cost to the city.

And and uh and apologies if I'm double counting some aspect um in this 95,800 recurring cost.

I'm not sure if that includes any of these other items.

But um in the light of that, I think the uh this 230,000 dollar grant, as much as I never want to uh treat 230,000 as though it doesn't matter, it's it's something that um that quickly gets dwarfed by the uh by the recurring uh cost um, you know, a few years in and that 230,000 becomes 10 percent of the total.

So I I feel like the question before us really is um is this cost worth it?

And uh, and I think that's a very difficult question.

Uh I take counselor Scott's point that um we're talking about something uh oh here my math is going to be bad, but um about one fortieth, so uh two and a half, a two and a half percent uh annual bump in um the overall police budget.

Uh that's something that um I I might be interested in more if we were talking about uh more staffing uh for patrol officers uh, for example.

Um it seems to me like the value that we'll get uh from this um from this much cost, it still it still feels pretty speculative to me.

And uh I do appreciate that um you know that in these other localities there there has been a decrease in uh in civilian complaints against police.

That certainly is a sign that that we could expect um some benefit.

Uh and I don't mean to be dismissive of the benefit, but uh given that this is something that we could come back to if we feel the stars are aligning and we feel the conditions are aligning, we could come back to it next year.

We can back to it the year after.

I don't mean to kick the can uh down the road that way, but um as counselor Lang said as well, in this time of of tight budget, it makes it hard for me to feel supportive in my in my sort of final judgment.

But it's it's a tough one.

I think there's a lot, a lot of good to be said about cameras.

Um thank you for all uh listening to me ramble a bit.

Chief Benford Thank you very much uh for your comments, Counselor.

Uh greatly appreciate it.

I also want to um subject matter expertise.

Um I certainly am not a subject matter expert uh in this space.

Um you know, when he talked about uh investment, um right, we can't minimize it.

It is an investment uh in this technology to bring about the reward of transparency and accountability that that that we're looking for.

Um there's a debate certainly in the conversation to be had about those numbers, um, but there is a cost um associated with which um I think we all acknowledge.

Um it will only be one adverse experience that one of our community members experiences um in a worst case scenario um that will prove its value.

Um I will certainly um, as I always do acknowledge everyone's life experience.

Um I only wish that body won cameras uh you know existed when the police officer told me that he was gonna kill me and I had to live my life uh you know for several years um and then subsequently um ended up working with this same individual as a colleague.

Um I think the the benefits uh to the community uh there is uh no no doubt um uh bring about a level of accountability um and certainly uh uh comfort that I hope um uh would come uh with the community by having these cameras.

So I you know I just want to acknowledge um that that there is a value, there is a cost, uh, but the immense value um around um trust building and transparency with our community um also has a value that's attached to it as well.

Um and I want to acknowledge that and I also uh counselor, as you mentioned, you also talked about uh uh the grant and there are some timeliness factors that that's associated with the grant.

Um, you know, we were very fortunate as a community.

Um my understanding is is that there were uh this is the last year of funding uh being offered by the state uh to support programs such as this.

Um and uh there were 80 plus departments, I believe, that applied uh and only 30, and we were uh 30 of them received funding.

We were very fortunate to receive one of the largest rewards.

So um I do hope uh and implore that this committee as well as the full body uh continues to take this up favorably um as I do think that it will be a significant value add as we talk about that trust and relationship building uh with our community.

Thank you, Chief.

And just lastly, you mentioned um my apologies.

You mentioned uh professional development.

Uh absolutely uh, you know, we're all bound by in-service uh mandatory in-service training hours uh annually.

We're always looking for creative ways uh to use experiences not only of our own department members and community, but also um of those from other parts of the uh parts of the country that can help inform how we can best service our community.

So uh those are things that uh we we very much are open to.

Um it is something that is also included in our welcoming uh ordinance, uh, but we also embed training into our annual training to make sure that we're staying abreast and fully cognizant of the value set uh for our community um in our training annually.

So that is something uh counselor that is important for us and would certainly use uh you know look to use appropriate tools from this technology to help inform uh better policing and better use of the uh of the tools and resources that we have.

Thank you, Chief.

Counselor Hart.

