for for for for for for for for e do mon you for hey you not no idea it's probably downstairs but it's not the I was just thinking I was going to ask because you left that office who's in there now nobody but they took the picture cuz they pain paint on the walls and they fixing it out May just set down something I don't think it's in that room I think it's the downstairs storage cuz you have to work it's too big to leave in there in P CU you're destroyed no move person they need more room that's all right when the net comes down over this building I know you'll be left free I know who else know not many of what's up tonight except for housing beauti it's um yeah a we want to do a commit should Beck 10 minutes yeah two enjoy summer anywh good you take the old one I I did that the way up and I took the highway back yeah beautiful going house still wow they name streets after me J One Way one way I heard about those streets J oh is that the the reading in Polish that's right all right at the first one here yes no actually uhan here oh so had a set to  you fly fly today no I heard round yeah no we weren't flying did you he said it wasir might be monkey bus so he one of the updates he said two years on the engine parts it's one of the updates he came back with from the supp yes certain 20 months to Eng they don't have a lot ofs they don't have get a lot of looks a lot of people I deal with a lot of there I'm having a little l something oh my God would you September October book right now September octob e e e e e e e e e e e e e sure there's no whe here minutes yeah ready good evening um we're ready to commence the housing committee meeting today is Tuesday July 30th 2024 and it is approximately 5:45 p.m. um note this meeting is also being conducted as a hybrid meeting you may remotely access um voting members present here today to my left is our city counselor from District a Felina Santiago and our city councel from District F uh councelor Mark llant pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2022 this meeting of housing committee is being conducted both in person and via remote participation a reminder that person who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress May either attend in person at the location above which is 200 Common Street at um at our city council chambers um or they may uh attend in person at um attendant person or may they may be able to um view this uh hybrid meeting via the following access locations which is our Facebook laurren city council page and our YouTube lawren City Council Council page uh before we proceed with our meeting today I would like to stand up and proceed with the plge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all the first item on the agenda we have minutes um to which uh require Council approval these minutes are dated July 9th of 2024 um can I get a motion for approval motion to approve second okay all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it uh the first order of business is under new business item number 359-2436 to discuss this item uh good evening Madam chair and members of the city councelor I am here with Mr Mark Scott uh he is the proprietor of Falcon air and he is proposing a excuse me he is proposing uh a tenant excuse me he's proposing a a development of four hangers which require power uh and utilities and so I do have a supplement Madam chair if I may um proceed yes thank you so the packet that you have before you if you could turn to page three is the start of where you see a utility trench which is being requested the total property is 7,65 sare ft and and that is going that is going to go from that right hanger all the way to Sutton Street which runs to North Andover um Mr do you have another packet for council president of course thank you how you do now he's on page three so yes page three if you could uh take a look at the highlighted utility trench obviously this will be filed with the registry of these like as any easement and currently National Grid is working on the language that uh goes with that proposes such and and uh any other enclosures are in this packet um happy to answer any questions and happy to bring Mr Mark Mark Scott should you have any questions for him I I would like for him to come uh before us and you know please feel free to say a few words how do you microphone how do you feel about this project um I feel good about it the economy is up and down but my business is going well the airport's been doing very good with all the public people and no endover as I call it everything's good so there's a demand for hangers it's not any bigger hangers there's not bigger noise or anything it's just a little expansion of what the airport's been doing I've been there over 30 years and it's all good you know I've worked with the City of Lawrence over this it's all good National Grid a lot of fun to work with but other than that everything's going smooth are there any issues or challenges that you think that the US councelor should be aware of before approving no the only challenges I'm having is like I have four months into National Grid and I started this whole project back in September the cover page of that is from uh the city Al lawence airport commission and that was from a September meeting I was hoping to get going in 6 months but it's going to basically be 10 to 12 months before I have to dig up any dirt so to speak so it should be seamless I've built other structures up there and I'm using all the same people to do that you know same contractors that I've used in the past no so fire away with any thoughts you people would have on it okay um I just want to make sure before we uh proceed with discussion if our Airport Manager Miss Ura if there were any further uh discussions on your end mark uh no I don't have any further question this is a plan that was approved by the commissioners of the Lawrence municipal airport it has a favorable uh recommendation uh I've also talked to a budding tenants of other airport businesses which are other hangers um they also understand this is part of the master plan and how we came about uh locating these four hangers to be part of this uh new tenant of the airport okay all right so I'm opening up the floor for discussions does um any counselors have any questions U Council the plant I can make a motion to Res send this up to the full council with the favorable recommendation second question okay um so we have a motion to the table seconded by counselor um Santiago uh councelor uh council president Rodriguez please proceed with your question yes uh in general thank you for providing me with the package uh in general what what what is the general bus that you run H talk to the microphone it's a basically a gas station for airplanes we buy them we sell them we fly people around we sell Fuel and we do maintenance and the majority of this is for storage of the airplanes the value of airplanes is going up and you don't leave valuable things outside so it's basically the ones I'm going to sell are garages for their airplanes there's going to be a small maintenance how hanger from expansion of my business but it's barely 10% expansion I have other buildings there that we work out of thission will be more the director uh there's director what other basement do we run at the a that is navigated to to the a itself sure so if you think of the airport as an aviation side that's all you see inside the Gat where we're building these hangers obviously those are restricted for Aviation purposes outside the gate you see a a storage facility which is a little bit further south in approaching North Handover and and lawence line is if you're traveling that direction there's a storage facility there is a truck repair center and there's a mechanic shop right next door and there's also the building you see being built on 492 Su street right the entrance is a lacrosse facility and that was an RFP the request from proposal that the that this um commission the airport Commission did about 15 months now and that was the selected parcel that came through here looking for that 21-year lease if you remember that uh so that's our again the fourth non-aviation business outside of the diner which is also non-aviation but you know somewhat related to the building uh there's also uh Angel Flight which is another tenant outside of the airport but airport related type of business C president okay no further questions discussions okay so there's a motion on the table for approval seconded by councelor Santiago all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it thank you guys thank you very much um is there any other items in the agenda that needs to be removed from the tabled matters no can I get a motion toour Madam madam CH I believe Mr we've asked Mr hooton to to arrive at at this meeting tonight so as a courtesy to him we should at least discuss the topic that we invited him to this discussion it's not my topic I was I received an invitation of this board to appear regarding the next tabled item a review of the real property task force what's the item number the next it is uh 333 or 24 okay okay can get a motion to untable item number 33324 review real property task force okay second all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it um so we have item number 332 uh 3 33-24 review real property task force and we have attorney who in here uh before us to discuss this item you may proceed the Reas I'm just reason that's funny I'm sorry we're not laughing laughing at the fact that I didn't present this item I was told to be here I was who told you to be here then I'm your secretary okay and I apologize Council the way that happens is I will get a letter from the um Miss Vega and will say um the city council would like you to appear on this night on these items or the city council the thein okay so you're appearing here uh for this item okay can we proceed with the discussion then like am I am I supposed to be the one providing the information Council Rodriguez would be presenting okay so councelor rodri any questions I apologize I'm just here to answer questions I apologize I do too Council chair I didn't mean to bust out like that my apologies can we proceed sure of course um essentially we have these this item in front of us uh I I was the the one putting the item and and looking at the record from 19 1996 I believe it was and and all the record that were provided and and the situation that um that happening with the real estate task force that was basically dismounted or restructure perhaps change names and a lot of things that should be U little little more clear as of what happened and uh some of the comments that were brought up to the table was that if something is working why changing it also um you know the looking at the recommendations that Bas basically looking at uh the discussions that that and the record that happened back then in 1996 uh and the recommendation that were presented at that point is is different than what is happening today and also the proponents of the changes of those changes back in 1996 uh was that a former former councelor um Carlos maros that is now you know bringing it up to the table slightly different than than what was presented back then so for like maybe I could give the board a little history of the of the of what this was so what the um real property task force was is the um the council has um on occasion uh received information that there's certain properties that we wish to declare their Surplus um and what they wanted to make sure at that time and this is my impression of it was that it didn't become too political that the properties that were being declared Surplus were being declared Surplus because of good reason that the city didn't need them anymore also that they were being declared Surplus that they would go they weren't like