Good evening, everyone.

I'm Ben Wheeler.

I use he him pronouns.

I'm a counselor at large and the Finance Committee Chair.

It is 6.02 p.m.

I'd like to call to order the Monday, June 15th, 2026 meeting of the Finance Committee of the Somerville City Council.

Pursuant to chapter two of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of a City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation.

We'll post an audio video recording and a 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 Cassiol.

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

That again.

Counselor Link.

Counselor Strezzo.

I believe I saw you come off mute, but I did not actually hear you, Counselor Straso.

Present.

Got it.

Thank you.

Counselor Hart.

Here.

Counselor Scott.

Rosen.

And Chair Wheeler.

Here.

All right.

With that, we do have quorum.

Everyone is here.

Okay.

Welcome everyone to the second night in our series of departmental budget hearings on the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget.

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

I want to get it right.

Thank you to the department heads who are appearing tonight, uh, and division heads and everyone else in a managerial capacity who'll be here.

Thanks to all the staff members who've been preparing for budget season, and thanks to all the counselors here tonight and uh and who submitted questions in advance.

Here's how tonight's meeting is going to work.

For each department and division, if there was a departmental memo with responses to council counselor questions, then the clerk will display it.

We'll invite the department or division heads to give a brief high level overview of their department.

Sorry, let me be a little more specific.

We'll invite the department heads to give uh a high level overview of their department's role within the administration and its role in the cabinet.

Something like three or four minutes.

We'll invite each division within the department to also give a short overview of its work when its turn comes, including any plans it wants to highlight for fiscal year 2027 and any major changes.

I'm imagining here something like one to two minutes.

I'll briefly recap any questions that counselors submitted and attempt to paraphrase the answers that are in the memos and invite the division heads to elaborate if they wish.

Councilor members, council members, committee members can then ask any follow-up questions or further questions that they might have.

And after we finish discussing any department or division, any counselor is welcome to make a motion for a cut or to make a motion for a resolution suggesting additional funding.

These could also be made at the cut night or budget night.

So any such motions will then be tabled until cut night, which is Tuesday, June 23rd.

And I also encourage anyone making such motions to speak with the council's finance analyst, Mohamed Udin ahead of the 23rd.

Now, first, before we actually begin the department hearings, we have an item that was referred to the finance committee that I'd like us to take up first.

That is item two, 26-0979, an order introduced by Councilor McLaughlin requesting that the Director of Health and Human Services update the council on recent changes for requests for proposals for youth programming grants, particularly grants that impact teen empowerment directly.

And I believe we have Director of Health and Human Services Karen Carroll, who can speak on this.

And I believe we also have a speaker from the community whom a member of the committee wishes to sponsor to speak.

So on that, I want to make clear to everyone that we're not going to be sponsoring outside speakers in the departmental budget hearing portion of these meetings.

But this is specific to this order by Counselor McLaughlin.

Okay, uh with that, uh Counselor Link, would you like to sponsor your speaker?

Yes.

Um I would like to sponsor Aliyah from Teen Empowerment.

Do we have Alia Ewing in the attendees?

I see her there.

Yep, talking has been permitted.

Um, please proceed, Ms.

Ewing.

Oh, and also um just before you begin, we ask that you keep your comments to two minutes.

I will talk fast.

Thank you.

Please proceed.

Um, Counselor Link, thank you for sponsoring my remarks this evening.

As previously mentioned, I am joining you today to urge your support for maintained funding of Teen Empowerment Somerville Youth Program.

Our work is centered around preventing issues among adolescents.

And so by the very nature of the mission that we have in this city, even if crime and violence and suicide and substance abuse among teens are trending downward.

In previous years, funding from HHS seemed to understand our work as a necessity to the social fabric of this community of youth.

In FY23 through FY25 funding remains steady at 422,000.

However, the city's investment has drastically decreased over the last two years.

FY26 went down to 40930, while FY27 is at that 100,000 mark, which again is not a guaranteed amount as it is through a public RFP process.

Simultaneously, as funding has been severely cut, the city's youth minimum wage for the contract has gone up from $15 an hour four years ago to $1,85 now, along with staff salaries and insurance and food prices and et cetera.

And in addition, last year we were also removed from the city's phone and internet system and began paying for that on our own as well.

So historically, we've had a very positive work in relationship with HHS, and we appreciate that we were given a general heads up about impending changes.

In early March, we were made aware that we'd receive potentially less funding due to overall cuts in the city and that there would be the shift to RFP process.

However, there was no indication that the cuts would be catastrophic to our program and would amount to less than 25% of what we currently receive.

Furthermore, the RFP itself was rather complicated for a very fast two-week turnaround, one of those days being Memorial Day holiday.

And we found that teen empowerment only qualified for one of the two RFPs because our space at 165 Broadway is not ADA compliant.

And the second RFP required open teen center programming.

So we've scrambled within that two-week period to identify viable partnerships with venue space that could allow us to qualify with their help.

Those RFPs were extended a few days past those initial two weeks, but it was after we turned in our proposal.

And for whatever it's worth during the submission for questions, um, the person responsible for answering those questions before the deadline had an auto email response saying that he was on vacation.

So we had to reach out to general procurement for email assistance on that.

I'd also like to note that other budget cuts made beyond teen empowerment also have disproportionately affected teens in Somerville.

For example, basically the entire racial and social justice department staff was laid off last month, along with additional layoffs of at least one youth services social worker that I'm aware of.

And much of that work engaged teens and supported the work that HHS has agreed is vital to our youth.

So we can't afford to, nor are we able to raise enough to supplement the level of programming that is required to meet the needs of young people living in Somerville.

We're not in a position to stay in Somerville long term without city investment, and we would likely be forced to pursue other opportunities with more sustainable funding options.

And we'd prefer not to do that because our work within this city is so meaningful for us and so impactful for the youth.

And so I really would just like to have a broader conversation about how funding can be maintained for us.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for joining us and sharing those remarks.

Um, do we have uh Health and Human Services Director Karen Carroll or Finance Manager Anu Malik here uh to comment on this item?

Yes, to the chair.

Director Carroll is here.

Thank you.

Uh welcome.

Uh I suppose I just stated your name and you did too.

So maybe you don't need to state your name, but please proceed.

Uh thank you uh for the question and the comments.

We understand there's been a considerable amount of concern on this.

Um, so I just want to clarify there's been no reduction to the overall budget this year for the youth services programs.

So that 409 is still there in its entirety in our operating budget.

So there has been no reduction to the overall youth programming.

What we are doing is going out to bid following mass procurement process that after three years of contracting up to bid.

Um, and we use the opportunity, as um the folks from Teen Empowerment mentioned to align the RFPs and the scope of services that were requesting better to the needs of youth.

And those needs were assessed by two ways.

We did a needs assessment that was conducted two years ago or a year and a half ago, and there's several very clear recommendations that have come out of that.

Um, and the second thing is our youth risk behavior survey that we conduct in our schools.

So we compile the data, had a look at those things, and then adjusting the scopes uh for these youth programmings.

They are now split into several with two RFPs that are out now with a third to go out soon in the summer when we finish working out the kinks of that.

And so the two that are out, there's $300,000 currently out in a procurement process with scopes.

And I can't elaborate anymore.

We're in the middle of a procurement process.

So certainly folks were invited to apply.

And bidder we reached out to bidders in this field to encourage them to apply.

Thank you, Director Carroll.

Any comments or questions from members of the committee.

I'm saying Councillor Hart.

Thank you so much.

And through you to Director Carroll, thank you.

I just um wondered if you could elaborate a little bit on the results.

You said you you kind of um adjusted the scope based on the results of the survey.

And could you say more about that about what the priority, what the research you know showed and what how you how the priorities shifted.

Yes, through the chair, thank you for the question.

There were three broad pockets of recommendations, and there is a lengthy report.

I'll be happy to share after this meeting with the committee that outlined the needs as determined in the needs assessment.

So there were three broad areas.

One was youth advocacy.

Um was communication and coordination of resources available to youth, how youth learn about things generally, um, and working together to expand the amount of programming and spaces available to youth.

And the third was uh career and professional development, um, sort of a range of skills and um topics within that field.

So those are the three broad buckets that came out of the needs assessment, and then those were broken down into several recommendations, which again I will share.

Our needs assessment largely reflect um the needs that you know that were identified by the youth.

I wanted through the chair to just uh add one more point about specific eligibility questions.

Um if bidders have specific eligibility questions, they can reach out to our procurement team or to the HHS contact to um discuss those.

Thank you.

Counselor Hart, are you all set with your question?

For now, yes, thank you.

Thanks.

Counselor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Through you, um, I guess the one thing that I do worry about hearing this, and this is I I say this um without having the opportunity to actually see the the data.

So I I could be um misplacing my concern.

But um a needs assessment make is like contemporaneous, right?

Like, so for example, if teen empowerment is per is fulfilling a need and then is no longer able to fulfill a need, it occurs to me that perhaps um next time there is a needs assessment, it might be that the thing that they the services that they provide for our teens isn't there.

Um, and I don't know how easy it would be to get something a program like this back up and running um if possible at all.

Uh so I I just um yeah, I've got some some strong concerns there.

I don't know if you can speak to that at all.

It's I I understand I said I don't have the the data, so maybe I'm I'm totally off base here, but I I um yeah, that's what I want to call.

Through the chair, thank you for the question.

Um there is an RFP that is specifically dedicated to the youth advocacy and empowerment scope of services and those um types of skills and programs for youth, which is largely an area in which teen empowerment has worked in the past.

Councilink you have any follow-up to that?

Um yeah, sorry, yes, sorry, I was just thinking.

Um I apologize.

Uh sure.

Um yeah, I guess I I'd I'd love to hear more about that and just understand, I guess if this is just a case where um and I know you said there's also a third grant coming uh coming in, but uh I just yeah, I want to make sure that this program um this program isn't getting chased out.

Um, but it uh with without the funding, it might be the result.

So I just really want to be careful there.

Um sorry just uh I I look forward to to maybe talking more about this.

Uh I think we could maybe talk about it uh outside of it here.

I can just if it's possible at all to sit down and just um understand the landscape better.

It'd be great.

Counselor Hart.

Oh, sorry, before I give you a second crack, why don't we go to Counselor Scott and then I'll come to you.

Counselor Scott Sure.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um you know, through you to Director Carroll.

So the of the 400,000 or 409,000, uh the two grants that have been put out uh so far are those RFP for grants are in what amounts through the chair.

One is for 100,000, and that's for the advocacy and empowerment um RFP.

And the other one is could could be in multiple, it could be in various amounts.

So bidders had the option to say they were bidding for 50,000 or a program for up to 200,000.

Okay, and that's the team space.

Exactly.

All right.

So maybe I'm just old.

Uh, but I I can remember much advocacy from team empowerment in the past, uh, just begging the city for help.

Uh because currently they're in a city-owned building.

They've been uh complaining about the lack of accessibility in their space uh for for some time.

I know that's been a point of advocacy both from the community and for the council.

Um so it seems a little uh on the nose to be offering uh a piece of the funding that are traditionally gone to them to something that they are structurally unable through no fault of their own to comply with.

Uh I'm not ascribing any motive to it, but I could certainly understand how uh somebody on the receiving end of that treatment would feel uh somewhat targeted by that.

Uh I also understand that you know, of the of the grants that normally just go out the door, uh like clockwork to support that program of 400,000 and change.

Uh this year they're not.

They're not the city hasn't even made the last tranche available.

Um, which you know, I can understand wanting to reassess uh priorities and reassess uh what's being funded, but I'm not sure anybody in the city looks at it and says, you know, the thing we spend too much money on is those damn kids.

Uh so it it just strikes me as particularly um trying to think of less colorful words to use here.

Uh uh it strikes me as particularly harsh uh to take a program that has been funded and uh to have that funding stream uh interrupted and to actually cut back on how much money we're putting out the door on on July 1st for this.

Um I I would totally understand if the mayor said, hey, you know, we're gonna use some of these opioid settlement funds uh to establish an extra 200,000 dollars uh in programming and ensure that the structures that we already have in place for uh for the teens in Somerville continues to function.

Um I I do not believe necessarily the best way to build an airplane is while you're flying.

Um so this just seems to me to be uh if perhaps well-intentioned, uh certainly uh uh let's say mismanaged in its financial application here.

Fortunately, I don't believe it's too late to fix that.

I believe it's uh pretty straightforward uh to restore the funding for this contract um at the very least for this year, uh so that longer term conversations about maybe program restructuring or space availability could be uh could be undertaken in the in the course of that year.

Uh and in fact, you know, we had something like 18 million dollars in free cash appropriations before this council on Thursday night.

Uh it is not too much of a stretch to say that some of that might be uh well used to, for example, fund uh some of these upcoming grant opportunities uh that you spoke of wanting to pursue in the next year, because I I think you know pursuing new opportunities is a great thing.

So uh Mr.

Chair, that's just my thoughts on the matter.

Um and Counselor Scott, if I could just add on to some of your saying, just I know you know this, but uh in case anybody else is listening, those free cash appropriations that were before us on Thursday night, those are still before us.

We those have not been decided on.

And for the most part, those will be taken up on cut night, just as a as a scheduling heads up to everybody.

Please continue.

Yes, sir.

I wasn't speaking to your handling of them procedurally.

I was just pointing out the millions of dollars floating around here while we argue about cutting back program that's been serving our youth here in the city for a couple of decades.

That's all.

Uh yeah, I I appreciate it.

This this seems like a this is a choice, Mr.

Chair.

Uh, and if that's a choice the city wants to make, I as a city counselor can uh look at that choice in the aggregate.

Right.

I can say in this particular case, this is something I disagree with.

And certainly I do, and I have expressed it as much.

Uh and I can implore uh the mayor, because functionally is the mayor's choice uh to reverse this.

Um however, uh when taken in a totality with some of the other uh places where the city is making a very clear choice, for example, not to fund this or not to fund uh the special education requests and school committee or not to fund uh other significant programs.

Um that's when as a city counselor, I believe it becomes uh relevant to my vote in the on the budget in the aggregate.

So uh I just I appreciate the opportunity to have the conversation and I hope that the administration reconsiders and rectifies this mistake before we get to voting on the book.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Counselor Hart.

Thank you, Chair.

Um I sh I share a lot of counselor Scott's concerns um with this funding.

And but I want to take a step back a little bit.

Um and through you, Chair to Director Carroll, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what is the city's vision for youth development overall.

Um through the chair, there are lots of components to the use the city's vision, some of which sit in HHS, some of which you'll hear more about tonight when the team comes in to talk about youth programming, other use services, um, some new use spaces that have been made available.

So I'm not sure if you want me to specifically, but with with this funding, I can just clarify that there has not been a reduction in overall funding for youth programming.

The 400,000 will go out to bid and will be renewed and to serve youth.

And and those are in those categories that I mentioned that are based on our needs assessment that was conducted previously.

So there will be a reduction in HHS's line of um our PNT line that contains these contractual programs overall.

I'd be happy to after you hear from the rest of the team tonight and some of the work they're doing in the youth space, prevention space.

Um we can certainly come back.

We work with our friends in parks in rec libraries, you're also hearing from tonight, who um do a lot of the work with youth in the city and the schools.

So we can certainly, if um questions are not answered, we could come back to this committee or the public health and public safety committee and share more specifically about what plans to do with youth services.

Um that would be fine as well.

Okay, I I appreciate that.

And you know, maybe we can get into those questions um later, like like you suggested.

Um through you, Chair, I would like to just ask uh another dig in a little bit more to understand more about the the these particular grants.

Um how how many can you tell us how many applications you received for each of the grants that have gone out?

Um through the chair, it is still in a procurement process.

The bids have closed.

There was an extension to the bid deadline that closed, but we have not uh begun the process of reviewing bids, so I cannot answer that question at this movie.

Okay.

Um thank you.

And um the uh apologies, I forgot what it was, which the question I was about to ask.

Um I can always come back to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I do have I do have other questions.

So um uh one of the just similar to the concern that counselor link raised about I I mean I do appreciate the you know, the um a lot of effort going into following the procurement, you know, laws.

Um, so of course that's important.

Um I am a little concerned about um and of course I I support things being you know driven by data and um equity, but I I think that sometimes um there may not be a uh there's so much lost, you know, when you're answering a survey, answering a form, it's you're trying to put you know, really such uh uh experiential aspects of one's life or programming into a quantitative you know format and uh brief surveys, and I just worry that there's something being lost in that um kind of mismatch, you know.

I I really think that it's hard to um match up like the value of a program like teen empowerment to a simple survey.

Um so that's that is a source of of concern for me.

Um in addition to the the situation that counselor Scott raised about the physical constraints on being in a specific location that is that is a city building.

Um it's not a question exactly, um, but just wanted to raise that concern as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Hart.

Counselor Scott.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And I just wanted to come back and uh be crystal clear through you about something that was said and then it was repeated.

Nobody is saying that the mayor has reduced funding for team program.

I I director Carroll, I appreciate the words that you have used to say that the total funding for team program has not been reduced.

The fact remains that we have a program in place, teen empowerment, and we are not funding it this year.

And we are instead going to be directing that funding to some other program that we have not identified.

Uh in one case, we haven't even created an RFP stating what kind of program we want.

So that defunding of that program is a choice.

Uh so I maybe I just have to ask directly.

Does does the city think teen empowerment's been doing a bad job with that money?

The chair, no, we do not.

We are following the procurement laws.

This is due to go out to bid.

So we are following that, and we are basing the scope of services, the refined RFPs on data that was collected, and it was not a brief survey.

Again, we can share the detailed data with you at after this meeting, the needs assessment.

It was conducted over a year period with many youths um conducted by an outside consultant, uh, as well as the Massachusetts State YRBS study that is done every year for middle and high school students.

So there is a lot of data that we are looking at and compiling, and that all helped us form the RFPs that went out this spring and the final people out this summer.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Ms.

Carroll.

I because I wouldn't want anybody to think that the city was uh thinking that teen empowerment was doing a bad job there.

I I do I have seen enough RFP written uh to know that they can be very carefully tailored.

Um and it sounds like what you're saying here is that due to your survey and everything, the the scope of services that you would like to uh obtain are uh beyond what teen empowerment currently has the capability to offer.

So I understand that.

Uh I wanted to go back to uh I don't agree with it.

I mean, I think again, this is a good job, good point for expansion of programming.

Uh but I just want to be very clear about what's going to happen to the organization.

It's going from 400,000 funding down to 100,000 of something.

Um so I did also want to follow up on Councillor Hart's uh question about bids.

Did you say that you don't know how many bids you received or that you would not tell us how many bids were received?

I do not know for sure the number of bids that have been received.

I have not spoken to procurement and asked for the next step in the packets.

Oh, okay.

So you just haven't gotten the packets yet.

Nobody from uh procurement has okay.

Well, uh geez, is procurement on our list for later tonight, Mr.

Chair.

No, they were they were the first night.

Yeah, they were the first night.

Yeah, maybe somebody can reach out to them because uh bids are public records.

You know, we it shouldn't be that hard to be able to figure out how many of those uh there are.

Uh perhaps somebody in intergovernmental affairs could put in a call while we're in this meeting.

I think we're gonna be here for a few hours.

Uh so is there anybody in the room there from the mayor's staff that could look into that answer for us?

And just to check, I want to make sure, you know, if like uh counselor Scott is saying, if this information is simply a matter of public record and it's just about uh finding it out, uh, then I I think by all means let's go ahead.

If there's some aspect of the procurement process where that information is sort of not supposed to be shared yet, then you know, please let us know, Director Carroll.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'm familiar with procurement well enough to know where I'm asking here.

Um so fortunately we have uh health and human services before us at the end of this meeting, uh, which could be four hours from now.

Um so I'm gonna ask again through you, Mr.

Chair, because I did not get any answer from anybody on the mayor's staff.

Who can get us the answer to how many bids have been received uh for those for those two RFPs?

And Councillor Scott, I'm currently texting the director of intergovernmental affairs uh to see.

Oh, well, no need to text.

Uh hello, uh director of IGA, Amanda Najim Williams.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair, through you.

Uh, we will follow up with that information.

Um, I do want to recognize that it is after uh business hours, so procurement team is probably not in office right now, but we will follow up with the information that we can provide.

Thank you.

Uh wouldn't want anybody to work late, Mr.

Chair.

Uh I I think I think I'm all set.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Counselor Link, and uh I just want to issue a blanket.

This is a very important issue.

We have a lot of very important issues before us.

And uh I just want to make sure that we're keeping in mind that um we can come back to this topic as you know as it is relevant in the uh in the HHS department uh section.

Um one question for you, Director Carroll.

Uh which of the divisions within Health and Human Services does this pertain to uh most?

Is this something that's sort of under the overall administration?

Is it part of community wellness?

Yeah, thank you through the chair.

It will sit in the community wellness division under the youth services team S of July 11.

Thank you.

Um with that said, Counselor Blank.

Thank you, Chair.

This is just one really quick question.

Um the so my understanding is uh as you said, the the overall um funding hasn't decreased.

Um, but we know that the everything is kind of the way it's broken up is has so uh I'm just curious, what is the maximum that teen empowerment could could get um potentially with it with this new arrangement chair?

The maximum amount of money that's out for bid at the moment is the 300,000.

100 and up to 200 in the second RFP.

Okay.

So so it's possible for them to get 300 from this, or is it possible if could I thought one of them was maybe could be split apart by other so like so probably less than than 300?

Okay.

Um I think that's good for me for now.

Thank you.

Thanks to my colleagues.

Uh thanks, Director Carroll and Director Najem Williams.

Any other comments or questions at this time uh from the committee?

Uh with the proviso that we can keep talking about this as part of community wellness.

Okay, thank you.

Uh we're going to move on uh with appreciation, and we will see you soon, Director Carroll.

Uh and also thank you uh to Alia Ewing and anyone else here from Teen Empowerment for joining us.

Okay.

Um moving on to our first department of the evening.

Cultural community.

Sorry, real quick, what would we like to do with this item?

I'm sorry, thank you so much, uh Clerk.

Let's uh mark this item as work completed.

Uh, since we have the opportunity to discuss it more and possibly bring motions uh as part of the departmental review and cut night process.

Got it.

Thank you.

And just to clarify for the departmental um, I guess presentations, you want each person to have a timer for two minutes for the introduction.

Um in my mind, we don't need to be as strict as having a timer.

Okay.

Um I was thinking for the overall department uh overviews, something in the ballpark of three or four minutes.

And then for the division uh introductions, something briefer, uh, two minutes or so.

Um but I I think I'll I'll play it by ear.

Perfect.

I appreciate your help.

Um so uh the culture and community department.

So for uh the first of the divisions within culture and community that we'll be uh speaking to uh arts and culture.

I believe that we have interim arts council director Rachel Strutt.

Is that the case?

Okay, wonderful.

Um staff, please introduce yourselves and proceed.

Hello.

Um, I'll jump in very quickly.

I my name is Erica Satin Hernandez.

Um I've connected with you before as the ARPR director, but I am also currently supporting the new culture and community department.

Um, I'm helping bridge the communication between the mayor, the cabinet, and our wonderful division heads.

