All right.

Welcome everybody this evening to uh this meeting of the City of Somerville City Council uh Committee on Legislative Matters.

I'm JT Scott, your Ward II counselor and your chair for legislative matters this session.

We are meeting here on this Tuesday, May 19th at uh 6.03 p.m.

Uh pursuant chapter two of the acts of 2025, this meeting is being uh conducted via remote participation and the video and audio recording of it will be posted to the city's website shortly after the conclusion of the meeting.

Uh we I want to thank everybody for joining us this evening on a delightful uh summer thunderstorm evening.

If you do hear uh delighted squeals outside, I promise that's just my kids losing their mind running around in the rain.

Uh to go ahead and begin.

I know we are joined tonight by Clerk Fisher Cassial.

If you could start us off with a uh roll call to establish a quorum, please madam.

Glad I can.

Counselor Davis.

Here.

Counselor Mbaugh.

Counselor Ewan Campen.

Here.

Counselor Strezzo.

Chair Scott.

Present.

All right.

With that, we have four members here, so we do have a quorum.

Oh, wonderful, wonderful.

Uh, our first two items are approval of minutes.

We had two meetings in our uh in our last batch, although this does say April 5th, I believe this is the approval of the meetings of May 5th.

Uh, and the approval of the minutes of the April 28th uh meetings.

So a little bit of an error on the agenda here.

But if we could uh are there any discussion on those two sets of minutes?

All right, seeing none, we'll go ahead and lay those on the table for uh approval.

And uh yeah, there it is, May 5th.

Excellent.

All right.

So uh we will go ahead.

It's just a scrivener's error.

I'm pretty sure we don't need to amend anything.

Uh we have two substantive items before us tonight.

One is a uh welcome update to our welcoming communities ordinance, and one is a discussion on the uh establishment of the rental registry and energy disclosure ordinance, which was uh submitted by the previous administration uh just prior to their conclusion.

So we'll go ahead by picking up item number three first, that is ordinance 260522, proposing an amendment to section 2-6 of the code of ordinances, the welcoming community ordinance to further enhance civil rights protections in Somerville.

Now, Counselor Ewan Campen, you were, I believe, lead sponsor on this.

Uh and so if you'd like to give an introduction and sponsor any members of the public to introduce the changes that you are uh proposing tonight, I give you the floor.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Chair.

Um I I want to just dig into this and hear from colleagues and from staff.

Um, but before we do so, I was hoping to sponsor a member of the public, Gideon Epstein, who's in the audience, who is counsel with the ACLU of Massachusetts, who aided us in the drafting of this.

Have him give some very brief introductory remarks.

That sounds like a splendid idea to me.

Um, Madam Clerk Fisher Cassiol, could you uh promote him up or unmute him so that he can uh give us a brief introduction?

I'm here.

Oh, all right, already here.

Uh well then, Mr.

Epstein.

Why don't you watch go ahead?

Um yeah, well, appreciate Counselor Ewan Campen for inviting me to give uh just some introductory remarks and to the other co-sponsors of these amendments.

Uh I had the chance to address the full city council about a month ago.

And one of the things I said at that meeting is that these amendments uh represent some of the most consequential things that uh local lawmakers can take at the municipal level uh to safeguard immigrant immigrants' rights and more broadly the civil liberties of the broader community in Somerville.

And I think uh one particular area of these amendments that I want to highlight and it connects so much with uh the other work that I do at the ACLU of Massachusetts is uh these amendments requirement that uh city lawyers review uh ongoing um city contracts uh or uh new city contracts that come about and review existing uh city contracts when they come up for renewal.

Um, and in particular, you know, that area is uh so important right now because we are seeing uh municipal surveillance technology contracts, for example, uh contracts between about 80 Massachusetts municipalities, Somerville not included, uh, and uh a company like Flock Safety that we know uh and we have clear evidence that you know they are uh directly contributing to civil immigration enforcement, um, whether that's providing data to ICE or providing uh you know licensed plate reader information that reflects uh driver's location information uh to other local law enforcement.

Um and I think it you know speaks to Somerville's values and leadership that Somerville's not engaged in uh this data sharing network that Flock has going on, like so many other municipalities are.

Uh, but the language in the amendment in these amendments would uh make sure that the actions that Somerville has taken to safeguard immigrants' rights in the past are now uh reflected in law and um you know we'll have thorough review and um I think that uh contract review provision.

Uh it's it's uh you know building on other provisions in these amendments that would more explicitly prevent uh information sharing with federal immigration enforcement authorities and other law enforcement engaged in several immigration enforcement efforts uh and would also uh build on other provisions that safeguard safeguard Somerville residents' First Amendment rights, which are so often under attack um in today's day and age.

So I just want to thank um Counselor Ewan Campen again for your work on this and on these amendments and look for looking forward to you know answering any questions that um members of the committee might have about these amendments drafting.