being friends of the administration so to speak so in order to do that what they did is they formed a committee and the committee consisted of one member of the Lawrence city council uh the director of planning director of community development director of Economic Development the land use planner the City attorney Commissioner of inspectional services and the mayor ours design now the the other important part about this is uh was that the purpose of this committee is really to kind of remove the politics from the the um the decision um and what they again what they determined is based on that committee and that was a a committee that was um formed by ordinance that um they ended up my my impression of fighting among each other and it wasn't really working out so in 2006 um they disbanded that committee so what we have now is not an actual ordinance committee what we have now is a a committee that's a recommend and only and other words it's not um and it is the mayor's um real the mayor's property task force we won't give it the same name because people get confused and what they do is they meet and I'm on that committee and various properties will come before for us and we'll review um what this we meet after the city council has declared a surplus we only meet on certain other properties or some before to recommend to the city council become Surplus um we look at the properties see what could use uh we sent out a notice to the entire city Department saying hey Recreation Department do you have any use for this hey DPW do you have any use for this property uh um housing do you have any use for this property and if we get back that none of the departments need it then we decide we should try to get rid of it put it back on the tax rules and and make some money so the committee then gets together and reviews it determines that this is a good parcel or sometimes what they determine is hey this is a decent parcel but we also have a parcel next to it and maybe if we combine them that would bring more money to the city because it's now a build of a lot or whatever and we it's so because of the various people on it we have our various expertise we then determine um the property is then declared Surplus by the city uh city council after that point um we then take the request for proposals so we put it out there when we say okay on this lot um we uh we really want someone to build a single family home uh on this lot we want whatever we want to do and we put out you've had it come before certain conditions one of the conditions might be that the person that's going to bid on this must be a Lawrence resident uh the person that bids on this must be a firsttime home Buy I mean sometimes we get actual properties that are already built like uh we had we had a foreclose on a condominium it's in a condominium complex so obviously there's not much the city has to do there's no land so we determined who do we want to sell that condominium to so we put out the requests and and it goes out there and people uh if they fulfill it and they have the ability um Can bid on it because there're there are usually reasonable prices as opposed to a lot of people so we try to to as you know the younger people people are people who are in the city that can't afford home ownership we're trying to promote home home ownership with a lot of these so we make a recommendation now our recommendation is not binding our recommendation is is just our best effort and then the mayor determines um what he thinks is the best use of this property and that's the current um committee there it is not ordinance it has no power um it's surely an advisory committee so so there's two ways you could you can go back to the oldway in ordinance the Comm committee and then it becomes a reportable committee to you um and with whatever you want on it or you keep what's current in place which is just a advisory committee before the mayor but that that's kind of the history of where we are with it right now so um we the real property task force probably meets in the summer not so much but in the winter probably once a month and go over all the various properties that we have and see where they are I mean some of them we just meet say um where is it in tax title um when do we think we're going to get title to the property because some a lot of these properties because they're in tax title might take a year for us to clear up the the title to make them sailable okay um so just to make sure I I gain Clarity in everything you just said you said in 2006 this committee the commit the the real property task force was eliminated or disbanded in 2006 but there is currently a a small committee made up by the mayor's office um which I don't want to give it a name um thank you how many members and are you uh do you have the Liberty to say who uh is currently part of that task force um it is the yes there the city planner there is the City attorney um there is the assessor there's the tax collector there is and trying to get everybody's name as I see uh somebody from Community Development um yeah I hope I named everybody I I can get you that more because we like I said we haven't met in some time but um it's just more of a kind of a group that would have their hands on land better word how is this any different from the real the the property task force that prior to it being task force made would make decisions in other words that task force would say um Council maml you're getting this lot um they had the authority to do it our committee has no such Authority our our committee just says hey we have this lot um we have M Lopez who we think would be a good buyer for this um what do you think and you can take our recommendation throw it away or incorporate it when it's a committee formed by ordinance you have to take their they make the decision so okay discussions sure um council president uh Rodriguez um all right so basically back back in based on what you're saying back in 2016 there was a committee by ordinance uh it was dismounted back in before 1996 it was a a committee by ordinance in 1996 he was dismounted uh and and he become an advisory committee to the mayor if you look at the the position that were there because he get political that was the reason right yes uh if you look at the position where what what it was on the regional ordinance before 1996 and the current one what is what is the difference between the the members well I would say let me just I read it to now I have to find it again the difference would be first there would be no member of the city council on the current committee and one of the reasons for that what did you say I just want to know the difference between I mean the names on each so we don't despair from oh yeah so currently there is no member on the advisory committee there is no member from the city council on the original committee the me one of the members was a city counselor um excuse me one second that's my page okay um the director of planning would be on both the directory of Community Development would be on both the director of Economic Development I'm not sure that we have a director of Economic Development um the land use planner would be on both the City attorney would be on vote um we do not have the commissioner of inspectional services on the C committee and um the mayor does not serve on the committee either the commit the committee responds to the mayor so there like three less positions send somebody IGN excuse me he have I'm sorry I miss you have a disign um not really not not when we meet we report to the mayor at the end so when we meet we report to the mayor uh I don't usually see a a representative of the mayor in that meeting what I'm seeing here is that that was that was there since 1990s and then all of a sudden within the last few month that change because the notice that we get is that that's not longer the committee that make that that is the advisory committee to the mayor because they say we got rid of that we don't have to uh do it in the way that we need it and son of the son of the power that the committee used to have is like it was a a a vote taken during the meetings is that correct the current committee is there a vote taken there is the after 1996 some time and just so just so we can get the the dates correct in 2006 I see the real property task force being formed so that's 2006 I then see the well actually that would be incorrect because I see it in May of 2006 it was eliminated I don't see the date that it was formed because the um the document that has the uh the ordinance on it is dated on the date of elimination not the date of formation so I don't know so I'll go with your 1996 I I don't know that to be correct no no no sorry 206 but 2006 it was eliminated the current committee I've been on this committee for about 4 years years so and it was it was there for for forever the current been the the current one it's been there forever I believe it's been since 2006 I would guess I wasn't here and what I'm saying is you guys used to take a boat on on the properties the best use of the property you guys vote on and sign on definitely that make that committee more than an advis committee because a vote is been taking place within the committee maybe except that it's it's non binding to anybody it's not binding to anybody I get it but the thing is is like what I'm getting now is that there is no votes more there is any more vote being taking place anymore on that committee currently because that was eliminated out of this no we we would still vote we we just have not met they the the the real property committee has not met and I believe the past 3 months well well once you meet again you will see the differences I I don't know why because we would again that is the reason why we having this discussions no but I in other words I'm not the for former of the committee or whatever but when I go to the committee I'm presented with proposals and then we discuss it and then we I mean you call it a vote but I could say like I like the use of this property you know we should make this into a garage and someone else might say no no we we should keep it as green space and I think end we go like what do you think should we use it as a garage or as green space and we all go I think the better use vot is green then we present that to the mayor like I think this property should be used as green space and the mayor can say nope I'd rather have it as a garage well then it becomes a garage we don't we don't have any I get it I get it I understand you guys meet after we actually declare property a surplus and prior sometimes prior prior and prior prior of the disposition you guys made for sure sure right yes 100% you guys mean for sure definitely guess what we have have property here without the advisory of the of the board but we don't give the advice something changed that's what I'm trying to get I I I understand so if you're saying from the original board to this board no no no these board have Chang in the last the recent the recent future the last month things have changed and we have seen a disposition of a property in front of us that no request another a disposition a a a surplus declaration and that was partially brought up to the discussion that the real estate task force is not longer in place The Advisory or whatever name it is is no longer in place that we're going to we're going to discuss that that until further we're not going to discuss those property until further notice until further clarification get you know everybody on the same page something have changed and I'm trying that's what that's what I brought up I brought that up to the to the to this to to this level so I might just add this there is no requirement to come before the committee so you could skip the whole process you could come right to city council you