Um the culture and community department is a new department comprised of arts and culture, previously arts council, recreation, previously parks and recreation, and our Somerville Public Libraries.

This new cabinet uh department grouping supports and enhances the work of divisions that make Somerville a lively, livable, and lovable city.

The commonalities, each of these divisions include not just their public-facing events and programmatic offerings that engage residents, but their development of the systems and scaffolds that ensure that community priorities and their areas of impact are advanced and aligned with the city's long-term vision.

In that way, I like to think of their work as an iceberg.

Uh the public-facing events are the things that we often see the most, but under the surface, these divisions are doing deep development of cultural infrastructure, supportive systems, community cohesion, placemaking, and more.

So thank you for your engagement with our department via your pre-submitted questions, and surely the questions that you'll have to come.

The comprising departments will now present their budgets and answer your questions, starting with Arts and Culture.

Hi, good evening.

Um, my name is Rachel Strutt, and I am the interim director of what is now Somerville Arts and Culture.

And I want to start by saying it's been a year of transition for us, and I want to um show my appreciation for our staff who's just done an amazing job and we're making great progress.

Um, also to note there is a staff opening that is the director, but we did post that job two weeks ago.

Um, now to tell you a little bit about who we are.

We're probably best known for our events, whether it's Porch Fest, Artbeat, Carnival, which happened just yesterday.

These events bring tens of thousands of residents and visitors each year.

They strengthen our neighborhoods, they support local businesses, and they contribute to our identity as a cultural destination.

And also to note we couldn't pull off these events without the support of other departments, whether it's police, fire, communications, it's a real team effort.

Yet all of us at the Arts Council are eager to convey that we're more than just our events.

Uh through our LCC grant program, we work closely with our volunteer board and we redistribute funds from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Um, in 2026, we awarded 1,000 um 165,000 in grants.

This goes out to individual artists, it goes out to organizations and it goes out to schools.

Um increasingly a major focus of our work is on our cultural infrastructure and on space needs.

Artists need affordable places to create, perform, exhibit, and teach.

Without these spaces, creative people struggle to remain in Somerville, and cultural assets that make our city distinctive are at risk.

To help address this challenge, we're working closely with a number of different organizations and the mayor's office to create a cultural trust that could preserve and expand long-term cultural space.

This would function in a way quite similar to our existing Somerville Community Land Trust.

We're unusual as an arts council as a municipal arts agency because we directly operate spaces.

We through our some art spaces, we provide affordable opportunities for dancers and artists of other genres to rehearse and present work and through Nibble Kitchen, we operate a restaurant and business incubator that supports immigrant chefs while bringing new multicultural experiences to the public.

And maybe we should invite you all down to take a cooking class, for example.

These spaces are central to our growing workforce development efforts.

Nibble provides entrepreneurship training in a low-risk environment.

And we have a proven track record just at Bow Market, for example, there are three restaurants that have been started up from graduates from the Nibble program.

We hope to adopt this model to support creative entrepreneurs and other artistic disciplines going forward.

Because if artists can afford to make a living in Somerville, the hope is they can afford to stay in Somerville.

Wrapping up, our work reflects a strong commitment to serving all of Somerville's diverse communities through inclusive curating and through programs like our intercombio language and culture exchange.

We're also committed to engaging youth through programs like the Mystic River Mural Project and our summer theater camp.

Finally, we remain committed to public art through ongoing mural projects and new initiatives such as the planned pop-up gallery and the vacant Starbucks building in Davis Square.

We believe in art for art's sake here here for that.

But we also want to convey that our programming and initiatives also propel economic developments, they protect art spaces, they preserve community identity, and they ensure that creativity remains a vital civic asset for the city and all of its residents.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Director Strutt.

To try to briefly summarize the questions and answers.

So, you know, I'm speaking to you, but also speaking to everybody else.

I don't expect anybody, and I'm not going to read the entire verbatim questions and answers in these memos.

Some of them are pretty long, which is much appreciated in the depth people into.

But just to touch on these questions briefly and give a chance to shed some light if there's any more to shed.

So one question from the counselors were uh was what does the arts council need to better support arts engagement?

And just to summarize, the answer uh included staff capacity, public awareness, advocacy, partnerships, external funding, and cross-department collaboration.

Uh anything else to add.

No, I think that sums it up well.

Thank you.

Uh, another question was Is Arts and Culture still involved in the brick bottom art park/slash art farm uh project, which I'm very excited about.

Uh that answer was yes.

Uh, arts and culture is working with public space and urban forestry uh on stage and audio visual design and early programming strategy.

Is that right?

And I'd love to hear just even a quick update of what stage that project's in and what comes next.

Sure.

Um, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, we're still very much engaged in the art farm project.

We've been engaged in that project for the past 15 years, but however, right now it's in the parks planning stage.

So it's moved primarily, at least for now with um public space and urban forestry.

But we are designed, we are involved in planning the design of the space.

For example, will there be plinths or stages for creative performers?

Um, might there be a small gallery space?

And then I think starting, you know, 2027 and definitely 2028, it's going to be all about the programming.

And I think we'll have to go after grant money to ensure that this the program is that the space is well programmed because it's one thing to create the space.

It's another thing to make sure that there's cultural activity happening there.

Thank you.

Uh another question was about uh two questions actually about the armory.

Uh, one is asking where does where is management of the armory centered?

And the answer was saying um it's it involves uh multiple different departments, uh Department of Public Works, Infrastructure, Strategy and Development, Culture and Community and Arts and Culture, uh, and that the Arts Council as well focuses on the arts mission and vision.

Um, anything else to add to that?

Um the chair, I would add that this also has been a project years in the making, and I think it's incredibly exciting that the city took this building by eminent domain.

And I think we're now all committed to ensure this remains a vibrant art center that it is and will become even more so a vibrant art center for all of our residents.

And we're excited to work um with other departments and also with our um new um hire that uh a buildings and tenants manager um to ensure that arts remains the focus of this building and this project.

Thank you.

Um that you sort of connected there to the next question, which was what's the arts council's hope for the armory this year?

And I know that included moving tenants in, building community setting operation policies and keeping the armory artist centered.

Anything to add to that?

Um, I would like to turn to Erica to ask you if you have anything to add as you've more involved in the armory project than I am about.

I think those are the key items.

We are also um assessing and planning any uh infrastructure and uh capital needs, but I think these are the overviews for the coming year.

Uh thank you so much.

Uh those are the existing questions and answers.

Uh members of the committee, do you have any further questions about this?

Counselor Scott.

Yeah, thank you, Ms.

Chair.

I don't mean to be dense, but you know, I've run a business and run space and event space uh for a lot of years.

Um I don't think I've ever done it by committee.

Uh so I guess I'm just curious what the answer to the question is about where it's centered, who where does the buck stop?

If somebody fundamentally has a question about operations there, uh who where does the buck stop?

Who's in charge?

Uh at this stage of the chair, the stage B, you know, the um funding account where all of the transactions occur is sitting in OSP CD or strategy and development um as its new name.

And so that is kind of the um, I guess core of where all transactions and um items will be sitting.

So I think that could be one good place to look at it, but I do think that it's incredibly important that um arts council is really the holder of the vision.

Um that there's these two kind of elements have to work in tandem of how do we have a functional um you know well managed and you know clean, upgraded, et cetera building while also making sure that um we're filling with tenants who can meet this vision.

We are setting a long-term vision, not just for one year, but for for five, 10 and more.

And I see um kind of our strategy and development team managing the side as you know, with the partners listed, the side of the um operations and the physical nature of the building and the arts council really um managing the envisioning, the um, and I guess the in that way the the artistic operations of the building.

And I know that still breaks into two, but I hope that gives a little more detail.

Thank you so much, Erica.

And through the chair, I would add there's also a five-person um board who will be helping oversee how that building is used, and they are five very arts-friendly arts forward people.

So I think they will help us um ensure that the vision is kept.

And and uh director Galligani has told me that the city property and tenant relations manager will start in OSP CD, but we'll see how that goes.

And they could potentially move somewhere else.

That's my understanding.

And the arts council is very keen to work closely with them to ensure the focus stays on the arts.

Oh, okay, appreciate that.

Now I got two new questions.

Uh that sounds like a new multi-member body.

Uh who's on that board?

Has it been advertised for solicitations for positions?

Is it already been built?

Is it uh uh is it a structure that exists as a public committee or is it an ad hoc uh set of directors?

Look, what what on earth is this?

I'm curious.

But chair, I can start that question, and I will also have to get a little bit more information on kind of the origins of that.

But um, this is a um it was the positions were advertised.

There is it's five community members who will be supporting as um director Strutt mentioned the vision of the building.

Um, I do not believe that this is a formal entity in the same way as some of our other boards and commissions.

Um it's they serve at the pleasure of the mayor, um, but I can find the exact language on the logistics of how that's set up.

Yeah, I think that I think that's a matter of pretty great public interest.

Um I appreciate that.

The other question I had is there was a uh facilities manager.

I'm sorry, I missed the exact language that you use there, uh, Director Strutt.

What it's the new city property and tenants relations manager, and they'll be overseeing the armory as well as a few other buildings.

Okay.

And they're we've interviewed for them, but we don't we don't know exactly what it'll be yet.

I don't see that position in the budget.

That's because it doesn't go into the arts and culture budget.

Right now it's going to sit with OSP CD.

Yeah, but go ahead.

I don't see it in OSPCD either.

Uh I will look to the budget team for support, but I believe that comes out of a non-general fund source um funded by armory revenues, such that it is um secondary to our general fund budget.

For a little bit more information as well, but it does come out of the armory revolving account, um, which I will get more details on for you, but it's not part of the general fund budget.

This is uh it will eventually be funded by Armory Rent Revenues, etc.

Um, but it will be one of many costs um expended in the armory account as set.

Okay.

Uh well, Mr.

Chair, uh, it again, just expressing confusion.

You know, the OSPCD administration has, I believe, uh just uh nine positions, uh of which uh I believe seven are at least partially grant funded, but they're listed in the budget book.

So this uh this phantom position is kind of a mystery to me.

And just on that matter, Councillor Scott, just looking in the the supplementary section of the budget where there's a non non-departmental budgets and other funds section and a revolving funds subsection.

I do not see mention of the armory in that page.

That's another good catch, sir.

I was gonna get to that one next.

Mr.

Chair, if I may.

Please.

Uh recognition, Mike Masterboney, budget director.

Um, the council approved on um looks like November 25th, the uh sometime around November, um, the creation of the Armory Revolving Fund.

I think that's what um my colleague is talking about.

Um, I'm happy to share more information about that.

Um this isn't something I have uh open on my computer, but um the Armory Revolving Fund is used uh to uh maintain the building.

Um there's a staffer on there.

I'm sorry, can we close it?

Thank you.

Sorry, there's another meeting going on.

Um the Armory Revolving Fund is used to maintain the building.

It's also used uh uh and the rent from the tenants uh go into that.

So this the council approved that revolving fund.

Again, I'll look for uh additional details and share those with the committee, but um my I expect that that's the case.

Um that's what my colleague is talking about.

Thank you, Director Master Bunny, and I'll just point out uh I I would expect to then see that that listed on the revolving funds page of the budget.

Um Mr.

Chair, the the the revolving fund section of the budget is um uh chapter 53, uh sorry, section 53 revolving funds.

Those are ones that require an annual appropriation or an annual expenditure cap.

Um, this is a different situation.

Um, so there's there's two different types of revolving funds.

Again, happy to follow up with more information.

I just don't have that open on my computer right now.

Um we can follow that up, follow up with that before uh the end of the budget process.

Okay, thanks.

I would love to know about any other funds that the city uses that are not in the budget book.

Mr.

Chair, there's there's a number of them.

Remember, this is the general fund operating budget that we're talking about here.

It's the annual appropriation to maintain services um for this current fiscal year.

There's some things we need to reappropriate annually, they come separately, but the digital budget book specifically um is really focused on the general fund operating budget.

So, you know, we have a number of stabilization funds, um, we've got of other funding sources.

This that's the job of the digital budget book is to talk about the general fund operating budget.

Um, but again, I I'll share that information on the armory revolving fund as soon as I can put that together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Budget director, Master Boney.

Uh uh Council Scott, you still have the floor.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh as much as it may be clear that the um annual budget book online here is about the general fund.

Uh, it is the job of the city council to provide certain degree of fiscal oversight as part of this process.

So given that we're talking about city property and city funds and that all of this seems very relevant to me.

And it seems like more transparency.

So I have some outstanding questions here, but it seems uh as if those answers might take a while to get.

So let's just uh at least from my end of it, uh put a pin in it.

Um I think that that answers most of the questions I had about this uh budget this evening.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Counselor Link.

Thank you, Chair through you.

Um I guess I'll just I'll just start by um unexpectedly having uh to echo my concern about uh while understanding why it would not be included in this budget book, um, wanting to know more.

Um I'm a little bit confused as to like this this process of it's this person who uh is maybe working uh under OSPCD but is um being paid for by the summer real arts council property um with a revolving fund uh for the the the armory so I I all that is to say I don't think it bears I don't think it requires any um any further response at the moment um but I I do want to know more I do want I do want a response um during this budget process or uh yeah um my my first question is um we talked a little bit about the uh sorry I got into the revolving funds on my screen here instead of the oh now I'm totally lost anyway the um the director position uh so my understanding at this point uh you know we obviously we don't have one oh well we have one sorry that's I mean we don't have uh the the the a regular um so the I know people in the community were very concerned about this um is this process where are we at in this process and um how are we making sure it's transparent sure um through the chair this has been a very democratic process um the community was very concerned about this position and the staff has been involved in helping write the job description the Somerville Arts Council board has been very involved in writing the job description we've been working closely with with Sarah with my colleague Erica here um so it took a long time to get a job to really think it through and make sure we were writing a solid job description so we can get a person on board who will serve us for many years to come.

It was just posted two weeks ago the um committee to interview this person will be uh director anders myself um uh a member of our board our board chair Emily Beatty and a member of human resources so we we feel good about the process and right now we want to um really work to promote that this um position is open wonderful that's great to hear um and I think that yeah um I hope that people who are been concerned about this here that they they feel um some sense of reassurance with that everything is as good as we could hope it would be um at this stage then um the um next question I had was about oh the uh cultural trust um so what kinds of thing it's assuming we can so either get a cultural trust added through a home rule petition or through the um the legislation that's currently at the state level um what would we be hoping to do with a cultural trust i'm sorry can you repeat the question what would be the what uh a cult so assuming we were able to to get uh a cultural trust um what what would those funds be used for um that is up um for the community to decide but um hopefully to um protect existing art spaces and potentially to create new art spaces in terms of how it would be funded it would be mostly partly or mostly funded through um a buyout provision um so when you're probably familiar with our zoning a certain percentage and densely populated area has to go towards arts or creative usage but it's not always viable for the arts and creative use to go in the space of that development they could put it into a buyout fund and that's how it would um add um funds to the to the coffers um but it could you know it could potentially also go towards um supporting arts organizations that are having a hard time staying in their space we really want to open that up to the community and over the next couple months we will be advertising public meetings so that we can get community input because we want this to be a community driven project.

And over the next couple months, we will be advertising public meetings so that we can get community input because we want this to be a community-driven project.

Wonderful.

So for example, like the Central Street Studios, which was up for sale and then was able to the city was able to help and maintain that as a permanently affordable art space.

Would that be like a good example?

Then that would be a great example.

Yeah.

Which I think actually has a ribbon cutting in two days.

Thursday, I think.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Counselor Link.

Scott, do you mind if I ask a few questions before you go?

Thanks.

I really appreciate all of Arts and Culture's work.

I'm excited to hear about all this.

I'm excited to hear about the director search.

One thing I I wanted to ask about the art park or art farm.

I'm never quite sure which one to call it, but uh something that I've heard again and again from the arts community here is that the sort of most important element overall uh in this vision to hold on to, I think, is the idea that this could be a place where people come and teach and learn and participate in arts.

Um, not only a place where they go to sort of consume uh and sort of you know, witness other people's art and and go away.

And uh I know there's been questions about uh as the vision and the cost has shifted some uh from away from having the sort of original idea of a large indoor space.

Uh, I do know that there's an opportunity to use some space, for example, um, there's a sort of picnic table area.

And uh I'm just curious if there is work being done now to envision uh a place for teaching and learning, for example, using using tables that could be used for eating, uh, that could also be used for students working on art.

Through the chair, thank you for the question.

I love the way you're thinking, and I will relay to the people who are working on this that it is a concern.

I think the goal is to make all our public art spaces as interactive and as inclusive as possible.

Um, and I can ask some questions and get back to you in terms of how the design might support um art arts learning within the space.

And I think it comes back to what I said earlier about ensuring that we have funds to um create and run programming in the space.

Thank you so much.

Uh I had another question going back to the armory.

Uh one of the the concerns I often have for city processes and the armory and the and arts and culture are by by all means not the only ones uh that run into this is that uh when we have approaches that use a request for proposals and RFP, uh often that RFP documented.

I've looked at the ones for the armory.

You know, the the original full documentation was well over a hundred pages.

And um there's reasons for everything that every page that's in there and every paragraph that's in there.

Nothing is there foolishly.

Uh, but I I do worry that in our push for uh a transparent and open process, which it is formally, there are so many people who are not going to be able to work through this, you know, this legalese and parse it all and figure out what it means that they have to do who who might thrive in an art space like the armory.

And uh I'm just curious how we're making sure that um in our extensive transparent processes, we're not also filtering out people in a way that that makes these facilities um inaccessible.

Um thank you, Mr.

Chair.

It's another great question.

And I and I do think through our research and especially through the research of my colleague Callie Chapman, who runs the some art spaces that it can be prohibitive, and there are a lot of people who would rather lease space rather than like use space, you know, several hours a week rather than have the responsibility of taking on the space themselves.

So we are exploring this, and I think that will come after we have reviewed all the proposals that have come in for the spaces.

There's discussion about could we reserve space for um artist residencies, um, people who would use the space temporarily.

Um, we are like this the arts council or the arts and culture staff is very much um interested in in these issues as well because I think it's a way to serve the broader arts community.

Thank you.

I think the only thing I may add is just that you know um agreed and understood as we put together this document um very lengthy, and that unfortunately we cannot lease property city owned property to non-municipal government entities without going through an RFP process and plug for later eventually coming back to you for approvals.

Um and so I think as as Rachel was mentioning, when we look at the ways in which that we populate this building, and we did want to start with um leasing direct to artists and artist serving entities.

Um there are many ways to to look at programming and to consider how this building can be a hub for artistic uses, such that we do have opportunities to consider um more holistic options, but did start with the first leasing um leasing of individual spaces that as mentioned, we could not avoid an RFP for releases that thank you.

I I think a model that I'm often drawn to is using a trusted intermediary that themselves might you know might lease or might respond to an RFP, and and which could then uh you know essentially sublease in a more nimble way than government can.

And you know, that's one of the ways that say the Summer Community Land Trust, I think is able to make decisions uh with you know their own extensive and transparent processes, but more nimbly than government can.

And I think that that's also something appealing about a cultural trust.

They might be able to make those decisions.

So uh, you know, I do know we have the Arts at the Armory organization uh that's already you know done quite a lot of investment in this space uh in these kind of shared ways that you know blur a lot of of the boundaries.

A lot of that investment essentially is in this city owned building and space, you know, even if that organization work on, and um, you know, that's in my mind an example uh of a slightly different direction we might go.

We might still try at some point in the future with that organization or another one, uh, rather than being the sort of direct landlord to every single room.

Through the chair, thank you for that feedback.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Counselor Scott.

Uh thank you, Ms.

President.

I very much appreciate your point there.

Um I'll leave it at that.

Uh I just I had a couple more questions.

Uh I heard that the funding of this uh was going to be in at least some part from buyouts or in loop payments for ACE space creation.

Uh so who that's those spaces required by some real zoning.

Who's authorizing the uh buyouts or in loop payments?

Uh through the chair, I think that's in development, but we can get you more information on that if we don't have it on.

Okay, so that's uh that's an idea.

It's not some, it's certainly not part of the zoning code right now.

It's uh it's an idea.

All right.

Uh all right.

Then my next question, it sounds like this director.

I just want to make sure I understand this director will be a city-hired position that will report to the executive director of OSPCD, but is paid from and in control of an off-book revolving fund.

Do I have that correct?

If you want to make sure through the chair, I think we might be mixing two different items, which is one the director of the arts council, which will be a standard general fund director through the arts council, and then the position specific to the armory, and may I add um a couple of other buildings um within the city will be the property and tenant relations manager will be fully paid out of the armory revolving account, which lives in uh strategy and development.

Okay, okay, but that's so there's two different director level positions.

Got it.

So, but then I'm sorry.

Oh, okay, but the property manager uh and it's it's not a director level position.

Um but I apologize for jumping in through the chair.

No, please, no, I appreciate your clarification.

Yeah, no, I appreciate the clarification, not for nothing.

How much is that position pay?

Yes, property time is I think it is through the chair.

I believe it's about 90 or 95 in that area.

80 to 90,000 per year.

Yeah, okay.

That's more of a manager than a director.

So you know that tracks.

Um all right, but that when I asked the question about who's where the buck stops, it sounded like it was that property manager person, not the director of the arts council when it comes to the building, the armory bill.

Through the chair, I would suggest the way that we're envisioning the property and tenant relations manager is that person on the ground um in the building almost every day of the week, making sure that tenants have what they need to succeed.

They're helping funnel uh 311 requests.

They're making sure that capital improvements are being tracked on the ground.

Um they're kind of like the eyes on the ground, and they are working directly with our tenants.

Um, when it comes to that, they would then report up to the director levels to say, you know, hey, this is what we're hearing going on, this is how things are going.

Um and the you know, the director levels can also be then advising back down to the property and tenant relations.

So I would consider them more of a hands-on um staffer uh and the directors being at the visioning level, the the property and tenant relations manager is carrying out those visions.

That that sounds like a really great position to have.

I know the city's uh had its failings as a landlord in the past.

Um but I guess that then uh gets my other part of the question, which is uh given that there's an executive director of OSBCD and there's a director of arts council that are both in the uh visioning uh or policy setting piece of this.

Who exactly controls and authorizes expenditures from this off book revolving fund through the chair?

I suppose ultimately when it comes to formal authorization, that since the account is in OSP CD, that may also lie with OSPCD, but I I do believe that a shared working relationship is possible and that this can be meeting kind of those two bottom lines of artistic um and cultural development as well as um I guess a capital and physical function, um, that those decisions can be shared, but in the most technical sense, um the account living in, and I'll try to keep using the new name strategy and development.

Um that the you know, financially that is um I guess where authorizations will end up, but also you know, pointing to well, yeah, I guess I'll stop there before I start anything.

No, it sounds like an actually uh really interesting philosophical conversation we may get into.

I just want to be clear, uh, Mr.

Chair, I'm asking these questions uh just to have a greater transparency and understanding of where all this money sits, where the flows go through, and who's gonna be in control of them and and ultimately who's gonna be setting policy and and interacting with uh tenants in these buildings.