Thank you, Chair Wheeler.

Um also uh I want to appreciate you, Chief Benford for your comments just now and and everyone who's spoken.

Um and Chair Chair Wheeler, I think uh you articulated very well a lot of my concerns and hesitations around the um commitment to the large expenditure.

Um one other thing, um having reviewed the public safety for all, I know you know, uh recommendations, um and I know that so many people in our community have been doing work on this for so many years.

Um so I don't I definitely don't want to dismiss the potential value and benefit lightly at all.

Um but I do feel that I would be more comfortable making the commitment with some more information uh with some more um knowledge of what the policies were going to be that guided its use.

Um so I just wanted to put that out there in terms of the timeline of making the the decision.

Thank you, counselor.

Any other members of the committee have thoughts or questions?

I'm seeing a hand um from Mr.

Struel.

Um I would sponsor uh sorry, um I'm seeing a hand also from Counselor Scott.

Counselor Scott.

Mr.

Chair, I just have some conclusions and a motion.

So if you'd like to hear from more members of the public before that, that sounds like a good idea.

Okay, thank you.

I'd like to sponsor Mr.

Strull to speak.

Uh I appreciate that, Mr.

Chair.

And I can see, you know, none of these are um easy um you know fiscal discussions when when thinking about things.

I sort of wonder for the uh committee's consideration whether there is any data about the ongoing cost of citizen complaints.

Um as the chief mentioned, um this might be a little bit difficult to um fully think through because uh in my experience, you know, one uh well founded uh citizen complaint can be incredibly costly to um the city, um, but those are um less common.

Uh so perhaps that could help uh the committee consider you know more the uh costs and benefits of adopting this type of policy.

Thank you.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

I I do think um more information is useful and uh another piece of context here.

Uh it is a matter of public record that uh in our last council session, um, we went into executive session specifically to talk about collective bargaining with the two police unions.

That's not new information.

Uh I I am curious um to make sure that we are allowing ourselves um reasonable time so that any information that's relevant uh is something that we can be taking into account um at the time that we make the the decisions on on this grant and any other matter relating to it, police uh body warm cameras.

Uh Lia S and Radasi, pardon me, Counselor Scott.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Sorry, I just wanted to add, um, I know I've spoken to you about this offline, but um, we're happy to let this stay in committee and wait until May 12th so that the conversation in legislative matters committee can happen.

And also for further discussion, um at Thursday's council meeting um and executive session to provide additional information as well.

So just wanted to let you know and put that on the record.

Thank you, liaison.

Counselor Scott.

Um thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I first of all, I find it um shocking uh that the argument is made that uh there's so much misconduct that having cameras would reduce our cost as a city.

Uh I would hope that uh some real police department is uh better managed and behavior.

Certainly that's what we've always been told.

Um that said, uh I do want to uh point out that again we are talking about budget cuts.

We're talking about asking uh departments uh up and down the city to uh sharpen their pencil.

I believe in our finance committee meeting, uh every department is being asked to look for five percent in their uh you know, markers, dry erase markers, and colored pencils budgets.

Uh and that difficult choices might be had made on the school budget.

Um, this is uh as I said at the time, I think uh a time where we really need to be reevaluating uh our priorities.

Uh this is uh acceptance of a grant in advance of uh all the determinations of policy around the use of that footage uh in advance of uh any establishment of a civilian oversight commission.

Uh and uh quite frankly, rushed in order to uh recoup a value that is less than the transfer we just approved from lag money, just unpaid salaries that are just sitting there uh to cover medical expenses.

Um it is putting the city on the hook for a half million dollars, uh 450,000, my apologies, uh annually.

Uh for basically the benefit of sparing ourselves a startup cost of a program.

Um those startup costs are 180,000, 181, I believe, from the moment.

Uh I just don't see any uh feasible way where that's a justifiable trade-off to make uh to to rush the process to accept uh you know that little startup cost when you look at the uh ongoing cost for the the city moving forward.

So I'd be inclined to move to recommend against approval of this item.

If you feel like a motion is in order at the time.

Thank you, Counselor.

I was going to see what Counselor Lank had to say.

But Counselor Link, I saw your hand disappear.

You sure?