could come and with the property we're just what we're trying to as a committee trying to do is let's suppose the disposition of the property happens to be your cousin okay if it's just the city council voting on it everybody's going to look and say ah inside view he gave it to his cousin but if there are five people that have no connection with your cousin and say you know what selling to your cousin is probably the best thing it's trying to remove the politics of it because sometimes you know what it's just happen St that it might be your cousin that gets the prop and what I'm saying through you m what I'm saying is that that work and if something work as as other C I've said on this this committee something work by changing it something have changed on the recent the recent month yeah about the committee I know it is not required to go to the committee and that's the problem because the lack of transparency and political portion of it is going to get into it no and and I I would and that's an issue that we might if we don't have that that advisory for a third party yeah I I agree with you coun now I it's like we're going to have more issues now I understand what you're saying but I I do believe that what you have the ability to do because you are the dispositive body is it if I came to you and said hey here's what I want you to do with this piece of property and you said to me have you gone before the task force and I said no then you could say well come back after you've talked to the task force um because you're in control council president you also what your thoughts um Council Le plant has um something to add are you all said councelor llant thank you very much I do want to bring Mr Ruez back into this conversation so it just listening to this conversation apparently Mr Rodriguez and I I I don't have as much information that he has and so I I I think it's important if we're going to if we're going to be debating this to really have some more facts so council president do you have like the item that uh that came before us where you received information maybe it was a testimony here or wherever you got the information that it did not go before the property task force that way and is it coming before the full council do we already vote on that matter I just would like to have some background information and then council president through you madam chair you also mentioned that uh that stay tuned you're going to see more of this things have changed so I you clearly have more information so I I'd like to F I like to brush to get more detail as to what you know I happen to think that the City attorney doesn't even know what you know on this and and I think we should just bring it out in the open for full transparency that's what we're trying to do here make sure that the transparency when it comes to disposal property is there sure that's why that's why we have discussion the L the information that we might have like you said that that's that's actually being used to bring transparency to the process that's what we're trying to do maintain things as e and make sure that the real estate task force or whatever name it is take AO ad for the advisory to whatever and then be able to bring it up in front of us like let's not lose track of what is important here the important here is not the information we have is the information that is going to be presented to the public when it comes to to the real estate Task Force if something have changed and we brought it up let's let's try to find out what is it that have changed I think that that's what is important not like you know the disposal of the property is the whole thing is the main idea here is the main function that we keep the transparency and and anybody that is prop anybody that get a property through a disposition process that is because it was the best use of the property and maintain anything else I I just want to know my question is through Madam chair to the council president was does he h does the council president and I think he does I just want to know what it is what is the item that that is sparking this discussion what was it that he learned that this the real property task force was or whatever it's called was not involved in it and that it came out magically to the either before the full Council have we voted on it I just want to flush that out a little bit morean through you m item 9124 the last item that we have in front of us on this committee part of doing that discussion that's the third page 9124 it's on your it's on your table of items tonight that was one of the item that triggered the discussion uh about you know the real estate task force and then there was an email requesting to table that item or not to bring it up U not to bring it up in the next meeting because we she need further clarification when it comes to the real estate task force so that's those are something that were sent to if I might actually attorney no it's okay proceed if if you would like for this committee I will be happy to contact the um the uh everybody on the committee find out what properties have been brought before you and see and give you a list of anything that has not come before the real estate task force and any properties that are going because to to be honest this was another item I'm going to bring up but I look I look on this past list of yours and I see properties that I'm dealing with currently that appear to be tabled here but I appear to be handling it so I'd like to know what's going on with these interesting um I mean right I mean some of them are simple for instance right now um no secret my office is working on all the Alleyways in Lawrence I happen to notice that this was an agenda item in 2010 so tabled here but it's it's now in my office at 2024 some 14 years later um but not under this agenda item so N I see um to be honest with you on September 2nd 2014 a request for Surplus property of s Florence Street tabled um that item is also in my office um I I have a question attorney hen cuz I know you mentioned that this task force um not having the task force eliminates the politics of it all so how again how could it be any different when um when one of us counselors um have to excuse ourselves that one of the members of that committee would have to excuse themselves when it's a family involved how why it's more the why it cannot be everybody sorry about that everybody always I don't mean it this way but you know Lawrence everybody always says oh somebody has an in somebody has an out it's just easy to say we're not even involved how could we have an in how could we have an out we don't make that decision an independent committee that that's that's all it was purpose for you're right if somebody said if it happened again I apologize to councelor Rodriguez that I'm picking on his cousin I don't even know if he has a cousin in the city I mean I'm assuming this is something I'm assuming this is something to excuse me I'm assuming that this is something that could be discussed when creating or reestablishing this item if it ever gets to this point on an ordinance level that we will have to kind of you know put that there in terms of how this committee would and should operate um at the end of the day this item was tabled and it was tabled because we were looking for you to review and provide a recommendation do you have any um not of this point I I what I I I actually was not asked that particular question but um I I can give you for your next meeting first of all we would like to give you a brief synopsis of what the Committees do just so you all have it in writing second of all is uh to council Rodriguez I would like to give you a list of properties that we have reviewed and the properties that for some reason again unpronounced to me because again nobody gives me contr complete control so if someone wants to bring a property to you without going to the committee I have no way of knowing that but I can look that up and find that for you and I'll I give you my recommendation if that's what you would like I okay um before we um adjourn um is there any further discussions questions concerns no so I'm looking for a recommendation to table this item much to table the item 3592 24 333 33324 some more say second okay uh we have a motion on the table seconded by counselor um at large Rodriguez all those in favor say I and the eyes have it motion the table to adjourn seconded by councelor Santiago all those in favor say I and the eyes have it thank you very much councelors I appreciate I apologize again know e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e bu it's I just spent the money app put up a few words we see we will see you're the committee of the whole which is where they're going to discuss Buy Back Time like the I don't know ifo is the one somewhere yes that's why my wife took me in I t Qui so mind you I'm not even real good evening and welcome to the budget and finance commit committe meeting today is Tuesday July 30th of 2024 it is now 6:35 p.m. voting members present to my right um coun council president javanni Rodriguez to my left who just stepped out for a second uh the vice chair councelor Vivian marmo and also councelor Wendy lzone pursuing to chapter 20 of the acts of 2022 this meeting of the budget and finance committee is being conducted both in person and via remote participation a reminder that persons who would like to listen or view this meeting while in progress May either attend here at the city council chamber or use our social media um Network accounts at this point please join me in the pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all councilors we have minutes to approve can I have a motion to approve the minutes from our meeting in May May 29th of 2024 motion has been made by the Vice chair properly seconded by the council president discussion seeing none all those in favor say I I I and the eyes have it can I have a motion to approve minutes from our meeting of July 9th 2024 so Mo motion has been made by the Vice chair there a second seconded by councelor lzone uh discussion seeing none all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it all right first order of business we have item 36-24 the authorization to expend Grant funds in the amount of $250,000 for the Safe Streets enrolls for all ss4a from the US Department of Transportation and we do have Lily Reyes on Zoom um who is our grants and special project manager Miss Reyes you have the floorer grant riter special practice uh good evening good evening uh counselors thank you for having me apologize for not being able to be there in person um so yes uh uh asking to appropriate the funds for uh the safe streets and roads for all planning Grant really excited about this grant because now we will be able to uh create a comprehensive safety plan for the entire city of Lawrence identifying the high Injury Network uh areas High fality areas and improve the safety of pedestrians or or just overall safety of um vehicle fatalities in the City of Lawrence okay thank you councelor do you have any questions or comments council president uh L what is your title oh yes and and uh my title is Grant Rider okay I just want to make sure because I mean on the on the on the on the uh on the item we have something else and I just want don't want to public pretending or thinking that you are going to be running the the grant are you going you rning the ground so for this particular Grant I I honestly I'm I'm not too sure um we have and within the grant we did submit for for some funding or additional assistance with um managing the grants I'm definitely going to be spearheading it so there's an RP that's going to be put out I'm responsible for that and I'm I'm I'm not sure how we're going to move forward in terms of getting assistance for this particular cycle of this Grand