So uh I really appreciate this discussion.

I think it's given a lot of uh visibility into this that I know I personally liked uh before.

Um you know, I might have my own opinion about uh that as a management choice, but uh I am but a humble city counselor, I'm not the executive of the city, so those are that's the executive's purpose.

Uh I guess I just have one more question, uh, which is uh if there are any other phantom director level positions that we don't know about, uh for example, uh ARPA director, Satin Henderson, uh or uh Satin Hernandez, I'm sorry.

You have a position uh which is only uh funded through December 2026.

Uh and you've been a uh heck of an asset.

Uh is there are you anticipating being here past that point?

Is there a role already created for you in the city?

Through the chair, thank you.

Um that's very kind of you.

I really enjoyed my time here, but you're correct that ARPA grants do our expenditures are due, 1231 26, and just as all our expenditures, as am I.

So um I'm looking forward to closing out with ARPA and keeping keeping a prize what goes on at the city, but at this point, my end date is indeed in December.

Oh my gosh.

Well, uh well, thank you for everything you've done.

Uh and looks like you're still uh very much sitting in the driver's seat with your hand on the wheel up until that date from uh from what I've seen tonight.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'm all set.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Any other questions or comments from the committee?

Well, with much appreciation, uh thank you for your appearance tonight.

And we will move on.

Have a good one.

Uh we will move on to libraries.

And I am hoping we'll get a chance to hear from uh library director Kathy Piantagini.

Hello, Director Piantagini.

How are you?

How are you?

I'm fine.

Please take it away.

Well, um, I'm Kathy Piantagini, director of our public libraries.

And um, based on the questions I received, I feel like you all know the libraries, which is great.

Um so happy to see that you use our online resources and um that there are so many thoughtful questions.

So I guess just a quick overview is we have three great libraries staffed by an amazing team of full and part-time librarians.

Um we are very fortunate to have a board of library trustees that is so dedicated and supported to our public libraries.

We are also fortunate to have um two other stakeholders, one being the Friends of the Summerville Public Library.

Maybe you went to the book sale they had this weekend um at the main library.

And then we also have the Summer World Public Library Foundation.

So I'm very grateful that we have these great groups uh that work so well together to support each other.

And um aside from that, I I would like to take a minute just to thank um Erica actually, as I've been listening so far.

I'm we have been very grateful for her serving as our interim cabinet lead.

So just want to take a moment there to acknowledge that.

And then if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Thank you so much.

Uh well, I'll start by summarizing these questions and answers, and please feel free to add anything else that I might be leaving out.

There's a question about how the library's role is changing.

Um the response talked about the continuing need to connect people to information and ideas, uh, an increasing role for digital access, uh, a lot of programming, changing and evolving programming, the importance of intellectual freedom and economic support for the libraries uh during this time of economic stress.

Um, anything that you'd add to that?

I think so.

Thank you.

Um a question asked, uh, does roughly $300,000 in overtime mean that the library is understaffed?

And the answer said, not exactly.

Overtime funds, weekend and evening hours, staff absences, vacancies, community events, and other programming.

Anything to add to that?

I think that covered it.

Thanks.

A question asked, when will the new strategic plan be available?

And the answer said that the Board of Trustees is expected to vote on the five-year plan in July, and that will guide yearly action plans through fiscal year 33 2031.

Anything on that?

You are correct.

Okay.

Uh a question asked, is the online subscription line?

Because that was something that that jumped up and stood out.

Uh, is that line for Hoopla and similar services?

And the answer said yes, it covers services like Hoopla, Canopy, and Libby.

Costs are rising because digital use keeps growing, which is great.

Uh feel free to jump in uh and I'll keep going.

A question.

Thank you.

Well, this is all this is all you and your staff having answered these already.

Uh, will the new library app improve and does Somerville pay for it?

The answer is yes.

The app's part of the Minuteman Library Network's shared system, and we pay as one of the member libraries.

Uh, and there are ongoing improvements.

Um, so anything else to highlight on that.

No.

And then the last question was how's the library social worker used and how secure is the funding for for that role?

And the answer um described that the social worker provides referrals, application help, de-escalation support, staff training, community partnerships, and support for unhoused residents, and that the role is funded through uh Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and BLC state aid, which depends on meeting state library requirements.

Um anything else, I was just hearing earlier today, uh someone express appreciation for this role.

It's a great role.

Yeah, I can't speak enough about it.

You don't have enough time.

There's too many people about me, so uh well, thank you.

Uh let me turn to the members of the committee.

Does anyone have questions or comments for Director Piantagini?

I'm not seeing any more hands.

Uh we got some great, great answers here.

Uh I am now seeing one.

Uh Counselor Scott.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh, just to say that uh as always, the libraries are doing uh more with less uh in the city, and always have uh in terms of being direct frontline frontline engagement with our community in a way that is hard to uh hard to capture, hard to summarize.

So uh just appreciative for all that uh they do and uh commitment that I'll continue to follow up on uh trying to make sure that they get taken care of and their facilities get taken care of as well as they deserve to be.

Thank you, Mr.

Pierre.

I'm all set.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Counselor Link.

Thank you, Chair through you.

Uh so with appreciation for the fact that well, so first of all, we should recognize that there's a library.

I love libraries.

My kids love the library.

Um I we go there too much.

Um the question I have is so you know, we got the the West Library, and I'm assuming that this is probably something that would be on the this um the strategic plan, but uh I'm I'm just curious.

We've got um you know, the the central library and the the East Library and uh that both are um a little long in the tooth.

Uh how um what do we think in terms of uh we're a city known for deferred maintenance.

How much longer can we defer?

Um how are these libraries doing in terms of the actual the bricks?

Uh through Chair Wheeler, I thank you so much for that question.

I I always appreciate when it gets raised.

And um you're right, we definitely could stand to have two more amazing, awesome libraries like our West Branch Library.

And um I'm only a little bit kidding when I tell you my dream is to have another renovated library before I retire if I'm lucky enough to keep having this job for them.

Um so let's do it.

Let's let's get some libraries.

Yeah, I mean, we're I know that um Mayor Wilson is very aware of you know our hopes and dreams for new facilities.

And as always, I'm very mindful of the fact that we have so many buildings, our libraries included, that need to also um have a lot of attention paid to them.

So I am truly optimistic that we'll see some good changes like that in the next couple of years.

So well, I for one do hope that we get at least one new library um for you, retire.

Which I hope is not for all of that.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Counselor Link.

And just to follow up on that, uh Director Piantagini, um, we had the chance to speak uh a while ago.

I also had a chance to speak to um uh grants director Hartke uh about uh the mass board of library commissioners, MBLC uh grant uh funding opportunity for building expansion.

Uh am I right in understanding that the sort of next cycle uh of these grants for building expansion or renovation is expected to come around roughly 2028, and that um there is a 40% local match uh on those funds, meaning that ultimately we would pay about 30% of any total building cost.

Those are um approximate but fairly accurate from um what I remember during the last cycle.

So upwards of the of 40%.

Um what I remember at the time it was probably like high 30s, 37% or something like that.

But yes, you're in that is accurate.

And the timeline.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you the time.

No, no, no, please.

It's also approximate.

I think um the state, they were trying to shorten that that window because they've learned over the years that if they didn't change their processes, it can take that grant cycle very long to be able to award it to municipalities.

So their goal uh the last time they structured this was to do turnover, I think in that three to five year window.

Thank you.

I I know that Somerville has no shortage of infrastructure needs.

Uh the total dollar cost of which uh can be a bit frightening, but um, you know, I I have heard from so many residents uh how important the libraries are to their lives.

I think everyone who sees how many people are served in how many different ways by the much renovated Cambridge Public Library, you know, I I think it's not hard to envision how much the libraries could do with an expanded building.

Um and as uh someone in in your board uh said, libraries are one of the only institutions that everybody comes in and out of on a daily basis and is open to just everybody of any age, any background, uh any needs.

Agree.

Uh well, thank you.

Any other questions or comments from the committee?

Thank you so much for appearing.

And I have a great rest of your night.

Uh okay, uh moving on to recreation, just recreation.

Uh, there are parks in recreation, but uh the title is just recreation.

And I believe we should have uh director Ohem and Showmatin with us and uh possibly also uh finance manager, uh Linda uh and I might need help with your last name's pronunciation.

Uh Young or Zone.

It's you.

Young, thank you.

Um please uh introduce yourselves and tell us all about recreation.

Well further, thank you, sure.

So um for those who don't know, my name is Ohem Shampton.

I know I've messed with you guys on my first six months here, so it's good to see some familiar faces.

Um I'm the director of recreation here and what we do if you provide programming for all the new graphics across the city.

Um this past fiscal year we've reached about 6,000 uh registrations through our youth programming, and we're looking to increase that year after year.

Um outside of that, we are also looking into incorporating new programs by using data via summary staff, uh working with other departments such as uh the police uh department.

We are working with um talks on aging.

So we're really trying to diversify our programmings and really reaching everyone's.

Thank you so much.

Uh I'll just briefly summarize this one question and answer that was in this memo, uh, which was what's the hiring plan for the new teen programming space uh at the TAB building?

And uh the answer was that the teen center will be staffed through a partnership among Health and Human Services Youth Services, Equity and Belonging, and Recreation, with each contributing staff and programming.

Uh anything to add on that?

That was correct.

Thank you.

All right.

Any questions or comments from members of the committee?

I have one.

Uh now uh there was some confusion in the process, sorry, about the degree to which it uh would make sense to include questions about the uh Dilboy Enterprise Fund and the Kennedy School, uh Kennedy Pool Enterprise Fund here.

Um and I know that those funding, the the funding for those is its own um, you know, partially self-contained and partially outside appropriated uh funds.

But uh I'm wondering if questions about Dilboy are something that that we could ask now and that you'd be interested in answering, Director Shaman.

We can um split the accounts of the department of public works for certain accounts like electricity and other utilities, but we might be able to answer questions.

We're gonna be in Dilboy.

And if you can't, then we'll just record it to the Department of Public Works.

Um specifically for the electricity questions.

Did you want background on that?

Yes, I was interested in particular in that electricity question because there was a sharp increase in electric costs.

So um unfortunately what happened with the Dillboy Electricity was that back in May 2024, it was decided that um certain accounts would be transferred over to the public works and then other counts would stay within recreation.

And also at the same time, we had transitions in leadership and also transitions and other staff that were handling invoices and also within that same time.

Recreation also changed office locations from the edge relief school to the current location of the tab building.

And unfortunately, during that time, all of the invoices were being mailed physically to an informer location that no one had access to.

This was also around the time when um weren't present in uh the edge of the school just for COVID reasons, I believe.

And when it was discovered uh that those bills weren't paid, uh, we worked with the Department of Public Works to negotiate uh reducing late fees uh with Ever Source and Ed Star was the electricity provider.

And since then we've also consolidated accounts and um I believe all of the electricity concepts are now under Department of Public Works and everyone's aware of what the current accounts are, what the correct accounts are, and we've sorted it out with the vendor, and um this shouldn't be initially going forward.

But it was an accumulation of voices that hadn't been paid since I believe 2022.

Um but that was resolved in December 2025 with approval of the council working on.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um I know it was not the fault of the two of you.

I I would hope that um you know somebody would be on top of things enough to notice, hey, we haven't been getting bills that we expect to get, uh, even if tracking down exactly what's going on is tricky.

Uh so I'm just I'm saying that to our city in general.

Uh, but with appreciation for the explanation and for figuring it out and getting us solvent again.

Any other questions or comments from members of the committee?

Okay, seeing none, I will.

Oh, I am all right.

Uh last minute, we got one from Counselor Hart.

Please take it away.

Thank you so much.

Uh, through you, Chair.

I'm just wondering if you could tell us uh briefly a little bit um more about your priorities um for the rest of the let's say or for the upcoming fiscal year.

Yeah, thank you through the chair.

Um, our priorities is uh, you know, refreshing what we currently do.

You know, we've um been a fantastic department as of now.

And I think sometimes um, you want to take a clear clear look at things and kind of refresh the things that we have, uh introduce new concepts, um, see what other programs that we are capable of running successfully.

Um I don't want to keep recreation in the space where we know what we're doing and we're gonna stick with it.

I want to introduce new concepts.

And um, so that's gonna be one of my main priorities uh this fiscal year on the party is making sure that our uh brochures out by the earlier time so that way our uh constituents can properly you know absorb the information that we're giving out.

We do have a lot of programs, so we want to make sure there's a lot of time for parents to kind of find out what's best for their children and um you know the best way to you know, especially with those of multiple children.

I want to make sure everyone has some time to um in just what we give out and properly plan.

So those are two of the big parties I want to um uh go through this fiscal year.

The last one is to um really make a stronger connection with some of our nonprofits and other youth groups across the city.

Um there's we have so many great organizations doing a lot of different things.

I really want to be the hub for everyone to kind of know where to send kids for activities or for extra help or for um uh you know, even guidance.

So I really wanted those are my three main priorities that's this week or from the government.

Thank you so much for sharing.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, probably.

And I'll just share my appreciation.

Uh my two children have made extensive use of many of the recreation uh programs and uh gotten a lot out of them.

And one of the things that I think is so wonderful is how there's been this steady innovation in in the breadth of the offerings.

Um so they have a chance to do uh CPR training uh, you know, in order to have a CPR certification uh that they could bring to their babysitting and child care uh work.

And uh that among so many other things has been really, really wonderful.

So um thank you to to your whole staff.

And I uh look forward to seeing uh uh what recreation does in this next year.

Thanks so much.

All right, have a great night.

Really quickly, uh Ms.

Young, um, could you just clarify what was your first name?

I'm sorry, missed it.

Linda.

Linda, thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Have a great night.

All right.

Um so that brings us to the end of the culture and community department.

Umbers of the committee, are there any uh motions for cuts or motions for resolutions for additional funding at this time with a proviso that this is not the last chance to introduce them?

We will also have uh chances on Cutnight.

Okay, seeing none, uh let's move on to communications and public engagement.

Um so as you can all tell, uh sometimes I'm not totally sure what is happening in the cabinet sense uh with people, like not realizing that we had uh director Setin Hernandez.

Um so I am I know that we will get a chance to speak to director of communications Denise Taylor and Finance Manager Marjorie Rizzo, and uh I'm not sure if they're going to begin this process, uh but we will soon find out.

Oh, and I'll just point out that um the formatting in the agenda is a little confusing about this.

I think the the heading there for communications and public engagement should be should be a full heading.

Um for procedural purposes.

I think it does not matter.

Hello, welcome.

Would you please introduce yourselves and then tell us all about communications and public engagement?

Good evening.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, I'm Denise Taylor.

I'm the director of the Department of Communications and Public Engagement.

And this is Marjorie Vizel Science Presenter.

Uh Grace Mons, Deputy Director Hobbs.

So I do want to take you up on your offer to give a brief overview of the department.

Uh so I'm going to go ahead and do that if that's all right.

Um the communications and public engagement department creates two-way information flow between community and local government, which is a core operational service.

Through both information generation and sharing, our divisions make sure that Somerville's services and programming connects with the community they serve, and that residents trust and participate in their local government.

We work in six languages.

We serve all city divisions, and we use multiple channels from digital media to paper flyers to be sure that we can reach people in the main ways that they seek information.

So whether it's text alerts, social media posts, newsletters, online videos, uh mailings, signs, civic events, in-person outreach, or more, we deliver communication access and engagement functions that form the last mile of just about every service in the city.

I often say I think the one team we really don't do much with is weights and measures, but everybody else we support.

Um, our highest priority is directly serving the community, but I also want to flag another impact that is often overlooked.

Uh, communications provides proactive information and online services that significantly alleviate staffing burden citywide.

Um, I put this in the budget book.

I would just ask you to imagine, for example, if the 1.1 million people who visit our website seeking information, whether that's meetings or guidelines for how to put their trash out or event calendar listings.

Um, if those folks were to be calling and coming into City Hall, we would have to hire a lot more people.

I'd note that 311 takes about 120,000 calls per year.

Steve Director Steve Craig and I discussed this.

It's not a one-to-one, but they'd probably have to hire about nine times as many staff if we weren't here.

And that's just the web, not the other channels that we use.

Um, so without a doubt, the information ecosystem that we maintain for the city saves significant costs in staffing daily.

Uh this year we have some changes.

The Office of Immigrant Affairs began as a communications initiative with just two six-hour staff about 14 years ago.

The goal was to overcome language and cultural barriers to information services and civic opportunities.

By last year, this group grew to the 28-member Office of Immigrant Affairs.

Um, that is doing just outstanding work serving our immigrant community as well as the larger community in terms of sharing know your rights information to everyone in the city cultural celebrations for everyone.

Um, after an in-depth planning process, this team is ready for the next step, which is a move of about half of the Soyuz staff into health and human services to continue their exceptional work, providing immigrant services, supports, outreach, information, engagement, and cultural celebration.

The other half of the team now forms two focused divisions within the new communications and public engagement uh uh department.

And that is the first is language and communications access.

These are all existing staff that were in Soya that are moving in there, three people, and they will carry on the work of translation, interpretation, language justice, and multilingual content management and overseeing the distribution of it.

The second is engagement and neighborhood services, which brings together the part-time outreach support team from Soya with two former staffers from economic development and communications to strengthen our service and outreach to both residents and local businesses within one team.

And um, I am happy to take your questions.

I think you for the questions you were sent in advance.

Thank you so much, Director Taylor.

Um, I will try to just briefly uh summarize these questions and answers that were sent in advance.

outreach support team from Soya with two former staffers from economic development and communications to strengthen our service and outreach to both residents and local businesses within one team and um I am happy to take your questions I thank you for the questions you were sent in advance thank you so much Director Taylor um I will try to just briefly uh summarize these questions and answers that were sent in advance the first is how will language and communications access staff work with community engagement and immigrant advancement and the answer was saying that there are existing workflows staff relationships and co-location on Cross Street and that will continue that language and communications access will work with immigrant affairs neighborhood services and communications on translation interpretation multilingual outreach and staff training is there anything you'd like to add on that yeah just to summarize that um these are all existing relationships we're regrouping in order to allow um more concentrated focus um the LCA team has um some really big goals coming up um and are really hoping to be able with with a pure focus on the work that they do uh to advance translation and um interpretation and language justice and plain language across the city uh significantly in the coming year uh so uh that the working relationships remain the same the co-location remains the same but what what is different is the ability to uh focus on one task as opposed to be spread across multiple tasks thank you and uh I realized as I'm asking these questions I'm I'm sort of bleeding from the communications and public engagement department overview to the communications division within that um and before I keep going uh are you are you still the right folks to talk to about that communications division is there is there anybody else so I am here to talk about the communications division I also have an overview um written up by the director of language and communications access who couldn't be here tonight so I can share that with you when you're ready for that and then for DNS we have uh Adriana Fernandez to talk about engagement and neighborhood services and for City TV we have Steve Craig oh Steve Craig my goodness Steve DeCarlo so many Steves we also love Steve Craig yes we do well yes please uh why don't you go ahead and read that uh language and communications access statement okay um okay so this is from Meredith Gamble who has long led our language and communications access work um and uh she wrote up a little bit of an overview so um the office in the Office of Language and Communications Access we ensure that every Summerville constituent is able to access information services programs and opportunities in their preferred language in a way that is clear understandable and actionable we develop and implement language justice policy procedures innovations and systems assess triage and fulfill thousands of translation and interpretation requests annually consult with and train staff on language access tools best practices and craft plain language communications and develop tools and advise city staff on strategies for multilingual outreach distribution of materials and fostering welcoming spaces for a multilingual public access and communications a language justice specialist that's the technical expert and the person ensuring thousands of language access requests get done on time into the highest quality the director is focused on identifying and implementing best practices and policies so that we have a sustainable and effective system that meets the needs of our constituents they're also got their sleeves rolled up during the work every day as well the multilingual information coordinator is third member of the team they ensure that multilingual information reaches the community through interdepartmental coordination capacity building consultation and communications campaigns um the multilingual information coordinator is working on a really excellent campaign that is going to release soon on know your rights um to execute the work we also collaborate collaborate deeply across teams in the city including Soya and the engagement and neighborhood services division and seek regular input and feedback the establishment of this office reflects the growth of this work a quadrupling of services we provide in just four years this year we are projected to have completed over 4,000 translations 200 interpretation those are live interpretation requests at events 2400 conversations between constituents and staff using our interpreter over the phone system and they've provided this in 25 different languages this year we're excited to introduce a citywide language of access ordinance a translation management system which is going to be a game changer for this work um that's a technology that will significantly improve translation efficiency consistency and accuracy and launch a language access public information campaign starting with multilingual signage in every city building little cards that people will be able to take with them to every counter identifying what their language is so that staff that have all been trained up on our remote translation services can help people in any language that um they request so that's the end of her her messaging

That's a technology that will significantly improve translation efficiency, consistency, and accuracy, and launch a language access public information campaign starting with multilingual signage in every city building, little cards that people will be able to take with them to every counter, identifying what their language is, so that staff that have all been trained up on our remote translation services can help people in any language that they request.

So that's the end of her messaging.

Thank you so much.

To return to the question and answer summaries, there was a question asking what's in the 427,000 professional and technical services line.

The answer was saying that the increase is mostly from moving language and communications access funds into communications.

And that line covers translation, interpretation, web maintenance, accessibility design events and outreach projects.

No, just to please recognize that those are funds that would have been in Soya that moved into our budget.

It doesn't recognize it doesn't uh represent an increase in communication spending.

It does represent an increase in LCA spending, and that's for the translation management system.

But all of those uh yeah, 256K moved into our PMC um from uh LCA.

Thanks.

And the next question also relates to that.

It's asking why is software services increasing by about 68,000.

And the answer was mostly because of this translation management system, um, as well as as I understand a document accessibility tool and a small subscription reclassification, as well as some vendor increases.

Um, could you maybe just tell us a little bit about this translation management system?

Why is it going to be worthwhile?

Yeah, so this is really exciting.

The way that these systems work is that um you do say 10 translations, and all of them get into the system and it saves up repeat uh vocabulary that might be unique to the city of Somerville.

It saves up phrasing and sentences that our staff who have um culturally sensitive, um, culturally competent translation skills to make sure that you know they go above and beyond what machine translation might do to make sure that the language is actually correct, that all of the work that they do gets memorialized in the system and saved so that when you enter a new document that might use some of the same phrasing or vocabulary, it pulls it up and pre-translates based on your prior work.

So the translations get saved automatically and then repurposed automatically.

We have a lot of repetition in some of the work that we do, and staff have been struggling to do that in an um analog uh manual way.

And when you think about 4,000 translation requests, getting them into a system that's going to learn and develop with us is going to vastly reduce the amount of time that staff have to spend working on translations.

It will also be used with our contractors.

We also we hire uh translators um through other companies as well.

We can't possibly have the staff do all of this.

Um ultimately this should give us back some time.

It's gonna take more time to begin with.

Um, but it should also be improving quality as well.

Um, we have to go out for an RFP for that.

We don't have the system yet, so it's gonna take some time to both uh select a vendor, and then we'll have to onboard and train with the staff.