Yeah.

I think I think the good counselor for more to um hit most of what I'd say.

I guess I would just add um that you know uh if body worn cameras aren't going if there's a you know, we talked about we could quickly see that a complaint costs more than this program, but a body worn camera does not guarantee that it doesn't remove the a complaint.

Um it could decrease the number of complaints, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we're still not gonna also get hit with a large complaint.

Um so the it's a bit speculative, um, where we know for a fact that we're gonna be looking at close to half a million dollars each year.

Uh so you know, I I've got to look at in my mind, I've I have to look at what um clear costs we're gonna have for the city, what clear benefits doesn't seem to me at this time um that any of the the proposed um kind of uh ideas of a of a policy or are going to uh confer that benefit to the city, uh whereas um taking that money from the city's budget is gonna clearly harm um other departments.

And I'm I'm not comfortable with that, so I I would also move to um yeah, can uh recommend against those.

Mr.

Chair, Councillor Strezzo.

So uh to clarify, uh are the are my colleagues moving for a vote to where they can vote for or against it.

Mr.

Chair, that is the motion that I'm making.

Yeah, I didn't I didn't hear that.

I heard that you were voting or you were moving for a uh to uh against a recommendation, and that's that is not a motion.

So you so from what I hear that you are proposing a motion then Mr.

Chair.

I'm sorry, uh uh Council Link was saying that.

And uh Mr.

Chair, to you through you.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Mr.

Chair, through you um the item is referred to us for recommendation.

The action of this committee is to supply a recommendation to the city council, making that recommendation to the city council takes the form of a motion to uh in favor of or uh against recommendation of the item.

So I'm moving affirmatively to uh recommend against approval of this item.

Uh Mr.

Chair, Counselor Scott.

Mr.

Chairman Strazzo.

Yes.

Uh I I no need to mansplain this.

Uh I believe that we have a roll call vote to make, or um, would we should have a roll call vote to make on that?

And uh if I may get my word on in on this, um, I think that um from the research I've done on this item, as I have not uh really made in, I think this is good for transparency uh body worn cams, and I think we owe that to our constituents.

And uh yeah, it's it's I know that some of uh my colleagues here tonight um have their opinions and I always uh learn something new from them and I respect their opinions, as I hope that they will respect mine.

But I want to make sure that our community feels safe and that they feel supported.

And I think that uh the transparency on this is is uh a step forward uh body cam's transparency on this is important step as everything I've seen in the research has concluded.

And so as it is, but uh yeah, then uh I I if if a move for a vote has not been done, then I will uh make a motion to make a move for a vote.

Yay or nay.

Thank you.

And on the motion, uh I just want to to share procedurally, and partly I'm just uh checking my own understanding.

Oh, please.

Um in terms of that possible alignment with uh the stir coming back from legislative matters, if that is indeed what happens, um on uh at the council meeting for May 14th.

Um if we discharge this item in this meeting, uh it is possible at the next council meeting on Thursday as well to lay the item on the table to await a vote together with um whatever the discharge status of the stir is.

Uh I I want to I want to appreciate that uh we are all getting information.

We've gotten information in the last few weeks, and uh I anticipate that there may be some more.

I'm appreciating counselor Hart's point about um wanting wanting some more information and uh being curious about some of those answers.

I also take uh counselor Scott's point that um it is our responsibility to uh to decide on approval.

And um I am also inclined to have us take a roll call vote tonight.

Um Leah and Rodassi, I know you had spoken about you know about the possibility of keeping this in committee.

Do you have any thoughts before we move ahead?

The chair, um, thank you.

Yes, um, the administration's preference would be for this to either remain in committee or be discharged without a recommendation and laid on the table on Thursday at the council meeting, so that the conversation and executive session on Thursday can occur, and we can share updates then and also for the conversation and ledge matters related to the STIR can occur um so that all those items will be back before the council for consideration as a package in the right order on um May 14th at the city council meeting.

Okay, thank you.

Um I I certainly don't want to uh to influence the uh you know discussions in another committee.

Um the uh the recommendation of this committee is not the final recommendation of the council.

Um isn't it essentially equivalent if this item were to be laid on the table on Thursday.