excuse me so if you got if you got what if you got what I'm trying to say is is like it make that makees me worried because I don't I canot even say ground Rider and your last name is like is it's it's tough to say because your your job is basic basally make sure that we got grants and you're doing something else by running the the grants might distracts our potential opportunity that we might miss because you're not focusing on writing those gr and you're not focusing on you you're focusing on running the project and especially this type of this type of project I need to deal with with uh with departments that are already involved uh around this thing this thing that perhaps can think about you know the police department the fire department or more importantly uh the engineering department that are going to be able to identify data uh that are that are very it's very common and they're very aware of those because they us in our daily bases like within the engineering department they deal with the average 30 traffic if I mention that word throughout the city of lam to anybody else they going to have to find out what is ADT they might think it's some some type of Hope for people but average daily traffic that's you know somebody working at the engineering department will know right away the police department will know right away but you know it's it's like you know what I mean it's like I would like it to be focused on ground riding because you brought out that fun and I highly appreciate that big time uh and don't get me wrong I know that you're more than capable of doing that but not focusing on that it's going to because I have seen you doing all the things for the L and this and that and the whole your whole position was around focusing on that because we were losing opportunity when that when that position get presented to the council that it was a need uh and and and and and I don't want to be rough but I mean that's the reality I understand council president so uh just to clarify in terms of the Departments you mentions yes they those departments will be involved but the this money is to hire a company that's going to come in and do the entire comprehensive safety plan to create an action plan so when we have that action plan we can go ahead and apply for the next um cycle of the Grant and hopefully uh get the implementation funds to implement the action plan so it's it's a external company that will be coming in to do all the aage daily traffic um or the like I mentioned earlier the highry network so without us said you know that I'm glad that is happening but also I don't express a concern to you since you're going to be looking into that gr make sure that anybody that's going to write something on behalf of the city of L use the internet use Google Earth but also come down to understand how traffic behave in LS traffic Behavior change from time to time and trust me I know and people that behave one way here they behave little different than another cities in town and they behave completely different another another town right next to us to avoid mentioning needs so like you know last time or one of the last time I hear that we have a com comprehensive study around you know traffic direction uh change uh with in L I believe they were they were all done through the internet I mean just looking at the at the streets so just be aware make sure that they come here they have a specific equipments uh to make sure that they have a specific account to make sure that they have the the right Peck hour uh during the specific time that people use specific locations that you know are very tough to to deal with and make sure that that the presence is here you know what I mean it's like I'm I'm kind of tired of seeing sty here of people doing it from another from from Boston monly and and never step a foot in ours that's that's understandable and that's good feedback council president um I I just ALS can I just make a a additional comment that the mar MC Valley Planning Commission actually received this planning grant for the entire uh for their for their region and um as you know we fall under their community and we have been working very closely with mvpc and they have um been able to or they will be able to help us way before we even start the process um for this planning Grant so we're grateful for that and they recently came and did a walk audit on Essex Street and so uh we're working in conjunction and we're making sure that there will be no overlap of of work uh or or safety um planning and so I just wanted to mention that so that you know that we're we're utilizing all our resources all right thank you m thank you U Miss Reyes I have a question for you and I'm going to so this grant is is for safer roads um safer streets we all know that a huge portion of providing safer streets and within our community is law enforcement and I I I have two officers here in the gallery that are not here for this item but um I know there I know the police department within a as a whole is trying their best but we all know there are significant challenges occurring um currently and I've been getting a lot of calls from constituents with their frustration so how I mean it's great that we're getting the funds for this but how are we working with the with the Lawrence Police Department to ensure that the investment that the city is making towards safer streets is also being accomp accompanied with our our law enforcement department enforcing our our laws thank you um um Madam Vice president so uh in this when I was applying for this grant uh over a year ago I created uh kind of like a it was we had a few a series of of meetings to discuss the Grant and what the grant looks like and all the details and both our fire chief was were involved in those meetings and the chief of police and also um officer cillo and um our uh from the police department also our Prime analysis was involved and so we we this is a team effort we we will be work continue working with uh the major departments that are you know that that are keep vital to implementing safety in our streets and is there a plan as as you know um we're currently beginning the process of a search committee for a new chief of permanent Chief um is there a process with this to get the new Chief whenever him or she starts to get them up to speed um to ensure that this is being followed through because the community is be has been for is becoming and has been for quite some time very restless um when it comes to the safety of our streets absolutely so I will uh ensure that the new Chief is is made aware of this Grant and the importance of his involvement or him appoint him or she uh him or her appointing someone for this particular uh project thank you councelor is any other questions or comments from Miss Rees um Vice chair marmel uh the only comment I'll add is that um I was present with Miss Reyes along with the other stakeholders um uh back when uh all the stakeholders were uh present we walk the streets on on nessex Street Broadway specifically when I believe council president uh Mr Rodriguez you added a stop sign in that you know busy intersection um on Essex Street and um I think that District could really benefit from this uh this safety plan um so I am just looking forward to ensuring how we could be of support and making sure that we actually do something to have our city streets analyzed and making them safer thank you any council president the attach the attachment SE Lily do you mind reading the whole thing around attachment C for the record I think that's very important to the whole project yes uh allow me to grab uh attachment seat hold on one second are you talking about the general terms and conditions C or is there another C see which C are you referring to the end oh the end oh P 10 okay okay okay I have the document in front of me you attachment C okay which part would you like me to read council president okay so the recipient or project partner has adopted an equity and inclusion program plan or has otherwise instituted Equity focused policies related to project procurement material sourcing construction inspection hiring or other activities designed to ensure racial equity in overall delivery and implementation of the project and the other one marked is the recipient has not yet taken actions related to uh projects to improve racial equity and reduce barriers to opportunity but in intend to take relevant actions described in the supporting narrative below so now if you'd like I can read um the supporting narrative that reflects the first one yes are you yeah so the city in collaboration with groundwork Lawrence has undertaken a comprehensive initiative to enhance accessibility and safety for individuals with disability particularly addressing the disproportionate impact of Road accidents on communities of color while mitigating neighborhood fragmentation our efforts have resulted in development of interconnected Trails linking schools playground ball parks and other recreational areas including the sper river Greenway these trails facilitate secure navigation of public roadways furthermore our commitment to inclusive infrastructure is evident through various measures we have enacted complete streets ordinance between 2016 and 2018 ensuring that our streets are designed are are designed to accommodate all users including those with disabilities save roots for all for schools initiatives spearheaded by the Bruce school have led to significant Improv movements such as ada8 compliance streets widen and sidewalks accessible curve streets Street calming measures such as bump outs and installation of pedestrian Islands uh uh to facilitate safer Crossing moreover strategic planning efforts have been undertaken for all elementary and middle schools in Lawrence to prioritize accessibility and safety for students and residents alike additionally the the industrial real access program Ira Grant awarded to lawen uh awarded to Lawrence awarded in 2020 and 2023 aims to upgrade rail infrastructure in the industrial park to enhance bright access by creating new and improved access points the project seeks to increase job opportunities and access goods for underserved communities through the construction of new rail Spurs and Rehabilitation of existing infrastructure businesses will benefit from improved connectivity to Regional and National markets this initiative aligns with broader goals of promoting equity and inclusivity by ensuring all residents have equal access to economic opportunities of significance is the fact I'm going to stop you there because this um so then the paragraph you're you were about to read has mentions the lawren Redevelopment Authority mentions the Equitable Equitable compact and Transit Ori Transit oriented development plan also mentions the the next the following paragraph mentions how the L has sent out letters of interest for development Etc what does that have to do with the safe streets and Roads initiative that this grant is for so they were they wanted to know in terms of all of the equity opportunities that the city is has presented to the community I'm sorry can you repeat that yeah they they want to know all of the equity opportunities that the city has presented to our local our local community but I still I'm still not making a connection what does that have to do with safer roads so the question what is the explanation that the state gave you or or what was what was the connection that the state was making for that yeah so the federal government as asked if we are if the city is working with Equity if we're ensuring that we are creating a racial equity in the overall delivery of this project but they wanted to know they wanted us to be as detailed as possible so they they told me to mention anything that has relation to showing that we are