And uh we should begin later in the year to start seeing the benefits of this.

Thank you so much.

Members of the committee, any questions or comments?

I have one.

Uh I'd be interested to know about how the uh the requests and the usage of devices um for different translations at live events breaks down by language.

And you know, I imagine there's always a question with sort of a trade-off of uh should we should we add staffing and you know, and vendor costs for additional languages?

Uh, should we, you know, are there times where there's a language that's you know not getting as much translation use where we may be overspending?

And I'm I'm just curious to know about the breakdown.

I don't expect you to have that in front of you, but uh if it's if it's at all possible to to provide that at some point, um, it would be useful.

Um, to the share, I can share with you that the human language capacity that we've built into this team is driven by uh census and population and school registration and usage numbers.

Um so Spanish is the most spoken language after English in Somerville.

Next is Portuguese, next is Haitian Creole and Nepali kind of bump back and forth and trade places here and there.

Um Chinese is close behind.

We work in two different forms of Chinese imprint, both trip and traditional and simplified.

Um there are obviously, you know, in the schools, I think they they talk about more than 50 languages spoken by students in the schools, but each of those language groups gets smaller, and requests tend to follow that order generally, and um the investment in a particular language in the staff is is uh is fixed.

You know, we have those, we have staff for those languages.

Um we work with translation services.

Obviously, we translate based on uh particular needs.

So if we get we get a request from someone persists participating in a process that speaks Portuguese, we'll translate into the version of Portuguese that they use.

Um yeah, so that's that's a it's a good question, and I can get more specific stats for you.

Uh the online uh ball systems and interpretation services can get us, you know, well over 100 languages on demand.

Uh, but the investments are in the primary language groups in the city.

Thank you.

I'm seeing uh question from Castro Streso.

Thank you.

Uh I yeah, I'm glad for that question because I did want to uh uh check in really quick.

I always like um reloading the the data on where we are with the top five spoken languages here in Somerville, uh, through you to uh to our director.

Um so it uh most recently 2026 data 2025 ish, 2026 is strange as English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, no Portuguese, Haitian Creole.

Uh, what is the list again, if you don't mind?

Through the chair to you, the next languages again, Nepali and Hishan Creole tend to kind of switch places back and forth.

They're about the same.

And then after that, um, we have uh staff for Chinese speaking uh members of the community.

Okay, so because it because I remember right, Haitian Creole uh was down for about a couple of years, as I recall, and now it's back up in uh more frequently spoken language.

Neat.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Castler Streso.

Counselor Scott.

Oh thank you, Ms.

Chair.

Just a couple quick questions.

I lowered my hand and didn't unmute.

Um so I noted the finance manager position uh is coming off of grant funding, but the position is going to be retained and rolled into the general fund.

I'm just trying to make the numbers and the columns add up.

Is that uh about $50,000 part of the salaries line uh that's reflected at the top, the top line salaries of 1.4 million you want to answer something?

Yes.

Great.

All right, just want to make sure uh doing my best, Barry Joe Rosetti.

Make sure all the all the numbers in the columns line up.

Um I guess my other question is just organizationally, you know, um taking a look at the the org chart, there's uh 13.

You know, when when you look at the uh engagement and neighborhood services, and I know we're gonna get to them in a second, uh, but it looks like something like 11 people uh all directly reporting into uh a director level title.

Uh but when I look at comms, there's 13 people in this division, and uh four of them have director level titles.

Uh it seems like a pretty vertical org chart.

Is that does that feel like the the right number of directors for 13 people?

So we have functional divisions within the comms budget.

LCA is essentially a division, but the auditing uh department is moving toward collapsing divisions together.

Um so we have three people in a team that absolutely need a director leading that work.

The web team also functions as a functional division that's also three people.

And again, it's really important that we have somebody that is of um director level competence and knowledge who can be both you know working on code for the site as well as leading strategy strategy, um, managing vendors, uh overseeing uh complex more than 200,000 page website, um, working uh with departments across the city to make sure that all of those pages are up to date as well as all of the tools.

Um that is absolutely a director level position.

The other directors in the core comms team are myself and the deputy.

Um I think that's something that that people um miss about directors in Somerville, which is that we are all also working all the time.

So I table, I write press releases.

My deputy my deputy um is handling the bulk of media queries, which is a really important way that we get information out to the community and uh honor the role of the board of the state.

Um we we are not sitting back uh orchestrating, we are doing the work daily as staff, and then on top of that, also managing um I think that uh I heard somebody in the mayor's office discussing you know the idea of you know whether directors are needed, and they were saying, yeah, guess what?

You know, it's you need somebody to lead a team.

You need someone to manage the staff, hire the staff, mentor the staff, guide the work, manage the strategy.

Um, in addition to also doing the work, like it would, you know, uh it would be nice to be able to focus more time on management, but in fact, it isn't something that actually gets short change due to daily non-stop demands to actually deliver output.

So that's how it breaks down.

All right.

So you would uh you'd compare the position uh despite the director title of something more akin to a working foreman, uh highway depart.

The mayor calls us player coaches.

I think working foreman is uh a good a good phrase as well.

All right.

Well, um I guess there's some follow-up observations we made there about the difference between working foreman salaries and director salaries, but uh that's that's not relevant to your budget.

So I appreciate that.

Uh Director Taylor, I appreciate the answer.

And uh, Mr.

Chair, I think I'm awesome.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

And I'll just recognize that the Celtics won two championships with Bill Russell as the player coach.

So it's a it's a good model.

Any other questions?

Oh, Councilor Hart.

Thank you so much.

I just have a uh detailed question following up on what director Taylor just said about the um working with the newspapers.

And I'm just curious, um, if there are relationships and um, you know, ongoing information sharing between uh papers, news outlets in languages other than English.

Yeah, we have a long history of working with in language media.

Um it's not just papers like the Brazilian Times or El Mundo, but also for example, we've done a lot of work with in-language radio, which is particularly effective in reaching out within the Haitian community and our Brazilian community.

Um we also uh occasionally work with uh TV in other languages, and it is absolutely a part of the outreach strategy that the multilingual language coordinator leads and uh that we support.

Uh we have uh had a a lot, uh especially during the pandemic, the Brazilian Times became a lifeline uh for us to get information to the public uh uh in language media is really important.

So thank you for the question.

Thank you for the answer.

Thanks for educating me.

Appreciate it.

Any other questions or comments from the committee?

I am seeing none.

And so I will say thank you so much for your work and your staff's work and have a great rest of your night.

Thank you.

I'm gonna stay up here with the engagement neighborhood services director.

Oh, that sounds good.

But if ever if everyone's happy with order, we could totally do yep.

Could do either one.

Why don't we stick to it for lack of a better reason?

Uh and invite director of city cable operations, Steven DeCarlo.

How are you doing, Director DeCarlo?

Would you please tell us about City TV?

Sure, thank you.

I'm Steve DeCarlo, uh Director of City TV.

And a brief summary of what we do is City TV is the city's government and educational access to the media service.

Um we essentially provide access to our city's government and school-related events and meetings, such as the council meetings, as you know, community events and emergency communications, of course.

Our mission is pretty direct.

It's to ensure equitable 24-7 access to city info and civic participation.

We do this through many meetings.

One is through our two cable TV channels, Gov TV and Ed TV, live streaming, YouTube channels, social media, and on-demand services.

We believe Summerville City TV strengthens our communication with the public since it creates civic engagement, provides educational community connections through multiple platforms.

And quickly, uh, some stats that we have.

Like I said, our YouTube channels continue to grow, our online presence continues to grow.

Right now for our um government educational TV channels, YouTube channels, we have over 8,000 subscribers.

And with those two channels for the past 12 months, we've uploaded 400 videos, and from those 400 videos, we've seen over 230,000 reviews.

So, like I said, it continues to grow.

Um our online presence.

Having said that, I'd be happy to take your questions.

Thank you so much.

Um, I'll start by just summarizing the questions and answers that were submitted before.

Uh question was which line covers the council, the city council chambers control room overhaul.

Uh the answer was saying uh this RM or audio visual equipment line.

The total line is about 25,000, and the control room work is estimated at uh eight to 10,000.

Anything to add there.

No, that's pretty much that's pretty much it.

Okay.

And the next question was asking what it covers, and that includes camera switching, camera control, and distribution equipment for cable, YouTube, live streaming, and remote meeting production.

Uh yeah, essentially that's our our production system.

Thank you.

And then a question asked, what instructional videos are planned?

And the answer was uh short topics on various topics like what happens when you call 911, permitting rodent control, and safe block parties.

Um anything else on that.

No, we've been doing um, I wouldn't say instructional, but we've been doing a lot of PSAs that show how to do certain things like road and control um parking on the odd side, doors no emergencies, um, which turned out great.

But um, in terms of instructional basic instructional videos, yes, those are the ones.

Thank you.

Members of the committee, any questions or comments about City TV.

I am seeing none, and so I will say thank you so much.

Uh before I ever ran, I spent a lot of time appreciating and using the broadcasts uh to follow events.

So thanks so much.

Thank you.

Um okay, and we will move on to engagement and neighborhood services.

And uh I believe uh we will now have director of engagement and neighborhood services, Adriana Fernandez.

Uh and uh please take it away, Director Fernandez.

Good chair.

So I head Jennifer Hernandez.

I've been working with the city for 13 years.

I started actually as a family liaison with the schools.

So I was invited by Denise Taylor to start a project.

Um each turning to summer viva, Soya, and now we make Randsman.

So I'm very proud of the being part of this process.

Um, and so it has been four years that I went to work with economic development, focusing on that small uh minority businesses, and uh, it was very important.

Everything that I learned from Soya going with the community is that we decided to do the same with the small businesses in Somerville.

So I can tell that after four years, we have like building trust, and we are ready to expand this work to other communities.

So we are still working on the scope for the services for the new division.

I'm so glad I've been working with uh Matt, Denise and five equity support team from three youth.

So we've been working together to make sure soon everybody's gonna get to know about the new division because we're going to be everywhere.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Uh I'll summarize these questions and answers that uh were sent in advance.

First one was uh whether an engagement and neighborhood services coordinator was added along with the director.

There was some confusion about the sort of titles and roles.

The answer was no, there's there's one supervisory role, the director of ENS, and this coordinator, uh, the engagement and outreach coordinator is a full-time staff role, not a supervisor.

Anything to add there.

Okay.

Uh a question was what staff are moving into ENS?

And the answer was that existing staff are being regrouped from economic development, communications, and Soya, including outreach staff and multilingual equity support staff.

And then related to that, what work will ENS do?

And that answer was neighborhood outreach, resident and small business engagement, uh being part of slice of the city, city hall neighborhood meetings, uh, civic days, uh programs like bridge builders, outreach resources, and in-the-field engagement.

Um anything to add to either of those.

Um not to add necessarily, but just let you know that the idea is dividing the city of Summerhill and 10 to the neighborhoods for us to uh identify the needs from each neighborhood and make sure our team will be there listening directly to the um residents, business owners, and bringing the the right services that they need.

Okay, thank you.

Members of the committee, any questions or comments about engagement and neighborhood services?

Counselor Hart.

Thank you so much.

Um this is exciting.

I'm I'm excited to hear about this new division.

And I have a question about the I see in this in the memo the um directors um you know kind of scope of activities.

I'm curious, will the will there still be uh small business, you know, staff staff focused on small businesses in economic development, or is it 100% moved to this new um through the chair?

I'm sorry.

Um we are going to keep working on within uh like for example, we're working on a licensing process, facilitating the communication on all the city licensing and permitting to make sure we're gonna provide the friendly version for people that would like to open a business or apply for a um a permit.

They they can navigate the system um in a friendly way.

So we are already working with the um Meredith Gamble team to make sure to language access, Gabby and Karim to make sure we're gonna provide this service in different languages too.

So, but at this point, it's not just about the immigrant immigrant communities, also the non-immigrant communities because the process um what we noticed that the process has been like hard for everybody.

So, how to make this easier possible and um actually it for people to be happy about being able to go the through the whole process.

So we we're working together to make sure uh we've been gonna engage everybody into city services and processes.

Okay, thank you.

Um and one other question in there, it says uh Davis Square response efforts.

Um could you elaborate on that a little bit about what will be the scope um in this position related to Davis Square response efforts?

But we've been up as economic development uh small uh business team.

We already been working with uh um Main Streets and the Davis where they have the merchant group.

So we already uh reaching out to all those groups to make sure we can collaborate, bring city departments to clarify their questions.

So we're already working with them.

But we'd like to add more areas, for example, Metro Street, Winterfield, Falls where we don't have organizations that will oversee those um areas, but we're gonna make sure we're gonna be there to cover those areas too.

Okay, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

And I'm sorry, just to clarify the first of Councillor Hart's questions about the small business support.

Am I right in understanding that there used to be a specific role, a specific job around that in OSPCD?

Uh and now there's there's not no through the chair.

We're gonna just like transfer everything that we've been doing in that more people that will help us out.

I used to do this this job.

Actually, I'm still working on it with Patricia, who's the permitting liaison.

So we're gonna keep doing the same work, but uh the team that that we're gonna work with, they're gonna be helping us out for us to go like even further that with them able to with two people.

Thank you.

Counselor Strezzo.

Thank you.

Um to our director, um I need to ask about um with the part train roles of the equity support team and with outreach coordinator.

Is there a plan, like especially when we talk about minorities and we know businesses?

Uh, they that a lot of times there's uh a snag with um the procurement process and that more Somerville businesses would love to partner with the city, but because there are small businesses that business they don't always have the um capacity to um file the the tax ID and and get um into the city system to be able to be one of the businesses that our city chooses when we're looking for say restaurants or services or local, you know, keeping locals first.

Has there been um going into this budget season conversations on that and what that would look like and um where your approach is and what your thoughts are on that at this current moment.

Yeah, through the chair, we're already in contact with Philip and Kathleen from equity division um and also other departments to make sure we can advocate together for the minority business to have more space and visibility and be able to turn into city vendors.

Uh so this is something that we're gonna work together to make sure we're gonna be able to uh achieve okay.

Uh great to hear and and happy to have uh follow-up questions uh uh as well on that.

And and yeah, I'll stop there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Stresso.

Councillor Lake.

Thank you, Chair through you.

Um I I just I guess um I'm I'm happy that we've got more support for um you know uh small businesses and potential small businesses.

Um I do, I guess I do want to make sure we're putting our efforts in the right spot um as a city.

Uh you know, having a confusing um process that is onerous, uh, and then having someone to help you through that owner's process that we've created is maybe not like I so I just want to make sure I I understand that I and I still think that we should be have this position and that we should have helped but I do also want to make sure that we're not um solving the problem that we've heard about how complicated um permits and licenses and all that are um by just having someone help alongside this complicated process and and instead are also focused on uh and this is probably not even you, but um making sure that we have to actually fix the process itself.

Um I know, like for example, I was just talking today um about uh citizen serve and how um someone was comparing Cambridge's implementation of citizen serve and how it is very friendly and easy to use and much more intuitive than Somerville's implementation.

Um so it occurs to me that a lot of this stuff maybe um in the capacity of um uh you know this role.

I would hope a lot of that feedback would be going back.

There's some sort of feedback loop that can actually um serve to fix the process and not just um kind of band-aid over it.

Drew the chair, we started last year um interviewing like uh city departments that are involved with all the the permitting process.

We already uh went through with uh zoning and now we're gonna go and interview everybody from ISD because we want to make sure um we can listen directly to the departments.

They also have their issues, but even though it's gonna take a while for us to go to all the departments, we just started um and you thank you for for uh mentioning the seats and serve because you're gonna start our material from seats and serve because you're not able to do anything for any permitting uh with the city if you don't have an account.

So do you have an account?

Um but the first question are you um do you want me um help with interpretation?

So if they do, go through soya.

If not, so we are working on um a system also that they can navigate by themselves and then get a uh checklist, everything they need based on on their on means, right?

So it's something that we've been working on, and although the process is gonna take long, we're gonna start by educating how to navigate the system now.

Some things we're not able to change because they are like state old, but something, yes, we can.

And so we've been providing office hours, uh, which is very important for all the the ones we would like to communicate with ISD and with City Clark Economic Development at the same time.

So we um we post the the office hours every week.

It's been very popular, and we'd like to expand office hours, virtual office hours, and also in person.

So the idea is yes, we're gonna um look for um a big change, but also now what can we do now to make sure the constituents can navigate the system and enjoy navigating the system?

It's not supposed to be something that people get mad and don't they don't know how to communicate.

Who is supposed to answer this question?

So that's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna make sure everybody's gonna be engaged and happy.

Wonderful.

And I think just to be clear then some I understood because I think I was very long-winded in that last question to put it in like a sure, there's there's a feedback loop that's gonna be that's that your team will have with whoever's I don't know whoever it is that has like citizens or who is in charge of citizen serve uh and that kind of thing.

Is that is that am I correct in understanding that?

Yeah, but citizen serve, we've been working with City Clark with Andrea Torres, she's an expert and sit and serve, but also with Patricia and uh as I said, the language team, the language access team also is they're working together, bringing different perspectives just to make sure we have like a rod real the issue and work on explaining language, like simple um simple process and enjoyable process.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

Uh the chair, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from the committee?

Well, then I will thank you very much, Director Hernandez, uh, for appearing here tonight.

Have a great rest of your night.

And that brings us to the end of the um of the section for communications and public engagement.

Uh, are there any motions at this time uh or cuts or resolutions?

Seeing none, let's move on.

Uh we are now on health and human services, and we will um once again see director of health and human services Karen Carroll.

Uh, I imagine we are likely to see finance manager Anup Malik.

And uh I think we will begin by inviting Director Carroll to give an overview of Health and Human Services, and then we will move into the Health and Human Services Administration Division.

Are you not hearing anything as well?

I'm not at the time.

I think they are still uh waiting to get the right people in the room.

Does anyone want to sing a song or something?

Well, there was a mention of that uh parking on the odd side uh video, and that reminded me of uh of how how wonderful that video was hello, director.

Uh I believe it's muted on your end.

Okay.

Okay, please take it away.

Tell us about health and human services.

Okay, thank you.

Through the chair.

Um, I'm Karen Carroll, the director of health and human services here in the city of Somerville.

I use she, her pronouns.

Um, and I'm here with the members of the team who'll introduce themselves.

I wanted to give a quick overview that the newly formed health and human services department unites a broad range of community services under one structure to better support health, well-being, and stability of Somerville residents.

In FY27, the department expands to include immigrant advancement and the inspectional services health team, strengthening coordination, improving efficiency, and enhancing service accessibility and equity.

Key FY27 priorities include supporting vulnerable populations, expanding youth and senior services, advancing immigrant inclusion, providing improving public health outcomes, and reducing barriers to benefits and city programs.

Major initiatives include launching a new team programming space, coordinating outreach on state benefit program changes, conducting research on immigrant and refugee experiences, reducing rodent-related complaints, increasing seniors' access to benefits, and creating a unified low-income certification process.

Together, these efforts reflect the department's commitment to coordinated community-centered services and proactive public health planning.

So at this time, um, I can take any questions on the HHS admin memo.

And Anub Malik is here with me as the division head.

Let me just introduce.

Oh, um questions are kind of came together, excuse me, through the chair.

Yeah.

Oh, no, no, please continue.

Yeah, sorry.

So, however, if you want to ask any follow-up to those HHS admin, and then Anoop will introduce his division.

Thanks.

Um his division, meaning the administration division.

Yeah, why don't you go ahead, uh Manager Malik and introduce the administration division, and then we'll move on to the memo questions.

The Health and Human Services Administration budget reflects the newly established division, which supports departmental operations and stop any.

The department's personal service budget funds five full-time employees dedicated to HHS operations, as well as compensation for both of health members.

It also includes funding for employee-related contractual obligations and other personal expenses required under union agreements.

The ordinary maintenance budget provides the resources necessary to support the department's day-to-day operations.

These funds cover essential administrative and operational expenses that enable the department to effectively carry out its mission.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

So there's a bunch of questions and answers here.

And I am trying to adjust on the fly to the fact that this meeting is going to go until late.

So rather than read and summarize all of these, um, I'm gonna mention just just a few that uh might have skipped attention or that that people might uh want to touch on.

Um, and please feel free to shed any additional light on any that that I'm missing out on.

Uh I'll try to be fast and please pardon my brevity, uh, but I'm gonna I'm making a shift here.

Uh do we have enough staff to maintain food access services?

The answer was to point to strong partnerships with social service providers and community food security groups and emphasizing food remains a top constituent need.

Do we need more youth social workers or behavioral health specialists if Summerville Public Schools adds a school resource officer, a police officer stationed in the high school?

The answer was HHS has not received a school request for more positions.

HHS youth staff support systems and referrals.

HS youth staff support systems and referrals, but do not provide individual counseling.

Are we ready for increased demand for the food market program?

Yes, the mobile farmers market starts July 9th, is staffed and funded, and school markets remain funded at last year's level.

Are we ready if SNAP or other federal food assistance is cut?

Has this monitoring federal changes, coordinating SNAP outreach, using community benefit funding for many food operations and working through the Summerville Food Coalition?

And do we have the budget to assist older unhoused residents?

HHS and the Council on Aging use Council and Aging staff, housing stability services, senior bridge rent help, and geriatric social workers.

The biggest constraint remains affordable housing supply.

Anything to add to these?

Okay, thank you.

Moving to the committee.

Any members of the committee have questions or comments for HHS administration?

Counselor Streso.

Thank you.

Um can we please talk about in our in our counselors in our notes?

The uh good.

Through you, uh Chair to our director.

Um, the professional and technical services line of 40,000 K Medicaid building uh billing contracts.

Can you uh go into a little detail about that, please?

Uh through chair, um, HHS Finance Manager.

This Medicaid Services contract is a uh partnership contract between health and human services department and uh Summerville Public Schools.

Um we manage the contract, uh, the invoicing, the tracking of the revenue that comes into uh the city.

Um this contract is supporting the school, whereas the special ed uh department summits data to our third party bill, which is public health uh public consulting group, and uh they in turn take that data and report on that data um to the Medicaid, and that that's how we get the revenue into the door.

Um and um the public consulting group uh is the third party uh vendor, so as to speak uh that helps with um supporting the summer public schools here.

Can you uh through the chair uh to director?

Thank you for that.

Can you go a little deeper on that, please?

How specifically um that I get the data, but what exactly what services um in the public schools that is is it it's use it used for um that uh that we're collecting.

Is it tell me more?

This is my first time uh first year on finance committee.

Um through the chair.

Um so uh I may have to also respond back to this question um via email uh with detail information.

Um but just to uh share some of the stuff here is um this this contract supports the reimbursement, so direct service, um administrative activity claiming.

Um it also supports administrative activity claiming in in a little bit um so uh this is related to um a number of factors.

So um public consulting group supports mental health, mental behavioral health services.

That's one criteria where the school uh reports data.

Uh they also report on therapy services, medical services.

Um there is direct service uh logging uh where um each month uh the school is providing um data to the public consulting group, which helps them in billing the Medicaid.

This is all to do with the services that the school provides.

Intern public uh consulting group takes that information and turns that into a part of billing.