Mr.

Chair, is that a question to me procedurally?

Uh well, it was a question I intended for Lia's and Rodas Rodassi uh procedurally, but I'd be happy to hear your answer, Vice Chair.

Uh procedurally, this is uh any recommendation made by this committee uh is then the recommendation that is before the council.

The council can uh move to accept that recommendation or reject that recommendation.

If uh they do not wish to act on that uh recommendation at the next meeting, the item can be laid on the table.

Uh and certainly as soon as it is out of committee, it is a for discussion before the entire council.

So uh a vote tonight procedurally, simply to uh pass it along with that recommendation does not preclude any change of action in the future, as I'm sure my colleagues are aware.

Uh having uh overturned the recommendation of the committee on multiple occasions in the past at the risk of mansplaining, sir.

No, understood.

Uh understood.

Um I have another procedural question, which is there is a motion on the table to take a roll call vote.

Um if I or another member of the committee were inclined to want to lay this item on the table, uh, would that be would we take a roll call vote on whether to take a roll call vote or uh sorry if I'm if I'm not communicating that that clearly enough.

Um I think it would be my my preference to keep this in committee until next meeting.

Uh allowing for additional information that you know may come our way in executive session or otherwise.

And so I'm really just trying to find out what does that mean about this motion on the table.

Um, Mr.

Um, but to adjourn to lay on the table or for the previous question, uh, to lay on the table is a preferential motion.

Uh the motion shall be decided by majority of those present and shall take precedence in the order in which they are arranged.

So if you do wish to um lay this item on the table, you can move to do so, and it will take precedence over uh my motion uh for the previous question.

Thank you.

I appreciate that clarification.

Uh Counselor Link, did you have something on the motion?

Uh yes.

Uh I'm I'm I am of the mind that that we should be um that we should be voting on this and um and and making decision.

Uh the um stir and all of this aside, the I think the the question is really um on the finance side, you know, does it make sense?

Thank you.

I for my judgment, I think the um financial question could be swayed based on information.

I'm not saying that I expect it to be.

Um that's that's where my preference to lay it on the table comes.

So I do move to lay this item on the table for next meeting.

Um is that something that we then take a roll call vote on?

Um Mr.

Chair, given that there have been differing opinions on how to proceed, I would recommend a roll call vote on that.

Thank you.

Clerk, uh, would you please take a roll call vote on the motion to lay this item on the table?

Yep.

So this is item number 18 um to lay it on the table.

Counselor Link.

No.

Counselor Strezzo.

Yes.

Counselor Hart.

Yes.

Counselor Scott.

No, thank you.

Chair Wheeler.

Yes.

All right.

With that, that is three votes in favor of laying this on the table and two against.

Thank you.

I don't mean to string this along, but uh I do want to allow for more information to come our way.

Um that item is laid on the table to be uh taken up.

Uh my intention is next meeting.

Um, and that brings us to the last item.

Item 19, ID 26-0636.

Alexandra Thorne and Daniel Wong submitting comments regarding item 26-0378, the grant for body worn camera program.

Um I hope everyone else has also read those comments.

Uh which call for us to um to wait until the legislative matters uh decision is made on the stir.

And if there's any other any discussion on these items, I see none.

So this item is marked work completed.

And now, Clerk, would you please take um oh sorry, do I hear a motion to uh sorry, let me look back at my notes.

Do I hear a motion uh from anyone to recommend approval of the items on the table and then to adjourn?

Motion to approve the items on the table and also to adjourn.

Thank you.

Counselor Strezzo moves to recommend up approval of the items on the table and then to adjourn.

Clerk, could you please read the agenda item numbers of the items up for a recommendation to approve and call the roll and recommending approval of those items in adjournment?

Yes, I can.

All right.

This is on approving items one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and eleven together, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, as well as adjournments.

Counselor Link.

Yes.

Counselor Strezzo.

Yes.

Counselor Hart.

Yes.

Counselor Scott.

Yes.

Chair Wheeler.

Yes.

All right.

With that, it is 8 15 p.m.

and we are adjourned, and those items are recommended for approval.

Thank you all.

Have a good night.

Thank you very much.

Have a great night.

You too.

Take care.