providing equity in the city or or or presenting the opportunity of equity for for those in in the city for non for minority business owners and and the like I still don't I mean I'm I still don't understand how how that connects with safety and business opportunity safety I I mean uh because uh maybe uh um Vice uh Madam Vice president this section most likely or this grant we will be doing an RFP and we have to abide by the the guidelines of the federal government and they want to make sure that when we do submit the RFP for this particular grant that we are focused on the equity component as well and and abiding by the federal government's RFP guidelines not just the state chapter 30b but the federal government and are any are any of these monies going towards the L no uh Council I think Council lone you council lzone do you have Council lzone um thank you Madame chair just to be um clear so this money is for to create an action plan yes a comprehensive action yeah so you're going to hire someone uh you're going to send an RP and people are going to apply and you're going to hire someone to do an action plan based on um taking in consideration the complet streets that we have and other projects is that accurate yes so we're voting tonight to approve money just for an action plan so we're not focusing and no none other projects will cost this amount of money okay um councelor May I just clarify yes please the main goal is to be able to apply for the implementation Grant when we met um a series of of of of us met a year ago and we were trying to decide if we qualified for the implementation Grant but we did not in order to apply for the implementation Grant we need an action plan that's the requirement um that the US dot has for this Grant and so when we learned that we did not have an a comprehensive safety plan we just went ahead and applied for the action plan so once we have the this action plan is created that puts us in a seat in a position to apply for the implementation Grant and if all goes well and we get that implementation Grant we can we can potentially get 15 million 20 million I know that Springfield got 15 million last year to with their Implement with their action plan they were they submitted it and they were able to get uh funding for that action plan and so that's the overall vision for this gr thank you Miss R so um through you Madame chair so basically we are approving a step step one an action plan and hopefully we'll get to a step two so right now we are just uh taking in consideration the action plan the organizations that you name uh that um um mad chair first to um are they going to be uh can they I mean once you send the RP it's one of them and I don't know if I'm asking the correct question but I mean I'm asking uh for my constituency and the and the and and the audience to understand this a little bit more so that the organization that you mentioned are they going to be able to apply for the RP pardon is the organization you're referring to marac Valley Planning Commission yes and you also mentioned what were the others that that uh so it it's it's there are we getting someone from the outside are we getting someone from the outside you so uh when when so marac Valley Planning Commission will not be uh entering or submitting for the RFP they're our regional planning organization they are helping us um in improve the safety of certain areas in the city because they got their planning grant for the region in terms of the the agency that's going to come or the engineering firm that's going to come and do the safety plan um when I create the RFP or or the team creates the RFP we will we can very well put in the the scoring system that it's highly favorable or highly recomend recomended that it's an agency that's familiar with Lawrence or is in Lawrence if you if you like if that's something that um let's for example is I'm just going to give you an example through you mad chair is groundwork Lawrence able to apply so um I don't believe groundw Lawrence is able to apply because it's it's a engineering agency that has to apply okay all right so um thank you so much for for clarifying those question so uh basically uh and to my colleagues and for my own understanding we are approving money for an action plan and I just hope that you take in consideration um councelor Rodriguez council president Rodriguez just to to make sure that we are somehow involved because I would like uh that action plan to include um and I don't know if it's going to be possible but includ include uh District B hopefully and that's the only thing that I want to add so uh thank you for the clarifications and and hopefully we get to step number two and we get the money to actually uh create something that is safe uh for the community thank you Madame chair thank you council president yeah just just uh I just want to I just want to continue the the reading on that a specific portion that you left because it's important that the next three paragraph we bring them up and we discuss a few things that are especially in the last paragraph that is very interesting to me but I just want to make sure that we keep you keep on reading that uh and you left that when it says of the significance of the of the the the all with Development Authority L and then there yes of significance is the fact that the Lawrence Redevelopment Authority has initiated the Equitable Compact and Transit oriented development plan to address economic disparities enhance connectivity and promote inclusive Urban Development this plan emphasizes Equity sustainability and Community needs focusing on Equitable Transit access and sustainable infrastructure after being dormant for several years the L was reactivated by the current mayor with the goal of implementing ing the mission of a Redevelopment Authority as part of the ectd the L has requested letters of interest for development of approximately seven locations into mixed use residential and Commercial spaces the L prioritizes inclusivity by encouraging submissions from minority owned firms local developers and impact investors this initiative aims to mitigate economic disruption decline the neglect in the area there by fostering a thriving inclusive Urban space the L um ectd aligns with the equity and inclusion by adopting this plan the L has instituted Equity focused policies related to project procurement ensuring that the Redevelopment process actively actively address economic disparities and promotes inclusivity the public request for letters of Interest explicitly encourage participation for minority owned firms local Developers demonstrating commitment to Equitable development and removal of barriers to opportunities for underrepresented groups this strategic approach not only supports sustainable urban urban growth but also integrates racial Equity Into the Heart of Lawrence R development effort okay perfect you m I have a few questions that I going to have I going to ask you uh yes on the uh on the supportive narrative you mention specific things and you mention organizations and you mention the L it it sound it sounds to me like what we're promoting here is the intents of this second stage grant that might come to the city of L to be uh managed and administrated by the L because according to your statements uh when you brought up when you brought up these rant the L have solved the problem that the US do is looking for if we look it up to the US do based on the supporting document that you present they might ended up saying look we want the L which is an organization that is independent from the local government to run these potential programs I mean or am I I'm an away from from the reality um council president I appreciate the concerns uh I just want to emphasize that the it has it really this information was just to support the equity component the lra has nothing to do with this grant um if you go further down there's there are other narrative information that that was is just supporting narrative uh so for example if when I mentioned Lawrence uh um the uh groundwork Lawrence that just because I mentioned it does not mean that they're going to be involved or that they're part of the or that they're part of the RFP is just providing supportive narrative so to clarify the L is not involved in this Grant and will not be involved in this Grant and is not seed for usdt is not a is not a a reason for us to deem that the city does not need this simply because you know there's a Redevelopment of uity or an equity component in in plan no I just want to make sure because at the end of the day the reality the real the reality of the fight is that the L have done things in the last year or so so and based on what I'm reading here is like we we we're talking about 50 year history here like basically if we put a timeline on what you're saying but I I I understand I just want to make sure that we all in the same page that that we are approving a a a a uh a grant to develop a plan and the implementation of that plan is going to be based on the needs of the community and and also that whoever is going to be running the plan is going to be the City of Lawrence and then the C not necessarily a third party or or secondary organization just want to make sure that we put it up there for the recordar yes yes council president thank you madam chair Council L on motion to approve Mo there's a motion to approve is there a second there's seconded by council president discussion motion to send to the full council with a favorable recom recommendation properly seconded discussion seeing none all those in favor say I the eyes have it thank you so much Miss varus thank you I'm really looking forward to to safy thank you have a good evening thank you you as well miss reges yes I I hope to meet you like in for the uh in the next meeting absolutely absolutely and I apologize I'm not there I'm I'm literally still on vacation I come back tomorrow oh thank you I hope thank you bye bye okay bye bye all right next item on our agenda is item 361-244-4744 contract of contract over 3 years 3 years to 5 years 3 to five year contract between Lawrence Police Department and Exxon Enterprises brought To Us by director Rosa sheeper director you have the floor sure good evening City councils my name is Rosa shepher I'm the director of support service of the Lawrence Police Department and I am here to form request an approval to enter into a contract with axon company which is manage evidence.com um what this system will do it is uh it will it will the data and the storage will not be longer managed by the city driver it will be that managed by the by the police um it will we will uh do the crash data evidence collection we will manage the evidence storage and management the the the cat sh to Cod Room meaning that any information will be ready available instead of going through the city driver we will be able to uh um to be able to have that information on hand on time and the integration with the FL cameras we will be able to uh save the data from the Flor cameras into the uh police system as well uh this um is for a the five years it will be for a total of $47,900 with the yearly fee of $129,450 every year how many other uh within our surrounding Community can you give us an example of another Police Department that uses this the it's called evidence.com and has direct access to to the data that you're that you're trying to implement for Lawrence Police is there another yeah K there's back up you have back up good evening good evening name so yes can you can you just say your your name for sergeant D Police Department uh so our neighboring City meth uses.com a lot of major cities actually use this because the um weight of storing EV digital evidence on servers it's become obsolete it just costs way too much on the city as well um so it being