Um so uh the the types there are behavioral support, counseling services, occupational therapy, orientation and mobility, physical therapy, psychological services, social work services, speech and language services.

Um so these are like operating on a basis of what's available, what's not billionable.

So public health uh public consulting group consultants advise on the information that the school provides, and then in turn turns that into billing um to the Medicaid.

Okay, thank you for that.

I um trying to, and I'm I will very much be happy to to hear more in detail from your email.

But I'm trying to like wrap my mind around, or maybe someone has a motorcycle outside.

Um trying to wrap my mind around, okay.

Is this what I'm thinking of of how Medicaid may be linked into this?

At first, when I I saw this, I thought, okay, was this somehow related to the council on aging?

And then I'm thinking, okay.

So if we're talking about the public schools system, are we talking about uh because if we're talking about OT uh counseling and that that's more in the realm of special ed.

And then if we're also talking about like billing for services or Medicaid, then are we going into Cambridge Health Alliance and the satellite um service at um the high school?

So are we talking about the high school?

Are we talking about special ed services?

Are we talking about um and as it is it reported out each single school or and if I could jump in, I I don't mean to derail that question, but um just to check my understanding of what you've said so far, Manager Malik.

Um the schools provide many hundreds of thousands of dollars of services to students, and some amount of that can be reimbursed by Medicaid.

And so this contract is for consultants who really understand how to make that connection between all the services that we're already doing and spending you know quite a lot of money doing wonderfully, uh, and available reimbursement funds, so that we can can get some of that kind of credited to us.

Through the chair, that's correct.

Counselor Rebug.

Okay, thanks.

And uh through the chair, um, do also um just add on to counselor stretchless cushion.

Um for example, in FY23, 24, um, the school together with public consulting group had built for counseling, but no nursing.

The 24 through 25 year uh they had built for nursing, but no counseling.

And the the current year and the future year, the hope is that we are heading in the direction of where we can build for both the nursing and the counseling services.

And this is all to maximize the revenue that we are getting in.

Um we had budgeted for almost 300,000 worth of revenue that we would be getting in in FY26, which we are almost close to meeting the goal.

And for FY27, uh the expectation is once again that we would be getting almost $300,000 worth of revenue into um the Medicaid bucket.

Okay.

Um yes, looking forward to the the email.

So uh thank you for that.

Um one last question, if I may, not related to that specific uh bullet point, if I may.

Uh exactly.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um no, no, I'm not I'm not forgetting it.

Oh, yeah, all right.

Uh, how are we on the the health um boxes?

The are they uh I know that they are a grant funded and they're also a pilot from what I believe.

Are they safe for the years to come?

Um is their thought or projection on the future of them.

And um where are we on that?

The chair, thank you for the question.

Uh leave you're referring to the pilot project, the public health vending machines that started in space.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

And no, that's fine.

They're going really well.

Our activity, we're our monitoring activity.

We are starting to get some data back from the machines that automatically sort of record what is being utilized and taken out, distributed.

So we're we're beginning to understand what's being utilized in which of the vending different vending machines, and there are different patterns within the city.

And we've also just recently swapped out more of our winter weather items, warm weather items for more of our summer safety items, including hydration, um, take and bug wipes, sunscreen wipes, those types of things.

Um, some of the stocks, standard things are very popular throughout the year, including diapers, wipes, body wipes, um, contraception, um, Narcan.

So range of products still in there.

Again, um, once we have you know, six months to a year of data, we'll be able to really see trends and whatnot.

In terms of sustainability and funding, there is funding through our marijuana funds, stabilization fund is where that project is being funded out of.

This year, we had some funds from a Rise grant to help us get started, but um, we do have sufficient funds to continue those machines for multiple years.

What exciting news?

Um excuse me, through the chair.

Uh, I stand corrected, it's from the opiate funds uh that these this project is being paid for.

Yes.

Thank you, directorly.

No, and thank you for all this information.

I'm looking forward to uh circling back at the about the the data that uh when as it as it's ready and how exciting.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councillor Strazo.

Counselor Hart.

Thank you.

Um, I have several questions, so I'll try to try to be brief, but there's your department encompasses so much important work that I know um that I really appreciate, and I know constituents do as well, and just have some follow-up questions.

Um, I really appreciated you outlining some goals uh for the next fiscal year, and just uh for more information on a couple of those.

One is you mentioned improving public health outcomes, and I'm curious about what specific outcomes um you're looking at.

And the second one along those lines is um what factors are you going to are you looking at to bring down the rodent, um, the level of rodent concerns.

The chair, thank you for the questions.

I'll um start with the first one.

I'm not sure which of our goals in particular you were referring to.

So if there is a specific goal you're referring to there, let me know.

Um, if not, I mean, I can confidently say that a number of our goals will be working towards improved public health outcomes.

Um, that's what we do using the term public health in a very broad sense to include prevention activities, uh, improving people's living conditions, the social determinants of health, the human services side of it, some sort of the entire life spectrum.

Um, all of the things that we are working towards in our goals are focused on improving the public health and the well-being of the members of our community, in particular our most vulnerable members of our community.

So they all indirectly um connect to that.

If there is a specific initiative in general, or um, I think as we start to work as a new HHS division, we're excited about some potential ways in which we can try some new initiatives or pairing of teams to maybe um increase access for folks, whether that's um to housing applications, SNAP benefits, um, how we reach people, our ISD team.

Uh, there's so many areas for overlap.

We're excited to start exploring.

Um, if there is one in particular that you'd like me to expand on right now, I'm happy to um let me now just pass over to um Colin Ziggler, our director of public health, who can answer the question about the rat complaints and that thank you, Karen.

Uh, through the chair, uh, Councilor Hart.

Um, the road control program for the city continues to be a robust aspect of public health.

Um, we are going to continue with our residential program, reaching more folks, getting more folks involved in that program, um, ensuring that it's yielding results.

Um, it doesn't need to be a program where we're just going out there setting boxes and walking away.

We want that program to continue to give folks the information, education they need, as well as the assistance uh that often comes from enforcement and the work itself from our pest control providers.

So we're going to continue monitoring and enhancing that program.

Smart boxes continue to be a part of our approach as well, tracking high activity areas, addressing them through enforcement and education actions and working with our vendor modern pests to assist in that communication education so we can make more realistic and effective recommendations to many of these businesses and residents that might be impacting the road population significantly.

On top of that, we'll continue getting out there doing community walkthroughs, which tend to be very effective and moving people in the right direction towards reducing food, water, and shelter in their neighborhood, as well as providing smaller sectors of Ratzars who can keep an eye on things and move things forward in the right direction under our guidance and the guidance from each other, which we tend to find is a much more effective approach.

If there are specific aspects of the road control program that you have questions about, I'm happy to answer those.

I can talk rats all night, but I know not everyone wants to.

But yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing your questions further.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Thanks for those details.

I also had a question about the um about food access.

And in this memo, it mentions that the school markets will be level funded, I believe.

But in the budget book, it said that the only increase in food access would be to the school markets.

So I just wanted to clarify.

Good evening, Lisa Robinson, the Office of Food Access and Hotel Communities.

Thank you for your question.

Um, really good observation.

So the way that the school markets were funded last year is different than the way it's going to be funded this year.

So last year it came from two sources.

Um it came from free cash and then community benefits funds.

This year, half of it will be coming from a state year mark, and the other half will be in the general fund that you see outlined for you.

Fantastic.

And will that uh will there be three markets, three school markets continuing going forward?

I know the Healy was a new, like maybe pilot.

Yes, I know the schools are continuing to um evaluate to make sure it has the highest impact there, but as of right now, that is the plan.

And I also wanted to ask about carrot cards, which my understanding is that they're not in the operating budget because it's a different source of funding.

Um, but I I know that that is a program that's very popular and a lot of uh residents want to know about it.

So I was wondering if you wouldn't mind giving a very short update about where the funding is for that right now and what at what level those will be continuing.

We are able to use community benefits funds to continue that program for one more year.

Um, there's a few pieces that we're looking to see if they come through another state year mark before we determine what level of enrollment we'll have for next year for students.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate all that.

Um Chair Wheeler, I have a few more questions.

Is it okay to continue or do you want me to take a pause?

Go for it.

Okay.

Um I had a question about the senior transportation program.

Uh maybe that's something that we should hold up for council and aging.

Okay, fantastic.

Um, so would now be the appropriate time to talk about the youth youth development or I think we'll wait for community wellness.

We're right now on the HHS admin division.

Admin.

Okay.

Yeah.

Excellent.

Okay, I will stop there then.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions for HH admin, HHS admin for the committee?

Um, okay.

Then we will move on with so much thanks uh to public health.

So we're going to have director of public health, Colin Ziegler come on back.

Uh the chair, good evening.

Uh, my name is Colin Ziegler, the public health director under the new public health division, which is now going to contain ISD Health, our environmental health team, which contains our environmental health coordinator or Ratzar, as well as the health manager, our fantastic ISD health inspections team who are out there on the ground keeping an eye on all of the things in Somerville.

And if you have any questions about what's going on, they are more than happy to provide you an answer.

Uh, we're also absorbing our shared services coordinator as well as public health nursing and our community health workers, which is an exciting partnership to help um shared services coordinator to leverage some state funding opportunities and uh that we share with Cambridge, um, as well as interacting with our public health nurses and our community health workers who do excellent work and promoting public health, uh disease prevention, and then uh getting out there into the community and interacting one-on-one, which provides an opportunity with our inspectors who also do that work and can help reinforce uh some of our goals and objectives.

Um, just an overview.

Uh the department conducts inspections on or the division, uh, conducts inspections of housing, public spaces, addresses environmental health concerns such as rodents and other environmental nuisances.

Uh, we connect folks to resources, we do education and enforcement work on that end.

Um, we also see oversee public health programs to maintain a health and safety community in partnership with our public health nurses as well as our community um health workers.

So that is my uh intro.

I'm happy to take questions concerning the I'll just quickly summarize this question from the memo.

Uh it was asking about how many food establishments are inspected, how often is the city current?

There's uh some charts, but in summary, there are 456 establishments requiring 891 routine inspections by risk level.

Uh as of June 11th, 774 routine inspections were complete, and the city is expected to finish this cycle by mid-July.

Sound good.

Thank you.

Um Councilor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Through you.

Um, I'm I'm curious with this new um reorganization.

Uh so there's obviously some coordination that has to happen, um, especially in terms of like uh when we're what when uh a new business is building out or renovating, right?

There's certain requirements that you're gonna have, right?

Uh the the uh and then there's certain requirements that the the permitting department is gonna have um for the actual like build out part.

Uh how much coordination are you doing to make sure that our our businesses are not gonna build something only to find out that like the ISD said yes, but then you say no?

Uh through the chair, um that's an excellent question.

Our ISD building division and health division will continue working extremely closely.

We're not moving moving physical spaces.

We have a great rapport with our building colleagues.

Uh, there is definitely a lot of coordination that happens on the review uh fields and activities that take place.

Uh one can't happen without the other.

So there's always regular and constant discussion.

If there are you know oversights here and there, those discussions are had fairly quickly.

So we'll continue for uh coordinating with each other on a regular basis.

Thank you very much.

Any other questions from the committee?

Okay, seeing none, thank you so much for appearing before us.

And we um for being here.

And we will move on to community wellness.

Uh, and we already got to hear from director of the Office of Food Access, Lisa Robinson.

Um, I'm wondering, we may also uh have director of prevention services, Tina Lowe's.

Um please feel free to introduce yourself.

The chair, good evening.

My name is Lisa Robinson, and I'm presenting on the community wellness division.

This is a new division as part of the reorganization.

So therefore it's a new budget.

The community wellness division contains the salaries for 15 employees, including the prevention services, food access and healthy communities, community health workers, um, and youth services.

Our work supports all Somerville residents, and we are responsible for projects that's such as the mobile farmers market, the forthcoming community food assessment, um, the co-managing the warming center, the public health vending machines, summer and school youth jobs, street outreach, and helping with SNAP and mass health enrollment.

A new expense in the budget is within the work of food access to support the monthly school violets.

The line item and rentals equipment reflects the rental of the free period product stations in certain city buildings.

The payment for teen summer jobs has been moved into this division from the executive administration office, but this is not a new expense.

And finally, our prevention team will be working with the communications team on the mayor's priority of the safe spot campaign.

Thank you and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much.

Um, and to quickly summarize these questions.

Uh, how are youth development services contracted and what outcomes are expected?

The answer said funding is not reduced.

Services are competitively bid and focused on youth space programming leadership and advocacy and measures include youth served, unique participants, workshops, engagement, and satisfaction.

A question was what alternate alternate sources fund positions?

Uh marijuana funds support the youth workspace, uh workplace learning coordinator and prevention services coordinator.

The state tobacco grant supports the tobacco control coordinator.

Do we have enough staff to support food access if SNAP is threatened?

The office relies on strong partnerships with providers inside and outside the city.

Foods a top request and community partners do much of the frontline work.

Anything to add about those.

Thank you.

Okay.

So I know Counselor Hart, you mentioned having a question about teen empowerment from before.

And I'm also seeing Counselor Scott's hand up.

I'm gonna go to you first, Counselor Hart, if you still have that question.

Sure, thank you.

Um from the get-go, I just like to clarify what I said at the beginning of this meeting when we were talking about the teen empowerment um item.

I realized, you know, I was what I was trying to express very clumsily.

I realized a better way to express it, um, which is that I think the teen empowerment model is very much about transformational, you know, leadership development.

Um, which which I don't think can really be captured in a needs assessment because you kind of by definition don't know that you um, you know, what you would get out of that because it is it's transformational rather than transactional.

So I just uh wanted to clarify what I was trying to say with the qualitative quantitative distinction.

I think it's better captured by um transformational transactional distinction.

Um so thank you for for listening to that.

Um my question is just going back to the earlier question.

Um, if you could just say more about what the city's vision is for youth development and then how that relates to the youth service director position.

Um, through the chair, I will start with this as again, many of our divisional directors have uh worked in the space of youth development.

Um, this year, the youth services director will be under the community wellness starting in FY27.

They will be situated in the division of community wellness with the prevention folks who are also doing a lot of work in the youth space.

Um, not that that's not happening elsewhere.

Um, again, we plan to work across our divisions as we perform and this new HHS uh department unfolds and finds its feet.

There'll be lots of ways in which youth services will be supported.

And you heard from Parks and Rec earlier as well with the space in the tab building that's been identified.

We're excited to start partnering with them as well.

And we don't know exactly what that will look like yet, but we know again that youth have told us time and time again that they need safe spaces to be, they need trusted adults.

Um, these are all protective factors that uh we want to make sure we're meeting the needs of the youth in all of the various departments within HHS, divisions within HHS, as well as our partner agencies and within the city.

So we're looking forward to this continued collaboration that um goes on all the time.

Again, our roadmap right now, I would say for youth services is really that needs assessment.

That that is part of what's really guiding what we're doing with our space, our time, our staff, how we're addressing the needs of what the youth have told us they need from the city.

So and yes, and again, the whole framework has been adopted by our department, rolling it out and sharing it with other teams in the city.

We had um a conference earlier this year, in which the whole framework is sort of part of all of the work that we do, highlighting the strengths of youth and highlighting the protective factors.

Um, again, and this is all part of the youth services, things like the job um programs, the um empowerment, your use, the curriculum um CV development, um, all of the things that youth need to be equipped for success in higher learning as well as jobs, professional, all of the that kind of growth.

So we're supporting that as well, um, all linked to this whole framework that again builds on the positive strengths of youth.

Um, and in fact, one other thing on that note, we're trying to modify the wire, what was known as the youth risk behavior survey for years would be modified in title, but also in some of the questions to ask and strengthen the data collection around the positive protective factors, understand what where youth are, where the gaps are in that as well.

So we're excited about that shift as well.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Counselor Hart, Counselor Scott.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I was just wondering if uh in the last three hours we had gotten an answer on how many RFP submissions we've got.

Um through the chair, we do not.

I have not spoken with the procurement department tonight, and I don't know that anyone has been able to.

So until we are certain whether we can legally talk about the number who um I'm not in a position to add any more comment on that.

We will follow up with the procurement office tomorrow.

And if there is anything that's ready for public that's part of the process, we will follow up with the council for sure.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Counselor Link.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, through you.

Um, so uh I was hoping um maybe we could get a quick little kind of overview um of what's so the most of the grants um or or programs that were once in the um the admin section of lat like for last year when the admin section have been moved over it looks like almost entirely they've been moved um with the like the Medicaid one being uh an exception um into this the wellness um the community wellness division.

So uh I'm just curious though, because a lot of them they've got like different names or whatnot.

Um is there are there any important call-outs here um that we should be that we should be focusing on.

Are you can you uh through the chair?

Can you just uh clarify?

Do you mean like different funds or um lines in the PNT?

Uh yeah, so so lines in the PNT.

Um because yeah, like some there's just some of them have different names, and so it's it's just it's it's hard to compare one to one to another.

It's easy to lose track of the script.

Um through the chair, I would say that most of this has just been transferred under my um division was but existed before that.

Okay.

Again, the food market being the only new one.

Okay.

So then the like so, for example, like the the one that like called out to me was the um local food support, you know.

So I'm uh did it did it change, did is it split up or something?

Because it was so in FY26 local food support was at was that 8,500, and now it looks like that that's at 2,000.

So is this another one?

Through the chair.

Through the chair, excuse me.

We did reduce that for this year um because we're in terms of we're bolstering the food program through the community benefits funds mostly for this year.

Understood.

Okay.

All right.

Um great.

And then I guess so.

The only other thing I'll just say uh is right now I'm a little little concerned seeing the in uh it was a question I think in the admin section, but um, I think it actually applied to this one, was uh talking about you know being able to maintain um on that uh topic like food access, uh, and kind of you know uh it seems like we're heavily relying on on partners, um, which is something we I think we've always done, so that's not necessarily a change, but I do worry that um that our partners might need to rely on us a little bit.

Like we're uh it sounds like uh it's like the the old joke of like, you know, I've got uh a belt, my belt's holding up my pants and my pants is holding up my belt, like who's doing the work here.

Um this, you know, uh I I worry we're relying on the on partners for food access.

Partners are relying on us to be able to maintain the work that they do.

Um, so I I do get concerned that they're uh that we're um that if we don't keep up with that, especially in these kind of harder times for everyone, um, including us as a city, uh, that that some people are gonna get left at the uh that that our partners are gonna start struggling to actually continue to maintain the service.

Um, so I I do hope that we've got some sort of plan to keep doing a temperature check um and and see how um see if we need to to kind of jump in and do more.

Yeah, thank you for your concern.

I think we have a great relationship with community partners um, particularly through different um coalitions, specifically the Somerville Food Coalition, um, about our office backbones and convenes.

So we meet monthly with the CNR committee to really keep our ears on the ground and get that feedback, and we'll be ready to pivot our acts when we hear anything different.

Thank you.

I know I'm not asking like through the chair.

Yeah, I know I'm asking kind of an abstract question.

Uh just it's just something that's on my mind a lot.

Um, I really appreciate the work that that you're all doing to make sure that you know there's um trying to help make sure that we've got food on um on plates.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Counselor Lank.

Um, I have a couple questions or comments.

Um, so first on the youth development services, uh echoing what Councillor Hart said about uh transfer transformational leadership.

Um, you know, I I very much appreciate uh you know doing surveys, making sure we know what we're talking about.

We're not just making assumptions and assessing needs.

And uh I just want to make sure that all of us in every department in every role in the city are keeping in mind that um things that are sort of readily identifiable in a survey uh are not necessarily all of the things that are important because uh on paper, you don't see the immediate effects of identity transformation.

It's it's a long-term thing, and it's something that someone might not know they want or need or are ready for uh until they're experiencing it.

And um, you know, so so I just want to I just want to make sure awareness of that, awareness of the limitations of uh of only a sort of data, what's on paper approach to these decisions is not enough.

To the chair, if I can just to add that there is has been extensive focus groups and qualitative data as well, and that all of the programs we are proposing are evidence-based.

Thank you.

Um talking about uh community benefits funds.

What is the source of community benefits funds?

I'm looking for the sponsor.

Um the development, yes.

Thank you, uh, Director Masterbone.

Um, through the chair, community benefits funds are through uh result of development here in the city.

They become available to this to the city or use in whatever uh the city decides to do with it.

Okay.

I'm I may follow up with uh budget director Masterboney to get more clarification later.

Uh and then last, and yeah, this is a leading question.

Am I right in understanding that uh HHS's grants uh that are received by Union Square Farmers Market and other farmers markets?

Um, those make it possible for them to hire multilingual SNAP facilitators and to make matches possible to multiply SNAP amounts.

Yes.

Wonderful.

Uh thank you very much.

Uh any other questions from members of the committee at this time.

Okay.

Thank you so much for appearing before us.

Uh and we will move on to the council on aging.

And I believe we will have director of the council on aging, Ashley Speliotis.

Hello, Director Speliotis.

Hello, it's nice to see everyone this evening.

My name is Ashley Sliotis.

I'm the director of the Council on Aging.

The Council on Aging is comprised of a multidisciplinary team.

We create and implement a variety of programs that are focused on preventative health through advocacy, education, socialization, physical and mental health, um, and all that little or no cost to our senior residents.

And this year we were recognized by AARP who recertified Somerville as a member of their age-friendly community network.

And we're also recognized by the Massachusetts Council on Aging as an active aging community, which um opens up to different grants and different distinctions, which is really nice for the staff and our senior population.

You can see the FY27 budget is largely level funded.

Um there's a modest increase to the food line that's to help um keep our costs the same for seniors, five dollars or ten dollars for celebration luncheons and cultural events that usually come at a cost of 25 to 30 dollars per person, and then an increase in our transportation line, which reflects uh some of the counselors were saying, absorbing rides that um some of our partner organizations uh just weren't able to maintain this year.

So that uh began in January 2026.

So um I thank you for your investment and aging in our community, and I am welcome any questions you might have.

Thank you so much, Director.

Uh, the to summarize the memo, is the senior transportation cost increase uh from more service or just from inflation?

The answer was both, but mostly service expansion.

The program absorbed senior center rides uh after SCES ended service.

Um I have that in my notes as an abbreviation, but I forget what it stands for.

Uh adding about 100 rides per month and the new contract also added a dollar per ride to the cost.

Anything to add to that.

Uh no, I'm happy to take any questions on it, but that summarizes it uh specifically at Somerville Cambridge Elder Services.

Um historically for years and years, they were able to provide rides for seniors who ate at their congregate lunch program that ended this January, and now we are able to offer um Somerville residents two rides per week to any senior center location or event.

Thank you.

Moving on to questions from the committee, I see Councilor Streso.

Thank you.

I have a few questions, but I'll start uh I'll just start off.

Hi, Director Spaliotis.

Thank you very much for all you do uh for your ongoing on the ground advocacy.

Um I see what you do every day.

Um first I uh through you, uh Mr.

Chair through uh to you, so just acknowledging that.

Um with the uh cost of events, I know that it is $10.

Um I and uh for some of the events for some, especially as water bills are increasing, as inflation is has not gone down as groceries are more expensive, and how fixed incomes are still very much a real thing.