cloud-based is accessible at any time and for the courts for the process reasons can go and grab those same evidence at any given time without having to be worried about if the officer is available or not right and I think that's the the biggest key here is storage uh we just uh you can never have too much of it the the best part with axon is that in this sense is any type of other type of implementation of Technology can be integrated with them so if we talk about independent camera system for the cities that the line that can be integrated body cams that can be integrated you know anything that's digitized and store it's infinite in Space versus right now we rely on servers that uh crash very frequently yeah uh Council Vice chair marm um who would have access to uh this database if appr so it's it's cloud-based storage very secure I mean that's obviously of opinion but as of you all know that it's all about how security is structured around any type of server uh cloudbase has been you know the the most popular thing uh as far as who has access it would be the police department uh and also the courthouse who within the police department who in the police department I guess titles not who not so there are going to be administrators and then there's going to be independently all 150 users for officers so every time they go onto a scene and they have dig digital evidence of a crime they can upload it right into that and that's accessible to the courts marel and there's no way being that everyone will have access to this there's no way of manipulating deleting evidence uh no everything is timestamped okay and uh it's it's recorded So any type of even editing is recorded and obviously the biggest uh role here is that we have by law uh cases that have to be stored indefinitely especially crimes of murder sexual assaults and so on so when you pile those on it's just that's what that's where the storage is needed council president chair so essentially uh we're using this service uh today and uh if we decide to change server eventually how difficult that might be I mean are they going to own our data or they going to we going to own it and they they going to have access to it how that work very good question so yeah this is actually this is ours so it's it belongs to the city it's accessible to us at any given time it uh you know if we go to a different vendor it's still our it's it belongs to the city and um and essentially walk me through do they have a system that actually make make uh things search for a little easier uh or perhaps uh how that work because I know that that is uh which we Chang the way that we storage everything within the city of L of there something that that happened back then a few years ago and then how that make a difference when it comes to the security system that we currently have in the city of compared to this so we obviously are definitely more vulnerable with servers we've experienced the city has experienced that before uh you know under obviously a ransomware uh those are the things that are the biggest concern for every department so going cloud-based as far as security goes again that's of opinion but I believe it is the secure way it is actually the future of this as far as facilitating uh the ease of this we use a our CAD system would generate a number that generate generated number would then Associated to that evidence that the officer has on scene which is then stored in the cloud and it just streamlines it there is no hiccups uh as far as what belongs to what and uh do they do they have like some type of when it comes to reporting and storage things up is there like you know if you you create work documents and then a storage there or perhaps you create a specific uh reporting system that they have in place and it will be easier for the police I just want to see the extra the plus oh the pluses are are obviously there uh we currently you have you're manipulating chain of custody when it comes to evidence even digital evidence right so that would eliminate all of that you're going from the officer's hand or you know whatever the scene may be whether a detective whoever is working the case it's just going to it's going to have less touches and it's going to be more secure and like I said the vendor is providing uh the product provides itself the capability of editing is monitored so there's no such thing as you know any type of um uh fishy business so one last question is I mean walk me through around the security of the system U how many how many step we have in place before somebody actually to our data damage something or you know how many how secure that is when it comes to uh should I give you a good example one by right so if we have um we've listed 150 users or it goes by the number of officers that you have at the time those are all implemented once all those users are there there's specific administrators to this uh and they are responsible for this um axon will not give access to anybody other than those particular mentioned users that are are um that have been given that permission from the from the chief So currently we have we work with the IT department very deep uh how that's going to differencea between the current system we have and the and the future system yeah it goes to limitations uh we we are limited by by space right now we're the city is uh literally using external drive to support evidence external drive have been obsolete for 15 years you know for somebody to plug that in and and and store evidence is actually pretty embarrassing we're we're falling behind and the only way we're going to get ahead is if we we do with time uh it only makes sense both financially and what's owed to the citizens you know and the victims I just want to make sure that we have a I mean a system that is it's going to be not good just today but in the future and we have the proper security oh absolutely I mean if it's not this vendor like we know you know everything changes there's always a competitor that's going to come with something even better uh we can always entertain that like I said any storage that's done with them will always be uh you know that's that belongs to the city it's not going to go anywhere else thank you so much you Madame chair Council L on um so every Police Department is using the same company not every Police Department most Police Department how do we get to this point using this uh yeah I'm sorry go ahead goad so they're leading in in in the industry um that's how we shop around for them uh they they're actually they're known for their body cams they're their axon has been leading in in the South and also now uh here in the north so we we go with where it's more practical both financially and what the capabilities are you know there are other vendors out there uh We've looked around they do they cost a lot storage is it's always been expensive so you want to go with uh more of an unlimited plan Than A limited plan right so this is where they come into play and I think the package that they offer was what we need because we're just very busy City there was not an RP process in place so you you you got uh the department looked for that a specific vendor I specifically went around and I looked for vendors and I found this one to be uh what is uh the best option for us okay thank you yeah and oh yes obviously there State contract it's yeah so it's not uh it's not like we we went off the list what the state requires it's through you mad chair is is uh the amount of money is is kind of unusual yes to uh go after a vendor instead of sending an RP but I understand are the priorities better I mean for Best Practices if will be and that's going to be up to the department but I mean for future practices and best practices it it it it the amount of money it it looks like it should require an RP yeah just to put it out there no and I I respect that obviously we have a list we go by and we're going to only look at the vendors that the state has approved and obviously they were more appealing uh there was there was uh really no we look for the best for the city and what's going to be more conducive for the officer to use and we're not just spending money for the sake of spending money here this is it is a lot of money storage is a lot of money one server can hold a specific amount let's say a petabyte uh and that that server is only going to last you a year and what are you going to do after spending $40,000 spend another $40,000 you know it's just doesn't make any sense thank you Sergeant thank you so much for your clarification Sergeant dar I have one more question for you we're hearing great things about about this this software and system what is one thing that is a downfall that they have that we should be or that the police department would have to like keep an eye on or if any I think it would be sustainability M just like everything else you know cost goes up and how we're going to keep up with that cost they're going to know just like everybody else we're we're in a comp itive market and they can come down to an end and say okay we're going to yeah you are Unlimited in storage but we're going to go up and that is the downfall that be okay unfortunately we're going to have to address that once the 5 years is up and what happens if so now this is going to be if approved will be at the hands of the LPD what happens if there's a crash or something who's responsible for for getting that up and running again so the vendor is responsible for All Storage um and like I said if we if we move away from them at any given time that stor it belongs to us okay um I'm pretty sure they have um their Clauses what they've put in place where that's facilitated to us but uh that is going to be in the contract as well that any data that they store for us is is to be kept for us okay thank you any other questions or comments see I entertain a motion motion to the motion has been made by the council president signed by the Vice chair discussion seeing none all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it thank you thank you the next item is item 36224 the authorization to expend Grant funds in the amount of $761,000 shepher you have the flo so I'm here to present the uh SS Yi the SSI Grand this year is going to be for a little bit over $700,000 um this gr um as we know is uh under the cisu and U it helps um youth at risk from 14 to 24 years old okay okay sorry from 4 to 24 years old um44 fy2 thank you we do have the executive director of cisu here with us Dan we do former and former city councelor Lauren city counselor welcome back thank you I think that was about 50 pounds ago at least I say that the positive is uh I think I I met my wife back then so yeah here look at the look she's giving you right now didn't get to data for about 10 more years but who is Maria that helps out the city councils poed what that keep you posted yeah happen here all right Dan we've been at this for a long time so just a little bit about the successes of the program and I came in about 2 and 1/2 years ago um I think we had two employees left at the time we're back up fully funded with 18 employees there have a great relationship with the police department and we're not chasing uh this this program is chasing the kids who are very gang involved gun charges we're in the courts we're in the school we're in the streets um and this program works um we've had some success this year we had four four High School grads two College grads one young man going to the Marines uh and to associate program um and that's that's kind of that's unusual in programs like this uh as far as comparing us to the rest of the State uh we're on Target and usually above um it took us a couple years to chase down someone who would be we needed a mental health counsel that's what we really struggled with and I think last