I have heard that comparable cities, their activities and their meals are cheaper.

And I know, and this is not a critique, um, but I know that uh with all these all these um onslaught to incomes these days, those those things matter.

Has there been any conversation?

Have there been any conversations on how to um partner or grants or reduce costs even with that, or if there are seniors who are struggling to pay for that?

Is there um there are opportunities for seniors who who can't get in but still need that intense socialization to be able to attend events if cost is a barrier?

Absolutely, through the chair.

Um this has come up a lot uh amongst our staff, especially amongst our board of directors, um, comparing to other cities and towns, communities, um, by and far programs are much cheaper, um, especially the health and wellness programming, uh the access to social workers, fitness programs.

Um many communities charge five dollars per class.

And amongst the board, there has been conversation about needing to charge to offset other programs.

Um staff myself feel that's not the way to go.

I'm sure uh I have your support in that that um the majority of our programs are zero cost to residents.

The um meals that are $10 are at Dilvoid Post, so it includes the cost of rental, an entertainer, um a catered lunch, dessert.

We have other five dollar programs um that are more cultural event focused, and then this past fiscal year we have reduced some cost of programming for entertainment that is held at the senior center to $2 or $3.

So one answer to your question is that we have a variety of programs at a variety of costs.

Um, but the other answer is that um we work with our residents every day.

And if cost is a factor or a burden, we certainly make exceptions.

Um we don't uh uh prevent any anybody from attending due to cost.

Okay.

Um that's good to know.

And uh yes, I was speaking specifically when we talk about programs, the the meals or the events where where that is.

So that's what I was specifically trying to get at um compared to uh comparably with with other communities.

Um I did have a a question about the the uh senior taxi uh cab program, but I know counselor Hart had a question on that, so I'm I'm happy to defer to her and then go uh go back in line.

I did have a a question about the the uh senior taxi uh cab program but I know counselor Hart had a question on that so I'm I'm happy to defer to her and then go uh go back in line um and ask ask my own as well uh but before we uh so just wanted to put that out there but I know that um council on aging has the rental of buildings of of ordinary maintenance at a TAP building as uh is is in the line so are we um checking in on the parking lot has uh I believe that the the lease gets signed ish in July is that correct and I forgot are we up for it this year I think it's annual or is it every couple years I can't recall if I may um Mr.

Chair through you to the director through the chair that's out of my scope I have to say um but it's ongoing conversation um regarding the amount of parking and um the accessibility so um it's anomaly I have to say to answer your question you know in the afternoon um there's plenty of parking for the seniors on Thursdays it's difficult um but it is an ongoing conversation um with the city and with the park okay I definitely would like to follow up uh with you on that because yeah I hear that too it's not solved and it is um still a concern but also I know when we get back into the the lease agreement with it I want to make sure that we are not losing anything minimally losing any parking or any accessibility in the process of that counselors uh for those that are are new to the councilor counts uh to the council or this conversation in the past with the TAB building um as you know we we rent it from Tufts but there was a year when um the only way to be able to park um at the the the the landlord um introduced a a kiosk that was credit card only and um any visitors had to pay via credit card or pay for the parking or they were going to get towed and the city uh fought hard for this as well and the city did agree and put into the lease that or the city um enveloped the the cost of parking um into to our budget uh so I want to keep an eye on that as we head into this fiscal year as well and make sure that that continuity is happening or um and that we bring that conversation up again when we need to but but also when we talk about like paying for parking if you have an ADA placard or number one you can't even find parking in the area because a lot of visitors to the tab building especially with ADA needs have they struggle to be able to park in the area or walk in the area or get to the tab building and in the snow it's even worse um and with the Icy sidewalks it's 10 times worse um it's actually a liability and so having to pay for ADA accessibility basic ADA accessibility to be in community and um just for some social experiences that matters so I'll stop there and hop back in line but I'm keeping an eye on it for this uh budget cycle as well thanks thank you counselor counselor hurt do you want to ask about transportation sure this is just a quick question um I my understanding is that there used to be as part of trans senior transportation a service where if you had mobility needs you know there was it was not just a taxi but someone who could help you get from your home to the vehicle and then at your destination also get out and I just wonder is that am I right that that we no longer offer that could you tell me the status of that service excuse me uh through the chair there are multiple transportation services and programs for seniors in Somerville um or which run in Somerville including the ride which is a state and federal funded program where seniors are picked up inside of their home and brought to their location of choice uh there is still transportation services provided by Sumerville Cambridge Elder Services that could be um rides to doctor's appointments or for socialization and um they have the added benefit of a medical escort for some of their rides um and then there is a program called uh door to door or SCM which is also located at the TAB building here in Somerville and they provide rides for grocery shopping to medical appointments um we rent their services for some of our programs um the ones that we were talking about at Dilboy and um the benefit of their program is that they are um 100% age

Um and then there is a program called uh door to door or SCM, which is also located at the TAF building here in Somerville, and they provide rides for grocery shopping to medical appointments.

Um we rent their services for some of our programs, um, the ones that we were talking about at Dublin, and um the benefit of their program is that they are um 100% ADA compliant uh vehicles.

So they have um shared lists um on their mini buses, and um our transportation program, the Summerville Transportation Program run through the council on aging.

Um we have a main contract with green cab.

So our main source of the rides are green cab taxi rides, but if a person um is unable to use the taxi, then we can also use funding for the transportation program for green cap.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Counselor Hurt, Counselor Strezzo.

Thank you.

If I may, on that uh counselor's point, I believe that uh counselor Hart was was asking specifically about back in the day, uh there was a program that was somehow related to Cotaldo.

Um is that and and that even may predate you, uh director.

Uh yeah.

But uh do you have any insight or is there any historical knowledge that um yeah?

Okay.

Sure.

Um the chair, it does predate me.

I can tell you uh working in other locations about five, 10 years ago, all ambulance companies would have what they call uh chair car services.

Chair car services would bring people home from the hospital, some medical appointments.

Um, they had different benefits of um bringing people up and down stairs using chair lifts, all which um other transportation programs, none of which I know of in Somerville, um do right now uh because of insurance billing charges and reimbursement.

Um that service to my knowledge has largely ended, but it's directly from insurance companies.

If I may in that, so are there still um I'm sorry, uh Mr.

Chair, through you to the director.

Uh it so it's an insurance billing.

And thank you.

I'm really happy that you can go into detail about this, because it it seems like kind of a unicorn where we are um that this service existed and doesn't anymore.

And so you're saying that it was an insurance um yes, but I just want to be clear that it was never a city program or supported by the city.

It was um all ambulance companies, to my knowledge in Massachusetts had this service provided um where they would charge insurance to get involved from the hospital and so forth, and now they do not, but they I believe still have the service, but it is completely private pay for people, but again, not um not for city support or city use.

So we never have people coming to the senior center using a chair lift or um a chair car.

Thank thank you for that.

Um I have heard from some constituents on this and similar issues of transportation, is that um sometimes if it if they have like a doctor that um that the taxi can only go in this this is not this is just like reporting back what I've what I've heard.

Um sometimes uh so constituents they they are they're referred to as specialist in their network of of hospital systems.

So I don't know, MassGen or Beth Israel or I don't know, CHA or whatnot.

And this specialist is only in this office on the other side in in Alston, and the transportation will not go to Alston.

So it may still be in the hospital system, the doctor's covered or or within network and et cetera, but but the ride does not go to that specific block or neighborhood.

So therefore is invalid for a ride.

And residents were saying, well, I can't go to the specialist if I don't have a ride there.

There isn't a way to get they can't.

And again, you know, taxi cabs are very expensive on their own and et cetera.

And it has created an a separate entity of an issue that wasn't anticipated.

That's more of a comment.

I mean, director, that's it's not on you.

You have no role in that, but it is something that I've heard back of feedback, and that was unexpected.

I did not expect that to be an actual issue, of course.

That is where hospitals and other um transportation programs could be useful, including ambulatory programs, but that's a different conversation for a different day.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Stresso.

Um, I have uh two follow-up questions uh for you, Director Spaliotis.

Uh, one is uh with the door-to-door service.

Uh, am I right in understanding uh that has to be booked two weeks in advance?

Yes.

Um again, door to door is not a city run um, but that is um my understanding as well, but they generally require two weeks.

Um, and that's um another benefit of our senior transportation program is that we uh require two business days, so much quicker.

Thank you.

And uh I also understand that the uh volunteer board for the council on aging, uh who I've had the pleasure of meeting several members of uh they've been doing listening sessions for some time.

And I'm just curious if there are uh policy ideas or program ideas beyond uh beyond what is in the council on aging's own ability to you know to provide in terms of you know social programming and and uh and transportation.

Uh how are those ideas or those needs being communicated to the rest of the city government?

Sure.

Um you're right.

Um, Mr.

Chair, the board of directors has had two recent initiatives.

Um, one is the creation of drop-in hours uh with board members themselves held at the council on aging, so a one-on-one um time for residents to come and speak and share about um all the great things senior related and the improvements they would like to see.

And um, the board has also paired and partnered with um an advocacy group, Mass Senior Action to hold um focus group slash listening um sessions in each ward of the community.

Um the feedback is varied depending on whether they're held in a um predominantly senior housing unit or um elsewhere in the community.

Um a lot of feedback um which our survey showed to us, and which we can see at the council on aging um that prices are increasing for our senior population, that incomes in Somerville are rate are you know on the rise.

The median income is about 134,000.

Um, but the median income for a senior is in the 40, about 44,000, and then um goes down to about 20 and 19, 22,000 for seniors living alone, and that's by gender.

Um, so the rates of um you know, new businesses going up for a meal, transportation is um is it's sometimes difficult for um for seniors, and that's why um we have done different programs at the council on aging um from basic financial literacy um to working with um our water department for the creation of the water reduction for helping uh with a senior tax program and advocating last year uh to increase the um income guidelines so it's now up to 90,000 and an increased tax rebate from 15,000 to 2,000.

So that's um a conjunction of the board and the staff of the council on aging working on those projects.

Thank you so much.

And I I figure you must mean 1500.

Yes, sorry, 1500.

Just for the record.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

Uh any other questions or comments from members of the committee.

Uh well, thank you so much, Director Spaliotis, and have a good rest of your night.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh next we have human services, which includes summer promise and veteran services.

And I believe Nancy Bacci is the director of human services.

Yes.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Welcome.

Yes.

The Human Services Division supports the overall well-being of residents by connecting, aligning, and mobilizing community partners and resources to ensure everyone in Summerville has the opportunity to try.

As you know, as part of the reorg, this is a newly formed division, which encapsulates summer promise, which had its own budget prior.

Veteran Services also had its independent budget.

The social services team, which includes our services condition as well.

So we will continue under this, and we're viewing this as an exciting opportunity to build off our amazing work by a grade team.

Provide resources to veterans and their families, continue to support children and families, address basic needs for our social services team and provide support to the community as well as city departments or our LGBTQ services coordinator.

I'm happy to hear any questions you may have.

Thank you so much.

To very briefly summarize the questions and answers, uh there was a question of what services do human services roles provide.

Social workers serve adults 19 to 59, clinical youth specialists serve youth through 18, and case managers help with utilities, clothing, food, insurance, and referrals.

And veterans in LGBTQ plus roles have more defined program areas.

A question was uh why do we have several layers of directors rather than a flatter HHS structure?

The answer was managers and directors help coordinate across programs and act as working managers who can cover gaps and support frontline work.

A question was why have veterans benefit claims declined and what are the precise numbers?

So there are details provided.

Uh there's mention of claims fluctuating due to relocation, employment and eligibility changes and mortality.

Uh it looks like applicants, uh there were 36 in 2021 and it steadily declined to 24 in 2025.

And what services are cut by eliminating summer promise coordinator, uh summer baby and clinical youth specialist positions.

The answer was the department says it'll avoid complete service eliminations by absorbing administrative tasks, continuing summer baby with multilingual staff and redistributing youth support work.

Anything to add to any of that.

I would just uh through the chair.

I would just indicate our veteran service team has a really robust outreach and engagement program that they utilize, including monthly breakfast.

So as they continue to build stronger connections as well, our hope is that we will ensure that all veterans in the city who are eligible for these services will in fact be able to receive them.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Any questions from the committee.

Counselor Scott.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh I'm just going to make this brief comment.

Uh, just to say that, you know, the summer summer baby summer promise uh program.

Uh is one of those that's rooted in really strong evidence-based practices of having functionally peers going out into these households and uh you know being very culturally competent and uh and bringing folks along many times on path that that these folks have already traveled.

Um so though those are incredibly valuable and uh historically very underpaid workers doing some uh pretty critical work.

Uh before this reorganization, I had always been concerned about the level of uh how many levels of management there were uh versus uh folks actually executing those home visits and doing that work.

Uh, you know, part some pieces of this org chart makes sense.

There's a manager of social services who has six people working for great.

They're on a manager sally.

Uh but then we have uh director with only five people reporting to them.

And again, this is one of those things where uh perhaps it was inertia, perhaps it was uh lack of desire to upset the apple cart, but uh it is unfortunate as much as you might say some of these directors are working foreman.

Uh I would be shocked uh to know that uh these directors were uh out doing the home visits that the summer baby family support worker, for example, is doing.

So uh I just wanted to put it out there that again, this is a place where uh organizations are hard to manage, reorganizations are of course very painful, but um my opinion here the city maybe is uh going in the wrong direction in terms of levels of management versus direct service delivery.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Um, no pressure uh director, do you wish to respond to that at all?

Uh no, I don't think I didn't ask a question.

Fair enough.

Counselor Streso.

Thank you.

Uh yeah, I have my own questions.

Uh, but I do want to also comment or just toss something in since it's already in discussion about summer baby.

Um I do have concerns about the whole postpartum element of having a baby.

And I always saw summer baby as a positive little nod and check-in for parents who um having a newborn around is very, very overwhelming.

And especially in this constant and chronic need of eliminating um women's health and all pregnant people's health.

It did not go unnoticed by me that this is a this is a service that um affects women's health and all who can get pregnant and deliver babies.

And I'll stop there.

Um but my question was um, and what whatever everyone wants to do about that can they can do what they want.

My question was on veteran services and uh Mr.

Chair through you to um to our director.

I I um I'm interested in putting in a budget line um for cut night or exploring this with everyone.

Uh when we have events uh for veterans, uh veteran services events, uh like the Memorial Day events, um and either inside or outside.

One thing that I have noticed consistently is that there is a lack of um how do I say this?

I and I'm not saying a lack of, but I think it would be helpful if we had hearing impaired services or a teleprompter.

I don't know what this looks like.

I don't have the answer, but um some kind of of service where veterans or uh can uh in some of our our um heart of hearing people can read or or have another way to hear the program because one thing I I have commonly heard with the events is that it's not loud enough.

Now, if we're having services for veterans who have heard the just constant years of barrages of explosions right outside of their heads, like of of ammunition and guns and blasts.

Um a lot of there may there be maybe need for um hearing impaired services and and a teleprompter or something, or I'm sorry, not teleprompter, but uh a screen or some kind of something for events where people can also read along or something.

Um has that ever been explored?

And if that works, but I guess I'm thinking out out loud right now.

But um would that be possible for outdoor events, for indoor events uh relating to veteran um services when we go forward.

And if if that was a possibility, again, not an on-the-spot answer right now, but if it was what what what would that look like?

What would it cost?

Um, and I'm happy to just talk it out uh outside of this meeting or or in an email or something, but just a thought.

Thank you.

Thank you through the chair.

I appreciate the question, Councilor Straszo, and I think that we often think about accessibility in a variety of ways.

An example to utilize is we have had ASL interpreters at various events that we've done for other divisions as well.

And that was really based on uh asks of the community, but I do like this idea of a proactive approach because I agree we shouldn't we should be thinking about accessibility in the broadest possible way.

So I think in the moment, I would have to say I would want to consult with our veteran services director and do a little bit of research about what that would look like, see if other communities have successfully implemented such a model and be happy to circle back online.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I'm looking forward to to hearing more.

And I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I appreciate through the chair.

I appreciate you bringing it forward as a concern.

Thank you, Councilor Streso.

Any other questions from the committee?

I am seeing none.

So thank you so much for appearing before us, Director, and have a good rest of your night.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate the opportunity to be there.

And that brings us to immigrant advancement.

And I believe we will have director of immigrant advancement, Maria Teresa Nagel.

Hello, Director.

Hello.

Uh through you, Mr.

Chair, to all of the finance committees.

I will begin with my brief introduction.

So the division of immigrant advancement is here to co-create and elevate the power, visibility, participation, and self-determination of immigrants and refugees in our community through community engagement programming, policy, and celebration.

And we accomplish this by working across departments, informed by those we serve to co-build a Somerville where we all belong.

This is obviously a new division budget within FY27 here in Health and Human Services.

And it was created as part of a citywide reorganization.

Therefore, it's kind of hard to compare it to previous um Soya budgets.

You will notice in this year's budget, however, that some of our staff have been reallocated to communications and public engagement under language and communications access and engagement and neighborhood services.

This is going to change some aspects of our work, but it is also a really great opportunity for us to strengthen the cross-departmental collaboration and engage in more creative solutions to serving our community.

And with that, I will take any questions that you might have.

Thank you so much.

I'll summarize the uh memo questions and answers briefly.

How well are immigrant residents supported when they need legal representation?

The answer was that Soya connects residents through outreach referrals, trainings, 311 hub connect walk-ins and community relationships, then screens cases and refers to legal aid or to the city's legal services vendor.

A question was is there more funding for immigrant legal services?

The answer was yes, the administration is adding 350,000 to the separate immigration legal services stabilization fund so cases can be funded all the way through completion.

A question was how will immigrant advancement uh ENS, the uh engagement and neighborhood services and language and communications access, language and communications access.

How will the three work together?

And the answer was that existing staff and workflows will continue with some co-location and regular coordination.

Moving immigrant advancement into HHS is meant to improve case management with family and social services.

Do you have anything to add on any of those?

Um, through you, Mr.

Chair.

The only thing that I'd like to add is just a huge emphasis on the allocation of $350,000 for this year's budget for legal services.

And I have that emphasis because it is the largest allocation to date.

Our legal services program is quite unique nationally and unique in the best possible ways.

And it has been growing tremendously.

And this is a huge sign of support for our immigrant community and for really being able to keep folks in our neighborhoods.

Thank you.

I'm thrilled to see it as well.

Members of the committee, are there any questions for the department or the division?

I am not seeing any now, which uh should not be taken as anything but enthusiasm for the continued work.

Uh so thank you so much.

Uh sometimes it feels a little abrupt if it's brief, but uh your work is very much appreciated.

Uh and have a great rest of you.

I will take it.

Thank you very much.

Have a great night.

Thank you.

And that brings us to the end of the Health and Human Services Department.

Uh, and so now uh I will entertain motions for any cuts or resolutions for adding funding.

Counselor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Resolution to add funding for the youth development services granting so that teen empowerment can have their full funding.

That sounds good.

I will uh note that uh it might be helpful for us to come up with a precise number for that.

But um I suppose that is something we're uh given that there's the opportunity to make further uh motions for resolutions uh on cut night on what is called cut night.

Uh I think we're okay if we don't have that number before us at the moment.

Um Vice Chair Scott.

Uh do you concur?

I just say as a perhaps as a friendly nod.

Uh just 400,000 was the number that was there before.

We could just put that on there.

And uh and run the risk of having more services for teens in the city than we had left.

We would love that friendly amendment to that resolution.

Sounds good.

So uh clerk, why don't we put that in as a resolution uh using counselor Link's language and with the number of 400,000?

Okay, just so I have it accurately recorded for the record.

I'm just gonna read it out.

Please correct me if I am missing anything.

Um so this is regarding adding 400,000 in funding for the youth development services granting.

So teen empowerment can have full funding.

Correct.

Great.

And just for clarity for everyone watching at home, that resolution is not uh by itself binding, and there will be more to discuss around it and all these other motions on uh Tuesday, June 23rd.

Any other motions before we move on?

Uh okay.

Uh moving on to public safety.

Okay.

Uh now I believe we will start with parking.

And uh I believe we have director of traffic and parking, Suzanne Rinfret and Director of Operations, Anna Rabello.

Good evening to the chair.

Good evening, council members.

I'm the director of parking, Suzanne Rinfred.

Thank you for the opportunity to present parking departments at FY27 budget.

It's been a very busy year for the department.

We've collaborated extensively with many city departments, particularly mobility engineering in the school department, while also implementing a new ticket and permit processing system.

As we review the budget, you will notice a few changes from prior years.

There's a modest increase in the personnel services budget, which is primarily attributable to collective bargaining agreements and merit increases.

There is also an increase in the ordinary maintenance account.

These higher costs are primarily due to the implementation of the new ticket and permit process and contract.

Overall, this budget allows us to continue providing effective parking management services while supporting necessary operational improvements and contractual obligations.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you so much, Director.

Uh, there were not questions submitted uh from counselors in advance, but do uh any members of the committee have questions at this point.

I am seeing none.

So I do, but oh please, uh Councillor Staso.

Give me one second, please.

Take your time.

We have run a full meeting without any recesses, and it is true.

So etc.

Um, okay.

Had a question about you know poking around if uh the convenience fee for credit cards.

I guess this question, I don't remember which department, but one of them.

Um the possibility of I I think it was so well, what was it?

Uh is anyone have that?

I know, I know.

I'm just asking questions on the fly here, but it was a pretty hefty number.

Um this, if I want to say it might have been if I read a card.

342,000.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, that so is there any way that we can get creative and find a way to incentivize um those who pay us to go off credit card or find a different way of payment and offset that cost in some way.

342000 uh huh yeah that so is there any way that we can get creative and find a way to incentivize um those who pay us to go off credit card or find a different way of payment and offset that cost in some way through you to direct a rent fraud thank you for the question through the chair so the convenience fees that you're seeing on on the budget are all due to meter payments all the other convenience fees that we um do in the city for well in the my department I should say for payment for tickets for payment for permits all of those fees are paid by the constituents for microtransactions it works a little differently there's no way to really charge there's no way to separate that fee so the convenience fee is it comes in and then it goes back out so for instance when you pay um an app it's a dollar right now dollar twenty five per hour then it's a fifty cents convenience fee so it's a dollar seventy five per hour so we're taking in the dollar seventy five but then we're also putting back out the convenience fee to the back to the company part of that goes back to the company because they charge us 30 cents and then the other 20 cents is issued towards our credit card convenience fee payment but it doesn't cover all of the all of the uh credit card fees so credit card fees are very they're very expensive um it depends on what kind of credit card you're using everyone's getting invite of the apple so we happen to use a merchant that merchant takes in the money and we we use them as a pass through so that we get all of our money right up front we have to pay for that so that's how it all works and that's why the convenience fee looks like so much a little confusing and I totally understand if you have to be right with you.

Okay.

Thank you I guess I'll just leave it at that because yeah thank you Counselor Strezzo any other questions from committee members uh I I will just say I've learned a lot in the last few months just about the breakdown of uh of which body controls what and how uh the parking department does not determine uh the rates of meters uh the cost of residential parking permits that's the traffic commission uh which does have one council counselor uh representative on it but is uh a five person body counselor Scott Mr.