year I came to speak to you folks that we that was a strug strugle we found someone um since then I think the state averages about 30% we're at 60% as far as our um young adults kind of seeking help and that's uh that I couldn't say anything that's that's the best thing that happened in this program of the year is getting the mental health uh part of it uh we are over at uh 417 I I'm hoping to get you guys to visit the council to visit us now uh We've really taken off we've got kids working uh all over the city and all over the state uh union jobs uh Apprentice programs uh we do have a failure rate and it's just the these young adults are struggling with a lot of things um um again the mental health has really helped um we do need a new van and that's kind of part of this grant um a lot of our kids who are getting involved need basically door to-door service and we're trying to get them home and pick they're not comfortable walking from Canal Street to to South Lawrence or to to to Hill they they become targets right now unfortunately uh so we're transporting them uh happy to say there is 32 young adults up in the mountains uh for the next two nights kind of a little Outward Bound program uh if they're trying to call you they're not going to going to be able cuz there's no phone service will they have for the next 3 days we've got eight employees up there with them uh but uh our little struggle with the van and we're happy that it's part of this grant is um I had to call Northern essics Community College to um help bring our kids up because three of our vans lack air condition uh so uh we were able to take one of our F and luckily um the college was able to help out and drop off bunch of our kids up there uh as you know we've also got into a lot of different things with an after school program now too uh so we're able to take kids from The Rise Academy and all that for after school programming that can't come during the day so we went from being a 9 to2 program with that to basically an 8:00 to 8 at night uh program U I'm here for any questions I know we do a lot more but this is kind of dedicated to that I'd love some time to talk about the rest of the program but I I'll concentrate on this program I do have to say I think it's been it's been almost three years since the last time I got a tour of cisu so I will definitely be reaching out to I think I was on the board then yeah yeah you gave me the tour with with one of the students so I I will be one of those counselors reaching out to it would be great uh I mean we're we actually do 6,000 meals a day out of that place too uh and we we're actually growing that that culinary program um bunch of the charter schools in the city dayc carees uh even a charter school in L has asked for our services that we're going to meet with next week so uh with with 12 employees and maybe six of our ssy kids work in that program it's uh it's taken off mad chair Council lazon how many participants you you say you have in this fiscal year just ssy the whole program well do both okay ssy about 115 uh I think 99 active and I'll be more than happy to show you our annual uh kind of comparison to the rest of the state I I can email it to you or it's great I'm actually proud of it so I don't mind sending it or hiding it other than that our our youth build program serves we have 70 applicants for 24 spots this year those are 16 to 24 year old high school dropouts uh looking we we kind of tend to favor the 19 to 24 year old because they're they've already been out of school a year or two and they're ready to make a change in their lives uh that program right now it's just been construction but we just got certified to do a a music Technology Program a culinary program and also retail uh uh program and I told the council president those shirts we can do it seu so um we have an embroidery and a uh screen printing shop there so um a lot of our kids love the music they're all aspiring Ras rappers but uh not too many of them make it in that business but we're teaching them the the back room stuff the producing and the uh the technology end of it so that's going to be part of um the youth the youth build program so that's that's going to grow if I get a little more room it will grow even more um and then the after school program I think we had 600 kids go through that's a grant we just got from the city from for 4 to S we do that with two part-time is and we change some of our full-time hours to do that that's for the sixth grade to freshman's and as an old executive director at the Y and basketball coach at the boys club those aren't the kids we're getting we we're getting recommendations from the school department on kids who are usually getting thrown out of those places so we we're we're looking for the atrisk it we're looking to help uh those kids and hopefully keep them out of our SSI program five or six years later uh and the basketball program that we ran I think was your son involved last year um That Grew From 300 to 650 last year we ran out of uh gym space in time uh that's expanding again that's not there's some great programs I spent 17 years at the boys club coaching basketball I I did the why I've witnessed what swos does we're not them we're for everybody else who just wants to play you know the kid who wants to play socially the kid who just wants to uh uh try it uh we don't cut any body we but we also do family dinners with that program and we try to introduce them to other parts of um prospera which is the canana center and the immigration services so we actually have funding to help those those folks um go through that program so uh our basketball program is is taken off again we're not if you want to watch super competitive basketball we're not the place but if you want to watch 600 kids have a lot of fun playing basketball it's the place and we are going to try to add volleyball uh this year just because um the community is calling for it so again we don't want the super competitive I'm done with that thank you thank you for councelor is at this point I'll entertain a motion motion to approved motion has been made by the Vice Chair seconded by councel lzone discussion seeing none all those in favor say I I and the eyes have thank you it's nice coming back back here once again thank you counselor all right our last item item 36324 the authorization to expend Grant funds in the amount of $61,200 which is additional funds for the safe safe and successful youth initiative um 28,750 will go towards FY 24 and 32,500 will go towards FY 25 uh director Sher you have the floor sure this is a contract amendment that was just approved back in June um I know it says FY 24 but they approved $28,750 for fy2 24 and I just heard that that he said that that that amount got extended to be uh to be spent on uh onto October and the uh then we then they did an additional Amendment for 32,500 and that can be uh used on December 31st awesome councelors any questions or comments seeing none at this point I'll entertain a motion motion motion has been made by the Vice Chair seconded by Council lzone discussion seeing none all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it we will see you in the seventh thank you thank you motion toour motion to agenda has been made properly seconded all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it thank you so much e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e via remote part participation a reminder that persons who would like to listen or view this meeting while in progress May either attend here at the city council chamber or use any of our social media Network accounts at this moment please join me in the pledge I to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation God we don't have any minutes to approve counselors we just have one item for new business and it's item 23624 Home Room petition establishing credible service for police and fire which is sponsored by by myself uh Council vice president Stephanie in fante we did um just a quick recap we did discuss this a bit at the last full council meeting and council president decided to bring this down to the committee of the whole there were some questions about finances uh the city fin financial and also some questions for the Retirement Board I believe y we have the Retirement Board here today and we also have um Mr Mike armano and AEL Cano on on the phone uh who have been helping me with this position competition at this point I would I'm going to call Mr Mike armano to the podium because we have made some significant changes to the petition since the last time um we've had spoke about this and he's going to go through some of the changes that were made and the most recent version of the petition counselors is the one that's right like right when you open your binder it should have been the first document um that that Isa put yep and two pages the towards towards the it's towards the the end Mr armano welcome and thank you thank you good evening councilors uh Mike Amano I'm a member of the Lawrence F Department um thank you for hearing me tonight and uh Council vice president thank you for your support in this I'm here to support the home rule petition establishing credible service for police police officer police officers and firefighters credible service is given in a variety of different places for service as a veteran for service in other governmental units where there is a public retirement system uh contribution and things like serving on the reserve so here this petition would fill the Gap in a couple occurrences where credible service is not given to a police or a firefighter the changes that we made um the biggest change perhaps is taking one out of the four items out of this home rule petition and the reason we took that one item out is because there's already a law existing that gives the city the right to issue credible service but it just needs to be adopted by the city and that's chapter 235 of the acts of 1994 so I believe councils you have a copy of that we separated it out we deleted it from The Home Room home rule petition uh Our Hope um if if the council so please would be to have that taken out separately as a motion to adopt and not be made part of this home roll petition so that basically members who were laid off for a period of time would have the ability to buy back that time that they were laid off the other three items that are in this petition that remain in The Home Room petition the first item is for employees who work for a governmental unit in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts but are not one of in the current Current public retirement system so it's my understanding there's about 104 different units in the public retirement system but there's at least one that we know of that is not um and this would give that unit if you worked in this any one of those units not in the 104 the ability to buy back time the second is a reserve list and the the change we made with the reserve list there two groups basically U around April 20 2012 when when the public retirement system was separated into two groups one of those groups was captured in a in a place where their Reserve time was no longer given to them and it was cut off around 2009 so what the change does in this Home Room petition it gives that first group that were hired before April of 2012 the ability to get back up to 5 years in our case it's mostly members who have about 2 and a/2 years but it would give them back that ability to get that time and um as a credible service that change was made my understanding was um during uh in the uh SJC around 2019 and it was interpreted to cut off those members other members who were on the reserve list should we choose to hire reserves and un call would have the ability to purchase that credible service and the last category is those who