Chair given that it's uh to my colleague's point nearly four hours in this meeting might I recommend we take a 10 minute recess and reconvene at 10 p.m um I am certainly amenable to a recess so we would of course let the parking department uh go first um I might I might try to keep it just five minutes uh in the sake in the hopes of keeping the end time of this meeting from being too colossally late uh does that that sound amenable Mr.

Chair do as you like um okay so first it sounds like we're at the end of our questions for the parking department thank you so much for appearing before us and staying up late uh have a good rest of your evening thank you have a great night and uh we will call a five minute recess uh and I'll see everybody back here at nine fifty five

If people are not ready, totally understand, but if people are please let me know.

Okay.

I'm seeing a quorum.

So why don't we jump back into it?

So we have the emergency management division.

Sure, we'll really quickly we will just need to take roll call.

Oh, thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

Uh counselor Scott and Councillor Stress, are you ready for roll call?

Okay.

Okay, Clerk, why don't you go ahead?

All right.

So this is just to make sure that everyone has come back from our brief recess.

Counselor Link.

Here.

Counselor Streso, present.

Counselor Hart.

Here.

Counselor Scott.

Present.

Chair Wheeler.

Here.

All right.

With that, it's 9.58 p.m.

and everyone has made it back.

We do have quorum.

Okay, thank you.

We have the emergency management department uh with emergency management director uh William Fisher.

Please go ahead and introduce yourselves and talk to us about emergency management.

Thank you very much through the chair.

My name is William Fisher, director of emergency management division.

We are a division of two.

Uh myself and here with me is Deputy Director Lauren Mahoney.

We actually work to strengthen collaboration and coordination during what we call blue sky days, the regular days, so that when a disaster does happen, hopefully it doesn't, but if it does happen, we're ready to respond in a coordinated fashion as a team.

This fiscal year, we're focused on uh our mission and enhancing that mission to reduce the impacts of disasters through a whole community approach to ensure everyone, regardless of background and circumstance, has access to resources and the support they need to recover and thrive.

Some of our goals, we have many goals uh for the upcoming year.

Although we're a department two, we always have these lofty goals.

Uh, but some of those goals include we're gonna be updating the city's hazard mitigation plan.

This is a plan that usually is around for about five years.

It needs to be refreshed by federal law, but also we want it to be not scale because it's really the backbone of the uh emergency management and mitigation.

Um it shows us where we have issues and uh identifies ways we can mitigate those uh issues.

We're also continuing with our partnership uh with the HHS, I should say, Health and Human Services Department to continue making uh improvements on the warning center.

It's currently we finished up the surveys and the listening session, and we're currently in the after action process and review, looking forward to doing an improvement and coming out with a plan for the upcoming winter season.

Still a little wicked, right?

Thank God.

Um we're also continuing.

We started last year and just the year 20 uh 26 with our partner program, which is the preparedness and resiliency through neighborhood engagement and readiness, and we're teaching programs like civilian response to after shooter events, until help arrives, and we're doing preparedness specific, usually around the season uh trainings and and talks around the community, including uh open to the community and uh the council on aging.

One of the most recent ones we did was the EverSource Medical Priority System, which surprised me that a lot of the seniors in uh in Somerville didn't know about what they had medical issues that required power that could register, and there was a whole program and ever source came out and then appreciation for that.

The other thing we're looking to do is I'm actually fairly excited about this, is that we're looking to explore resilience corridors in Summerville.

So, what this looks like is we have a lot of different situations where people need assistance during disasters, and we've been able to partner with the amazing department of the sustainability environment division and outside organizations like Summerville Crew, uh the community responding to extreme weather and groundwork Centerville to research identifying resources and specific locations that already exist in Somerville and kind of bringing that information together.

So instead of having multiple different departments and organizations trying to help people, we're doing it in a focused, organized way.

And finally, this year we're hoping to go from third on the list of canine companions to being matched with Somerville's new emergency management emergency management community comfort dollar.

So with that, uh, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Thank you so much.

And I'll just note uh one of the questions was about that uh asking what's the 17,000 dollar community outreach slash promo supplies line for and your answer mentioned 7,000 for the care and and needs for the community comfort dog program uh and $10,000 for preparedness materials and emergency flashlight radios.

Um members of the committee, any questions for emergency management?

Counselor Scott.

Well, I suppose I'll go, Mr.

Chair.

Uh hello, director.

Uh I I've got a couple questions for you.

Uh I just wondering how's the uh I'm sorry if I missed it.

Uh, how is the continuity of operations planning going?

So through the chair, I'm actually glad you brought that up.

That's one of the things we were working on.

So for about six months now, I've been working with uh the schools meeting weekly.

We have the draft plan done.

We've recently scheduled on the 30th, a uh tabletop exercise where we're going to take the draft plan, bring a bunch of city department heads as well as school department heads together, and through a simulated school disruption incident, we're going to work through the plan to try to identify.

I mean, I can sit down and get all kinds of information as well as the schools, and we think it's going to work a certain way, but until we can sit down and work through it with the actual people that do it.

We're hopefully going to identify some gaps, maybe find some areas which really strong.

Once that's done, we're going to go through an interacting process with that and hopefully be back to uh with a finalized plan once it gets through law and racial and social justice soon.

It's been a long process, but it's important.

It's not as simple as you know, looking at where we're going to move the school.

There are tons of critical essential services that are required that we not only have to have a school open and function, but we have to ensure that we identify those critical services and the nuances of them, but that we are able to fulfill those services as well in that move.

We want to make sure that the high level of education and support the schools give is able to be maintained as much as reasonably possible if there is a disruption.

All right.

Uh that I'm glad it's uh going to the exercise stage.

Um not for nothing.

Did uh the integrated preparedness plan ever get published?

So no, we're actually still working on that.

So we again we're a division of two.

So we we had things come up with our department, you know, whether it was emergencies, fires, and things like the continuity of operations plan, the updates of several other plans.

So it's still in the works.

I would love to have it been done by now, but we're definitely still working on it because I think it's one of those things that I almost like putting the cart before the horse.

I would love to have that done because it's a guiding force.

I think we do a good job of understanding and more of a loose sense where we want to go, but I still think it's incredibly important to get that down on paper so that we have that specific uh plan.

So it's something we're gonna continue working on and hopefully get it done in this fiscal year, but it's just one of those things that kind of pushed off the side as we're doing doing things versus planning for things.

I I certainly uh appreciate folks who do things.

Uh in the partner program, uh the preparedness and resilience.

I'm sorry if I missed this one too.

Uh, how many outreach events did you end up doing last year?

Hold up real quick, just give me one second to grab that document in the book.

So the partner program it spans between staff and communities.

And so for fiscal year 26, we did one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen events and a total of 1300.

So of all the 167 people that were trained or presented to all right.

Uh, and did you end up establishing a stakeholder advisory group on that?

Has not happened, but I definitely want to do that.

I know that in the um I'm gonna get the term wrong, but in the city charter, the uh civil defense charter, there's actually uh language in there for a emergency management advisory committee.

It really doesn't fit that, but definitely looking to work with the new administration to find a good fit as well as as the council on how to do that because a lot of our ideas we have, or a lot of the different um things we do are based on connecting with the community.

And I think we've talked about this before, Counselor, uh again through the chair.

That I can have all the ideas in the world and and the best practices, but they have to fit Sumerville, and we also have to find those specific groups and ways to fit that.

We're a very diverse population, and we need to make sure that we're meeting people again.

I think I said this last time where they're at.

So I'm really excited to get that going.

That hasn't happened yet, and it's definitely something we're looking at.

All right.

Um I appreciate it.

You know, I'm just trying to follow up on the goals that were stated in the past.

Um, there was uh a bunch of collaboration with the Department of Racial and Social Justice uh listed on here.

Um I haven't really heard any updates on that.

Is that something you'd say uh happened in the last year?

Oh, absolutely.

So it's it's not so when it comes to like a good example would be the racial and social justice.

It's not something that it's a meeting we conduct.

What we did is we fold them into everything we do.

So they are we have our emergency management group or our structure when it comes to disasters and those sorts of things, we'll plan for disasters.

We'll have a core group and then we'll have more of artillery groups, kind of like an ad hoc if we need them for specific things.

And there's certain folks that are part of that whole group for everything.

And I even brought it up earlier with the COP.

Anything we do, we work directly with uh racial social justice, uh, accessibility, ADA, and there's several other groups.

And so we have uh really worked hard, and it was that hard because they're a great group of people to establish that relationship and with regular communication so that everything we can integrates those things, and so that their um observations and information about you know how best to serve different communities is reflective in pretty much everything we care.

All right.

Well, that's good to hear too.

I guess uh my only last question is maybe a predictable one given uh where I've been at throughout this process, but your org chart is uh pretty interesting.

Uh there's there's it is a like you said, it's a department of two people, uh, both of whom have director titles uh and six-figure salaries.

Uh I guess I'm just uh curious as to is it all just work informing in the department then?

I don't know exactly what how you define a work and form it, but I can answer it this way.

The department is structured in a way that the work we do, you know, if you're looking at supervision or organizing or project management, we work with multiple different departments at all times and we handle very complex uh important instances.

And so where we might not be supervising or directing a staff within our department, we are working with outside departments all the time.

And myself being a director of the department, I think that makes sense by itself.

But Lauren, you know, if we were able to, at some point over the years build responsibly to a staff, you know, within the needs of the city, that would make sense.

But if you're gonna have a second person, if I'm not available, I need that person to be at that level that everyone in the city can trust that she has the same abilities and the same authority to make decisions, and they're going to be the right decisions because it's not something that's a day-to-day thing.

It is a disaster and it's complex and it's it's multifaceted and it's multidivisional.

Internal and external departments are involved.

And so it's the work we do and the multiple touch points that we do that require that if there's going to be only two staff, that stack second staff at the very least has to be a different director.

All right.

Um I think there's probably a larger philosophical conversation to be had there, but uh, Mr.

Chair, I'm happy to leave that piece aside for tonight.

The hour is late.

Uh thank you very much, Director.

Appreciate the uh the answers.

I think I'm all set.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Any other questions from committee members?

I am seeing none, and so I will say thank you so much for your presentation and your answers and for being here late with us.

Have a good rest of your night.

And that brings us to the fire department, and I believe we will have fire chief Charles Breen, uh, director of finance administration, James Muchi, and we might also have assistant fire chief Sean Tierney, depending on how lucky we are.

Please introduce yourselves and tell us about the fire department.

I am Sean Tierney, I'm resistant fire chief.

To my left is the assistant is the finance director, James Lucci, and to my right is Jonathan Nancy uh our animals.

Um fire department.

We're pretty self-explanatory.

Um is responsive to the needs of our residents by providing rapid professional and humanitarian services, essential to the health safety, and well-being of the city.

We will achieve our mission through prevention, education, fire suppression, emergency medical services, disaster response, and defense against terrorist attacks.

Thank you so much.

And I know we have in these uh in this memo a combination of fire department and fire alarm uh questions.

So I'll try to just answer a couple about the the fire department or to refer to the the memo about those.

Um so one question was um referring back to fiscal year 2025.

I think just following up and trying to see if there's any significance for um for this fiscal year asking about the roughly one million dollar um spending above what was budgeted.

The answer there was that union contract settlements and retroactive deployee payments uh caused it.

Uh these were later funded from the salary contingency stabilization fund.

Um sorry, go ahead.

No, that's correct.

Okay.

Uh a question was what's being done to reduce firefighter health risks from toxins?

Uh and I believe this, you know, refers both to exposure in the course of fighting fires and exposure from uh from equipment.

I think on people's mind may be the uh the lawsuit in Quincy, if I'm remembering correctly.

The answer was uh referring to to gear washers and dryers, uh, two sets of gear uh per firefighter, apparatus filters, contaminated gear bags, uh plient exhaust systems.

Uh much of this equipment, I'm sure you could tell me more about, but I do not know.

SCBA washer, um PPE policies, shower and wipe protocols, and cancer training.

Um anything you would add to that.

No, I can explain any of the equipment if you want.

Uh, Climal vent system is basically it's uh it's a fan-driven system that hooks up to the exhaust of each apparatus as it's in the station.

So when the apparatus is turned on that the exhaust fumes get vented to the exterior of the building, not into the apparatus bay or into the roading cords.

Obviously, uh we have that also at Assembly Square, and being a new station, there's a positive pressure separating the living quarters, and we have gravity as a secondary system.

Thank you.

Uh and then there was a question about the um the mobility uh systems, GPS uh triggered traffic preemption uh that you know can switch lights uh from being green to red uh with the goal of facilitating the the ability for uh for fire vehicles to get across town by getting the other the other cars out of the way.

Um and the answer here refers uh the question to engineering as the department working on that.

We will speak with engineering on Wednesday.

Okay.

Um so with those questions uh out of the way, uh the questions from the committee, and I see Councilor Strezzo.

Hi.

Okay.

Uh through you.

Uh Mr.

Chair.

Um to our our uh firefighter um assistant uh chief.

Uh please uh I'm sorry now, assistant chief, uh the deputy chief.

Forgive me if I've screwed up the titles.

It is 1015.

Um I wanted to ask about uh where we are with our fire trucks and fire engine maintenance and uh our mechanics and going into the budget year.

Can you talk about that?

Okay.

Um with our fire trucks, we have brand new engine five is days away from being put into service.

Uh we've received it from the manufacturer with some last few things, some tools being mounted on it, the radios being installed, and then that will be put into service.

We also have multiple apparatus that are on order for.

And we also have uh mechanics shop truck vehicle to uh that we're gonna take delivery on as well.

Uh thank you.

Uh and and have there been any through you, uh, Mr.

Chair.

Um have there been any increases of um of line uh of in the budget for uh for more maintenance for more uh for the trucks for the engines minimal increases in maintenance for the vehicles themselves, but the vehicles will be getting substantially newer.

Uh we do have obviously repairs that we make every year.

We track uh we track what different types of maintenance issues that we're end up having.

Um but we don't see anything that's getting out of the normal curve that we usually are on.

Okay, thank thank you.

Uh one last question, if I may.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

I wanted to ask about uh now we have uh even more higher buildings, uh higher residential buildings.

Um how are we doing with uh training of uh fire uh uh uh fire of calls for service in some of our now more increasing high residential um higher high-rise buildings and and now with the fire station and assembly open?

What has training look like?

What where has uh that been in uh since past years and more buildings?

Well, we do have a training division that's staffed by a deputy fire chief, and um we have implemented a high-rise SOG that's been modified.

Uh there's been a group of different ranks with captains, lieutenants, chiefs, officers that have worked on it and have trains with department on high-rise operations, but it's with training, it's always a continuous process.

There's day-to-day training that companies do on an individual level.

Then there's training that can be taught through places like the Mass Fire Academy, and there's trainings that are brought by our own instructors within the department.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Strazo.

And assistant chief, you you said SOG.

What what does that stand for?

Yeah, we have a standard operating guideline for uh for operating at a high rise.

We have SOPs, they they basically implement all where the apparatus should be positioned, who investigates the calls, who secures the elevator, everything that you can imagine it's laid out in the steps so that every person that responds, no matter what group they're in, who they're working with, what crew, they know the correct procedure of what they're supposed to do.

So it doesn't matter if you're the first engine there or the third engine there, you know what your assignment should be.

Um, and you know the proper procedures to follow for any kind of incident and IRS.

Thank you.

Counselor Scott.

Uh yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh I just had a couple quick questions.

Um first of all, I just did want to remark on uh the data y'all provided.

I really appreciate that in the book.

Uh it does look like the city's getting safer and safer.

Uh this is is there anything in particular you'd uh chalk up the decrease in fire emergencies and uh vehicle pedestrian accidents too this year?

Uh some of the data that I just want to clarify for this year is as of 425.

So it's not a full year.

So when you see the incidents down 13,363, that's as of 425.

So it's a little bit skewed as far as that it's lower.

But as far as the in the other years, yes, the number of pedestrian accidents has decreased over the last couple of fiscal years, as you can see in the data.

I don't think we could talk about the data, our analysts if we needed any more questions.

Yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions for you, the chair.

All right.

Well, I just uh seems like maybe our traffic common is is doing some good work there.

Uh I guess I my other question I had was um, you know, overtime is one of those things that I know just puts a hell of a strain on guys, and I saw the the comment in there about increase overtime for training.

Uh that's always balance.

But one thing that has been discussed in prior years is uh the three per apparatus versus four per apparatus staffing, uh and a consideration to moving towards uh staffing for per apparatus on just a limited subset, maybe just uh one or two companies per shift, so that you'd have a little bit more flexibility.

Was that something you all talked about this year?

We do talk about it.

We do have companies that four people are assigned to.

It's not it's not a minimum of four, but there are four people assigned in every group.

But when people are off on time off, it's not a maintained minimum of four.

So at any time there'll be three people on an apparatus, but on some occasions there are four.

Um I think that as far as increasing that there'd be substantial costs.

Uh I think now that Assembly Square is open, that we could look for ways of funding to possibly increase staffing in the future going forward.

But um, I think the last year we've been you know excited to get a whole new engine company in service at Assembly Square, and that's been the focus of our spending.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I guess uh the the your staffing really hasn't gone up all that much over the years.

Uh I'm curious when did that change happen?

Because uh previously every every apparatus, as far as I was aware, was staffed at the minimum level of three.

It's staffed at a minimum of three, but that doesn't mean that there aren't more than obviously if we only had three on every apparatus, then they would be any time someone was off would result in overtime.

Currently, if you had three pieces of apparatus, just as an example, maybe we have one with four and two with three.

So sometimes if just one person is off, we would move that fourth person to the other company to have three even, which wouldn't result in overtime.

So the groups are pretty balanced.

We have four groups.

Uh the numbers are pretty balanced.

That we have about the same number of firefighters and on duty every day in each group, uh, so that we have a few members extra.

Obviously, with in the summertime or different vacation times or through injuries, et cetera, that number goes up and down.

However, they're not we're not at the bare minimum at any time.

That is that is great to hear.

Uh honestly, it feels like uh I need to update some of my priors.

Maybe my information is a little bit dated.

So I'll tell you what, let's just put a pin in it.

You and I can have a sit down and a conversation sometime.

Uh, but I I really appreciate that.

That's actually uh excellent management, and applaud what you're doing down there, sir.

So thank you for that.

Uh Mr.

Chair, I'm all set.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Uh I have a question, Assistant Chief.

Um I know that uh there's a variety of different kinds of calls that come in and kinds of situations, right?

And uh my uh my wife's brother uh who's in the Navy, he was a volunteer firefighter for many years, and he has all sorts of stories about all of the different kinds of of situations um that you know you might not imagine.

Uh I I know that there are more than a thousand uh calls per year.

Is that right?

I forget the exact number um that you know some vehicles are sent out to.

Um, and I also know that you know there are there are plenty of cases where a ladder truck or or another vehicle um is sent out where um, you know, it's it's a situation that's uh it's not a fire situation.

Uh and I also know that there's not not a ton of flexibility around, you know, there are there aren't smaller vehicles that it's easy for for the same number of people to pile into uh with uh extensive equipment.

But I I'm curious about um, you know, just from the the point of view of uh you know minimizing the the wear and tear on these vehicles, minimizing the wear and tear on our firefighters and and their equipment.

Uh you know, how does the department approach trying to make sure that the response happening to a given call is kind of only involving the staffing and the equipment that's that's absolutely necessary.

I I think that chair, we we look uh we look at the data that we have.

Obviously, certain types of calls require a certain number of members on scene, certain type of equipment depending on calls.

Where you you mentioned that you know, a ladder truck versus an engine.

We send the first the closest company to say a medical emergency.

If we have a medical emergency, we don't pick what type of truck we send.

We send the closest vehicle that will get there the quickest.

Um for other incidents, uh we send we would send a ladder truck and an engine or multiple engines and multiple ladder trucks depending on if it's a gas leak or uh fire.

Uh it's hard to say, but we have protocols of what we send depending on the call when it comes in.

If it's a residential house that you have smoke detectors going off, we have a different response than if we respond to City Hall.

Thank you.

Counselor Hart.

Thank you.

Um wey, you know, a couple hours ago, we the subject of uh our our aging buildings came up, and I just wanted to ask about um I'm glad we have the new assembly fire station, but can you tell us a little bit about the state of the other fire stations?

Um we have an aging infrastructure.

The stations do need work.

Um we continue to when problems arise, we submit them to the city and to get repairs done.

Um we'd like to see in the future that more substantial repairs get made, but we realize with the times we're in, but um, I think that some big capital improvements would be likely to hopefully happen down the line.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Hart.

Counselor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Um on that point, um I I had noticed that or I had not noticed that there was a um there's no I've heard before I've heard stories of some of the older buildings having some rodent control problems.

Um, and you know, particularly thinking about the fact that um you know there's people sleeping in these places.

Uh is there I guess are we um where I'm assuming that that budget lines somewhere?

Um and how it doesn't okay, so it's going straight to D W.

Okay.

Uh that works in.

I guess my only follow-up to that is like do you do is there no ask it?

Sorry.

Uh I would like to see us doing more.

Um for those guys and and um for the the guys and the ladies in there uh taking care of our city.

Um but yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Link.

Any other questions from the committee?

Okay, seeing none, uh, thank you so much for appearing before us at this late hour, and thank you so much for your work.

Have a great rest of the evening.

Okay, that brings us to fire alarm.

And I believe we will have chief fire alarm operator Brian Herman.

This is I I will cover fire alarm as well.

Wonderful.

Okay.

Uh love it.

Well, uh, the first question in the memo is what does the fire alarm division do?

So uh assistant chief, maybe you could start by speaking with that.

Sure.

You can read you uh what I wrote for this.

Uh fire alarm receives and processes emergency calls.

We serve as the dispatch for the fire department.

We monitor and operate multi-channel radio system, communicate with fire department personnel that are on scene.

We provide interagency coordination by communicating with mutual aid companies, such as police, DBW, utility companies, the MBTA, EMS, and others.

They track our apparatus, they log responses, and they update the computer aided dispatch and take notes on incidents.

They're all lifeline.

When we need someone to call to get information while we're on scene, uh that's who we contact by radio, by phone, by radio box, whatever means necessary.

Thank you, assistant chief.

Uh, and there's a question about um the equipment for fire alarm uh maintenance, and as you explained to me the other day, uh that equipment is maintained by IT and by DPW's lights and lines division.

Um anything you want to add on that.

No, that's pretty much it.

That's all the equipment comes through lights and lines and IT.

The recruitment comes through lights and lines and I too.

Okay, thanks.

And then my connected question to that, um, which is something that you know it might make sense to ask one of those divisions is uh about how much the cost of the street pull poll boxes is um you know for the city.

Sounds good.

Totally understand.

Uh any questions about fire alarm from the committee.

Okay, seeing none, uh thank you again for coming and fearing before us at this late hour and for your work.

And have a great rest of your night.

Thank you.

Okay, next on our list is uh community outreach help and recovery core.

And we may have uh director Jen Korn.

Or we may have uh police chief Shumain Bedford.

That's whose name I see on here.

Please feel free to introduce yourself and begin whenever you are ready.

Just noting that it is on mute.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair and uh the committee.

Thank you uh so much.

I know it's been a long evening.

Thank you so much uh for having us.

Uh I am joined here today uh with members of uh of the SPD team.

Uh most notably sitting next to me uh is uh Jennifer Korn, who is the director of you do the problem.

Oh, uh sorry, pardon me, Chief.

Uh hi, welcome, Mohammed.

Uh, I believe you need to mute.

There you go.

Please continue, Chief.

Sure thing.

Um joining me to my right uh is Jen Korn, uh director of uh core, uh, Emily Wisdom, our director of administration and finance.

And I'm joined by several members uh off camera behind me uh that have joined us here this evening and obviously want to um never miss the opportunity to publicly uh thank them uh for their work.

I also want to acknowledge uh the mayor and his administration um for uh working with us in preparation uh for this evening uh and working through uh the budget process.

Um I want to stop by uh mentioning uh as we think about uh FY27 uh and uh and the budget that has been submitted.

Uh we believe that uh level service does enable uh the department to deliver core services and maintain our operational uh readiness.

Uh we were tasked uh by the mayor's office and the mayor's team, like all other departments to identify areas that could sustain cuts, knowing that it was a very difficult uh season uh for discussion.

Uh and with that, we're proud to uh to share that our OM budget uh does show a 16% uh cut uh in what uh the original budget uh lines uh in the amounts were, in addition to uh $500,000 uh that we discovered that was uh funded in excess in our ship differential line.

Uh our budget is lean uh and our staffing is static uh over the course of the last seven years from 2018 to 2024.

We saw a reduction in patrol officers from 100 uh to 88.

That's uh a net loss of our 12 positions, and we've been at 88 positions since 2024.

Uh we are proud of the many uh recommendations uh that uh that we've been able to act upon from the 2023 staffing study.

Uh and uh we also appreciate uh that the study doesn't recommend eliminating positions and deliberately acknowledges the nuances and community priorities that must go into our policy decisions around changes that are going to be acted upon.

We strive uh to be uh great and effective fiscal stewards uh with the public's money uh over the last year.

The finance team uh has been very candid uh with the projected uh concerns uh around financing uh that were going to be coming our way.

Uh and as a result of that, we instituted some internal reforms.

Uh we assigned some greater uh executive accountability and proud to look at full staffing to help impact uh and reduce the number of forced holdovers, which we hope will have a direct correlation with our reduction uh in forced overtime.

We're proud to report, as I've mentioned, that all of our 88 positions uh are accounted for.

We have finalists uh that have been identified for each of those positions, and conditional authors of employment have been extended by human resources.

Uh, we have four police officers that are currently in the police academy.

We have three police officers slated to go into the academy in July.

Uh, and we have uh four police officers that are academy trained that we hope to be joining us uh in short order.

Additionally, uh, we've been working with the state um and we believe that we are going to be in line and supported with state funding, assuming that uh the governor's budget uh and the reconciliation between the House and the Senate are results in the funding that they anticipate, uh, and we hope to be funded with a full-time position uh to support uh full-time uh co-response.

Some of the challenges that we face, uh we work in public safety.

The hard reality is is we must plan and we must be ready to meet the moment in our city today.

Uh we have we had several tragedies today that we had to uh respond to, namely a barricade suspect, where we had to rely on not only specialized resources uh to be available uh to safely uh uh respond to that incident, but we also respond on our uh we relied on our co-response team that also responded uh to assist uh with an appropriate response.

We believe that our budget uh that has been submitted by the mayor is sufficient for us to provide uh level service uh and the uh the level of services that we're accustomed to here and what we hope to be able to deliver on behalf of our community.

But I do want to mention a couple of other minor points around community safety.

Our community uh is a safe community, but the hard reality is we are an urban community.

Uh we share a border with uh the capital city of Massachusetts and the economic hub in Boston.

We also serve a border with uh the fourth largest city in Cambridge.

Um, and ourselves, uh we have a population of 81,000 uh plus.

When we look at uh the reality of the services uh and the re uh the challenges that face our urban communities, we look at our cost per capita um and with the help of some persons from the uh from the administration um and then consultation with the mayor as well.

Uh we're spending and we're looking at about 258 dollars per capita that we as a city spend on police officers.

When we look at some of our pair cities, uh we have Boston at the top end that spends approximately 717 dollars per officer.

And on the low end, we have Arlington, which spends about 215.

Just above that is Somerville at number five at 258.

So communities uh like Everett, which is a more comparable PS City, uh Medford, another comparable Pair City, all expend uh more money uh to support uh police officers per capita.

Uh we are doing more with less, uh, as I mentioned.

We saw a net reduction uh in police officers, namely uh patrol officers from eight uh from 100 uh down to 88.

We must have readiness and we must have a readiness posture and have the ability to meet the moment uh in our community uh to keep it safe.

Um I believe that we're well positioned uh to continue to do the work.

Uh no one wants to uh have to work less, but we understand that limited uh municipal uh resources only go so far, and we're prepared.

I have a team here and a talented team of men and women and all persons within the department that do the work every day and have met the moment.

We believe that this is an appropriate uh budget uh that would support us through level service uh and would encourage uh the acceptance of the budget.

We certainly welcome the opportunity to respond to any questions that you may have that would help you uh in making that decision.

Thank you so much, Chief.

Uh just to to clarify one line and please don't take this as a nitpick.

Uh I was 100% following you.

You you at some point said the 258 or 700 or so um dollars per officer.

And then it was clear from the next thing that you said.

Uh you're talking about per resident.

And I just uh in case anybody's listening at home, uh, wanted to clarify that.

Uh thank you so much.

Um I think we're going to follow the agenda order here uh in terms of the divisions and uh talk about core and then talk about uh E911, talk about animal control, and then last talk about the the broader police department.

was clear from the next thing that you said uh you're talking about per resident and i just uh in case anybody's listening at home uh wanted to clarify that uh thank you so much um i think we're going to follow the agenda order here uh in terms of the divisions and uh uh talk about core and then talk about uh e911 talk about animal control and then last talk about the the broader police department uh so um just to begin then with uh with core community outreach help and recovery um uh director corn uh could you speak to core's focus yeah um we are really happy to be co-located at the summerville police department providing outreach and follow-up care to folks in the community that are identified by the police as having a behavioral helper addiction component to their crisis um we've been really happy to have uh those two additional staff in 2023 to do that outreach work we continue with our uh regional training program training over 80 different departments metro boston in crisis intervention team training as well as additional uh advanced trainings um and we're excited to be part of the pilot you know in the police department with our existing staff and resources to um really part of the hopefully a bigger program in the future thank you so much just to quickly summarize the questions and answers that pertain to core uh so there was a a question about the fiscal year 2027 goals and needed supports um you mentioned reaching a hundred percent of several police department officers trained in crisis intervention training expanding advanced training uh continuing course follow-up and aftercare expanding jail diversion funding at least one full-time co-responder and gathering data and the need for grants as well as general fund support another question was about the schedule for the co-response pilot the answer mentions uh typically Tuesday noon to four and Thursday four to eight for eight hours per week uh and that core will continue uh its regular follow-up work outside those hours uh and hopes to expand this pilot with funding and then there was a question about uh the source of uh of funds uh from and there was some confusion about the opioid stabilization fund or the opioid settlement fund uh so that's something uh I think we could use uh some clarification on um and maybe that's a a question for our finance director wisdom you specifically asking which fund or are you looking for any additional response in addition to what was submitted uh as part of the written response um just just that there was uh I know a narrow question of um there's an opioid settlement fund right uh and I think the word stabilization fund was used somewhere and um I I was at least confused about uh are there two different funds that pertain to opioid sources you know opioid funds or um through the chair uh thanks so much uh director wisdom uh so that is in indeed uh correct it was mentioned in the um the budget book it is the stabilization fund not the settlement fund thank you yes uh and then there was a question about why does it make sense to move core funding out of the police budget the answer there was you know to clarify that core itself remains in the police department uh but a separate budget helps keep core funding uh from being confused or or absorbed into the broader police budget um anything to add on any of those no thank you uh any questions about core for members of the committee castle link thank you chair um lesser question and more an observation uh because i i i really want to see core working and i want to see working well um that fourth i can't help but notice that the the as i was reading that the fourth question is talking about how we want to make sure that it remains a separate division and that the funding doesn't end up as part of the police department but then if we look up higher the goal the um it looks to me like uh 100% of the spd officers like it's it looks like it is still part of the police budget like it's a lot of this money is going directly to which I don't think it they're bad things in fact I think they're good things I guess I should say we'll rephrase that but I don't see that as being separate from the police budget I just see that as being another police budget um when uh we're just talking about training police officers um so I guess I I I'm I remain um kind of skeptical that that we're actually if the goal is what we say it is uh in question number four uh that that we're achieving that goal any other questions from members of the committee counselor Scott thank you Mr.

Chair uh good evening director uh before I get too far off because I like to get everybody's name right uh could you hit me again with your name Jennifer Korn oh okay so it's uh there was a name change recently no oh okay well you call Jen is fine all right well there was a different director listed in the personnel listing so this is that is it your other name oh my like legal name oh yeah legal my legal last name is setter but my middle name is corn that's what I got just wanted to make sure I've called no my legal name is mouthful and it's way too much for somebody who's not the president yet so I understand uh so I would say uh I I guess I just had a couple questions about operations here uh how many uh core responses were there this year like how many core interactions were there through April 30th um we've had a thousand and five interactions 226 of those were unique individuals a thousand and five interactions and how many were unique individuals 226 huh all right um well i mean that's not too surprising right i mean folks are gonna have problems and are gonna keep having problems uh that's not a whole lot of interactions um what you know back in uh fiscal year 2017 we had over 2000 uh fiscal year 20 we had over 3000 what what would you attribute that drop off to be yeah it that just goes to April 30th of this year at this point um I think we're pretty last year we had about two three thousand two thousand nine hundred and fifty four um I think it really depends on you know we cast a wide net we follow up with a lot of people that are identified as potentially needing resources and some people are interested in engaging in multiple times and some people aren't uh okay well I mean I guess I understand that it's you know partial year we we got still uh you know a couple months uh left in the data from that 1000 mark but unless you're expecting two thousand calls here in the next couple weeks I I believe that she's calendar year yeah it's calendar year sorry so that yes we're on track I would think for the year to what we've been trending oh okay so you're saying in the calendar year so far there's been a thousand not in fiscal year 25 yes or 26 all right all right all right well that makes a lot more sense so I appreciate that uh I was starting to get a little bit nervous that folks were uh declining your services at record numbers and yeah all right so um no I I appreciate that so that seems pretty steady then uh going back historically to where it was uh like eight years ago uh does that sound does that feel about right to you yeah it it feels pretty steady okay um now are are there is there a big difference in the resources core has now from where it where what it had eight years ago we have uh two additional jail diversion um positions in 2023 um back eight years ago we probably we relied more heavily on interns um but they weren't necessarily you know they're nine months out of the year so now we have the two additional uh resources that were given in 2023 um so it's just more people to follow up and the more need that we're seeing I mean the community certainly um there's a lot of need so they're responding to that uh no doubt no doubt uh but the extra resources haven't resulted in more uh interactions then uh just a question about now do y'all track also how many calls for service are psych emergencies yeah we have um the how many calls for service are coded for our unit which is either there's two different codes that the officers have to respond when they write a report um so it's either narcotics misuse or mental health they code for our unit um so how many of those uh mental health uh codes were there in last year

Yeah, we have um the how many calls for service are coded for our unit, which is either there's two different codes that the officers have to respond when they write a report.

Um so it's either narcotics misuse or mental health they code for our unit.

Um, how many of those uh mental health uh codes were there in last year?

The mental health we have a mental health and narcotics misuse together.

Um we have about from January through May 27th of this year.

We have around 280.

Um yeah, around 280 through through the chair.

Um I can certainly, I'm sorry I don't have the raw data available, but I can certainly provide that to you actually in in an hour or so.

Um, but I would say this year to date, uh, we have about 200 280.

Um last year we were close to 700.

And so to be clear, that those numbers represent the number of NIVERS reports that officers write that are flagged as involving mental health issues or narcotics misuse.

Thank you.

Could you please talk about that data?

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Could you please state your name and title for the record?

I'm so sorry, and Meredith Willis and the senior crime analyst.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh uh good to hear from you again.

Uh Annelies Willis.

Uh so I guess I appreciate that.

Um, I'm just trying to compare apples to apples to previous year data.

So uh having them broken out as to which ones are mental health versus uh substance use would be really helpful.

Is that something you could I can certainly provide that?

Okay.

Um I would say I'm sorry to interrupt um, but I I would say the the majority are going to be mental health related over substance use, but there's certainly a lot of overlap between the two.

Why would you say that is?

Um, I mean, I'm I'm speaking really from a data perspective of what I see day to day.

Um I I'm not really an expert in the in the mental health field, but um, you know, substance use um from some of my schooling is is frequently used as a you know self-medication for mental health issues.

So you see a lot of overlap.

Uh no, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I was talking about the uh overall trend of uh how many were mental health related versus uh substance use related.

You're saying that many of the substance use ones are also getting coded mental health now.

Uh yes, yes, overlap.

Oh, okay, all right.

And whereas like 10 years ago, we were probably coding those as separate ones just because the understanding of how these things work.

Exactly.

Oh, okay.

All right, all right.

Uh I appreciate that.

Um so we don't so we don't have uh a straightforward uh psych emergency or mental health calls for service this year number.

Um, I well, you know what?

I think that's uh very helpful information in terms of uh the amount of service, uh the calls for service, let's say, and the trend line over the last eight years seems pretty steady.

So uh I appreciate it.

And uh I have other questions, uh, but they're honestly more policy and operational and less about budget.

So I'm gonna let it be uh and take that up in a different committee.

Mr.

Chair, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that.

Uh I'm all set.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Uh not seeing other hands.

Uh I have a question that that is sort of a little bit procedural.

Uh I'm I know that there are different models that different communities have explored around types of alternative response, uh co-response is one that more and more places are trying.

Uh, there's also places that have uh set up uh completely separate uh response groups from the police department.

And I'm curious from core's perspective, um, you know, can you describe are are there advantages to being uh located within the police department, both uh you know, physically located and organizationally located?

Yeah, I think um a lot of advantages, the communication with the officers, um, the ability to have collaborations and conversations in real time, um, in person, face to face to build those relationships and that trust.

Um, trust is huge in co-response programs and starting for response programs for officers and civilians to work together.

It's imperative that they have that ability to um, you know, trust each other.

So having being in the police department, um, being able to have that conversation and also utilize the resources that the police departments have, the data, um, the dispatch system to be able to easily communicate with various people to ensure safety for everyone involved.

Thank you.

Any other questions about core for members of the committee?

All right, seeing none, uh, thank you so much for uh presenting to us so late at night.

And uh I hope you are able to get some sleep this evening.

Uh and we will move on uh with no further ado to E911.

Uh Chief, uh would you please speak to what E911 does?

Uh sure.

Uh our E911 emergency operations center is our our PSAP, uh, which is the receiver of our 911 calls.

It serves the first triage point uh for those seeking assistance.

Uh, if it uh ends up being a medical and or a fire emergency gets transferred over to fire alarm, uh they manage all the information in and out from a dispatch standpoint.

Uh they are the traditional liaison between uh the officer uh in the field uh in some of our uh points of information uh from whether it be phone calls coming in or additional information uh with regards to those seeking assistance.

So we're at a high level, uh, the official terminology is PSAP from the state.

Uh is where we house our dispatches as well as our 911 call takers.

Thank you very much.

Any questions about E911 from the committee?

Counselor Scott.

Thank you, Ms.

Chair.

If you'll indulge me, I mean I don't have uh any questions about the dollars and cents in their budget there, but something Chief just said.

Uh so he said when an E911 call comes in and it's coded for fire, that gets uh transferred over to fire alarm.

Did I hear that right?

That is correct.

And is that then a that's a separate separate response?

But we're a co-response community, right?

I mean, everybody shows up to every call.

That is correct.

So typically uh because it gets transferred over to FIRE is because if if there's a medical emergency, typically you're gonna get EMS and fire.

Uh, you will also get police.

Uh so when the call comes in for services, uh, it doesn't terminate police services.

It only enhances the range of services that we provide.

But certainly the 911 call takers and the police dispatches uh don't have the subject matter expertise that an uh uh a 9-1, excuse me, a fire alarm uh dispatcher would have with regards to dispatch and uh and maintaining fire apparatus and fire resources.

Oh, okay.

So uh so police and ambulance are gonna uh show up regardless, uh, but which apparatus get dispatched is something that fire alarm is better equipped hand.

That is correct.

All right, but there's a certain amount of triage that happens then at the uh E911 level about uh who needs to hear this particular call.

Absolutely.

So once the once the call comes in, the 911 call, uh excuse me, the uh yeah, the 911 call take up is going to imp uh input the data into the CAD system.

So we use an integrated CAD system.

So both fire and police can see the call for service.

Um, so again, that enables for the co response, but we want to make sure that the appropriate resources are moving in the direction based on the initial information that we get from uh the reporter.

So we will input it for the area car and for police resources, but we immediately send it over to fire so that they can start to dispatch and mobilize fire assets as well.

So that's why you often get both.

No, sure, sure, of course, of course.

Uh all right.

Well, I I appreciate that.

Um chair, I think I'm all set on uh E911 at the moment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Uh, if there's no other questions about E911, then we will move on.

Uh we have animal control.

Um Chief, do we just have you or do we have uh either of our wonderful animal control officers?

We don't, but I am going to pause for just a brief moment for a high-level overview from Deputy Chief Uh Donovan who oversees our operations side of the house uh and director wisdom can speak uh administratively from a finance standpoint as well.

Wonderful.

Good evening, counselors, uh Deputy Chief James Donovan, um, the operational count uh deputy chief for the Summer Police Department.

Uh I oversee police operations, men women you see in uniform.

I also was see um traffic bureau and also animal control.

Uh as you know, I'm in control.

We have two uh ACOs that service the city on alternating schedules.

Uh they service uh you know wildlife calls as well as domestic animal calls, and they are um certified by the state as HCOs and continue to maintain a certification their training throughout the year.

Uh they also maintain a small kennel uh located in the DPW that has been upgraded, and they also have um their own animal control um uh vehicle, but they are dispatched to the Sun Police Department and maintain a small um area within the Summer Police Department as well.

Thank you very much.

Um just in terms of the questions and answers, there was a question about um an unbudgeted 47,000 uh in the fiscal year 2026 lump sum payments.

The answer uh mentions retroactive union contract payments approved by the council uh plus a perfect attendance type end.

Um for two folks, I was a little surprised that that total got as big as 47,000.

Um, but I figure that's what it adds up to.

Um any other comments on that, uh Director Wisdom.

Okay, thank you.

Uh members of the council, um, members of the committee, any questions about animal control.

I am seeing none.

And so with appreciation for what animal control does, we will move on.

Mr.

As long as they've got their van and uh are taken good care of, I'm happy.

Uh there's a decade of legacy but I mentioned a compliment.

Thanks a lot.

And that brings us to uh our final division of the night, the police department overall.

So uh glad to have you back, uh Chief Benford.

Uh Chief, you spoke at the the outset of this set of four divisions uh about the police department uh overall.

Um so and unless you have further remarks, um, I think I'll I'll move ahead to the great.

Now there are quite a few questions and answers uh that were in the memo.

Um so uh largely for the sake of time, uh I'm not gonna read every single one.

Uh I encourage people interested to do so.

Uh I want to mention uh a couple of these in particular.

One is asking if the police department is pursuing a civilian community service officer program.

The answer for that is uh not beyond the current core co-response pilot.

A broader non-sworn program would require more civilian hiring and would not reduce the recommended 88 sworn officers.

There was a question about our sworn officers doing desk work that civilians might do.

Uh the department says no, they have civilianized prior records and detail roles, but the four current desk positions uh require some sworn officers.

Uh there were a number of other questions.

One is about uh a civilian uh could a civilian supervised crossing guards.

Uh the answer for that was yes, uh, there's already a civilian crossing guard supervisor.

How many crossing guard positions are filled?

The answer was 42.

Uh also should the fiscal year 2027 budget uh include the expected likely retroactive payments.

Uh the answer for that was that the administration funds settled uh collective bargaining agreements and retroactive pay through the salary contingency fund and is not budget agreements not yet approved for by the council.

Uh and there was a question about how why there's a body worn camera coordinator position in the budget, but no other body worn camera costs.

Uh and the answer for that was that at least as of the time of this uh this memo, all body worn camera costs, including the coordinator were removed from the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget pending further discussion.

Um maybe, maybe I'm misreading or misunderstanding that.

Uh I didn't expect the coordinator was removed, but the uh the camera equipment uh costs.

Um maybe including the coordinator within the department uh were removed pending further discussion.

There are two yes, please go ahead.

Oh, okay.

I didn't it wasn't sure it was a question.

Sorry, apologize.

Um so we originally were hoping um to be able to include that but body worn camera um coordinator position in the budget.

Um it was decided that we would not pursue those in the budget as it currently is.

Um, and so that is why it was removed from the budget.

So there was no coordinator position nor any cost included in the FY27 budget this year as presented.

Thank you.

Uh and then the last one, sort of going going back to the beginning, uh, one that I wanted to mention as well.

Uh, there's a question of why was the six million dollar other lump sum payments item or sorry, what was that item, the other lump sum payments?

And the answer for that was mostly retroactive collective bargaining agreement contract payments plus vacation payouts for retirees and other departing employees.

Um with all of that, uh do members of the committee have questions about the police department.

I am not seeing hands.

Um I did want to ask uh Chief, I appreciate you mentioning uh elements of the 2022 uh police staffing study being implemented.

Uh I do want to know one of the recommendations in that study was uh to possibly explore a shift from seven officers to six officers on duty at once.

And I wonder if you could speak to uh the trade-offs around that.

Thank you very much, uh uh Mr.

Chair, uh, for the question.

Uh a couple of things on that.

Uh certainly uh we noted that is mentioned in the study.

Uh it has long been uh you know a topic and a discussion item uh that we remain very open to discussing.

Um as you know, it does have uh collective bargaining implications and it does require that we have a conversation with our respective union.

I would also flag uh that Mayor Wilson has been very open uh with wanting to further these discussions around how can we be more efficient uh with how we deploy officers helping us meet what the vision is for the future.

So I do believe uh moving forward that there was going to be an opportunity to have that uh conversation, regrettably uh with all the other priorities.

We have not been able to make uh the game that we would have liked, uh, but I feel fairly optimistic under Mayor Wilson's leadership that we're gonna have an opportunity to revisit that uh substantively and have a conversation about it.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Any other questions from members of the committee?

Councilor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Through you, um, this is actually I think maybe aimed more at the administration um than our police department.

Um, I really do hope that um seems like we're gonna probably have another like you know not totally accurate budget because of uh contracts that uh have to be retro paid.