were bypassed in later given a decision by civil service that the bypass was no fault of their own and that would give them the ability to buy back the time from the time they will bypass the time uh they subsequently get hired um in all this I think the summary of what this home rule petition does for me I think any legislation that's put forward you have to look at a few things and that's what does it do for the profession clearly for firefighters and for police officers especially in these times um these are difficult jobs a lot of hours a lot of stress goes into them and it's something that really supports the the profession of firefighters and police the second thing it does it supports the community um anytime that firefighters and police officers are pushed to their limits where there's a possibility of someone being injured in the line of duty that does nothing good for a community and uh ultimately has cost for both the community and the fir Fighters and of course the third thing it supports the biggest asset we have here in the City of Lawrence and that's our employees so it gives them that ability as I I think I've said before the ability to manage their health and wellness at a time where they're most vulnerable towards the end of their careers so they can decide do I have what it takes to carry on or is a time where maybe I could use a couple extra months or a year and uh retire at a place where I go out at a peak instead of going out at a place where I'm pushing and pushing and pushing to a limit that maybe I can't handle that's the sum sumary of the home rule petition again I appreciate your support this is something that means a lot to me and my colleagues and if you have any questions from the perspective of firefighter or police officer I'd be happy to uh answer those questions councelors do we have any questions on the changes specifically that you just heard uh Mr armano summarize if there are any questions for the Retirement Board or our CLE Mr M Mark ianello please hold those questions because they will be called up to the podium but if there's any specific questions with changes council president uh section three can you can we go a little deep into section three I mean I'm interesting to know more like how that's going to work perhaps I give you a good example somebody was bypassed for any particular reason 10 years ago M let's say 5 years ago because we actually getting the five years like a pressure uh 5 years ago um and then e now uh is that person going to be able to buy that 5 years back yeah so this would be someone who is bypassed when you're bypassed you have the right to either go home and do nothing in which you don't get hired um or you can petition to the Civil Service Commission and claim appeal and claim that it was a unjust bypass you will bypass for no reason which um again the civil service system is designed to protect people it's it's designed to be fair it's designed to be Equitable this preferences for things like being a Lawrence resident here in our city and throughout the Commonwealth excuse me um so if you were bypassed for no reason and it was unfair you could get appeal and if the Civil Service Commission agreed that there was no reason that the administration bypassed you you would basically be placed number one on the list uh what this would do is this would not only place you number one on the list but give you that ability to buy back the time from the date that you were bypassed uh to the date uh that you're hired and often the way that police and fire hire we hire in groups so it it puts you back at the same place that you would have been with the group that got hired no but I mean um there is a lot of Gap in between because let's say perhaps that Civil Service you do the civil service every 3 years right I think it's every year now I that is every year let's say that you perhaps uh brought up your case three years after the file but you didn't apply for the two other years or you didn't apply for certain amount of years you still didn't apply and and you were not bypass every year for but you were hir at that moment 5 years later you would have the option to buy buy back those five years it's like it is it is a lot of Lo on the number three of this yeah I mean and lo is what we want boid when it comes to writing a law we need to think through those potential loopholes because people will use it that's why there is loopholes there is laws and loopholes and that's why we need to think it through like there is discrepancies on that I mean yeah I I think to answer your question when you are bypassed you're giving that opportunity with the next group that's hired um I I couldn't tell you councelor if there's anything that limits how many times you're given the chance to be hired but certainly if there was something that you felt language wise that needed to be included to um cap those years of service I I don't see why that wouldn't be appropriate and and and what I'm saying with that is that sometime people get bypass for reasons that there are not necessar disclaim uh for having have that opportunity having a mayor and and but I mean I'm pretty sure Mayors have done that before for specific reason that is th through a a recommendation legal recommendation of our some one and then at the end of the day what I'm saying is like there is that service was not provided to the CI of of L uh for specific reason but still you'll be able to buy back that time and the citizens of the city going to have to pay for that and when it comes to uh a time which is one of the huge uh responsibilities that we have from the city I mean the retirement system is one of the biggest respons if it's not the must um in the city it is kind of like you know number three is I I don't know the the other ones like when it comes to number two um I would like to know why the state is not uh including that on the state law probably once we get the Retirement Board on here we might be able to uh get more clarity on that but I mean as as it is right now it sounds like we probably kind of like you know going back to the loophole we probably covering one covering one loophole that already exist it's existing on the law so I don't know let's let's hear them all and then sure on on number three to um respond to the comment I'm hoping that something like this would serve as a deterrent to any future administrations I should take a step back there any future administrations to show that we have a fair process in civil service and it must be followed and we shouldn't bypass someone to get to someone else we should go down the list as civil service intended it to be so hopefully something like this would be a deterrent to say yes there could be a cost to the city if the rules aren't followed uh that would be my hope with something like this it also brings back that Equity piece you're losing time you have a group of members who around your same age who got on and there could be a situation where it is years later that you're hired uh but that's really unfair to the person who put up whatever it costs these days a couple hundred dollars to take a civil service test and they keep taking it year after year after year and they live in the city and they're hoping to get that job and they get bypassed and it's not their fault and it is it's a lottery it's a fair Lottery it's based off a score um but I think we need to preserve deserve the Integrity of that civil service system as best as we can and I think this accomplishes that with that being said I completely understand where you're coming from with a possible cap uh if if the council felt that was appropriate I can see that perspective U with regards to number two the reserve list I think in in my humble opinion after reading the law I think I think the Law chapter 32 specifically 42b carved out an exception for police and fire Fighters and I I kind of feel silly saying this but um really silly for those of you who maybe read court cases but I I I completely dis disagree with the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts how it was interpreted I I think if you look at section one and section two and if you later have the time to reflect and read these chapters you'll see that section one is tailored for almost every other profession and in section two it clearly cares out police and fire affording them 5 years up to 5 years of Reserve time for whatever reason U those members who thought they had this time for most of their career they got flipped recently and I I think that first half of section two takes away that what I see as an injustice thank you councelor is any other questions or comments pertaining to the petition itself councelor llant just a general question I I don't philosophically through you madam chair have a a change a problem this is a process not a substance Point uh with with this the substantive change that you're looking to make but my feeling Madam chair is when an article is submitted to the council for us to work on we at that point need to as a body need to determine if we're going to amend it there were things that are taken out from this from the from that first wraft now we're working off of this draft that's the responsibility of the city council to make the decision as to are we going to take that out are we going to keep that in not as we're going around the proponents whoever the proponents are going forward and say I'm taking this out moving this out without us after you've submitted without us having the deliberative process to go through it so again I don't have a problem with that but I just that's a concern that I have unless there's something that I'm missing and I'm So yeah so I believe that was um we found out after someone reached out to the Retirement Board that that that section is already state law the differences except that it's just just not um it hasn't been adopted by the City of Lawrence which is why it was already T taken out which is why it was taken out so it wouldn't be redundant um that was a question that I had is it something that we we prop I mean depends on what we do with this but that section itself it's some is is it something that is its own separate item because it is already stay law it's just not adopted by the city so there's questions around it which is why I I understand now why I still stand by the and I'm not going to make a bigger deal out of it but just to say that we as a group should have had that conversation it should have been brought up with those comments this is redundant is already a state law let's strike that from The Proposal then we could strike that from the proposal and the other things the the other improvements if you will uh and and say we're going to insert those in just the process questions I I want to spend more time on the sub you do have the original draft included in your in in your in your in your packet so if you want to work off the original draft we can certainly go back and just do the comparison like like how we did with um some of going back to an example the school committee petition we do have those in front of us so if you just put both documents side by side you can see the difference you can see it word for word of the changes that that have been made and and we can continue debating it no problem any other questions or comments Council Lon and I'm making myself familiar with this so uh what will be the financial impact or are we buying are there buying yes time do we need to pay then that includes money yeah I guess I would defer to um mran on the financial order the Retirement Board for the exact Financial impact uh but really I think from our perspective uh a purchase back of time or whatever the council U whatever pleases the council as far as getting these members inedible service we would support any option Captain um so councelor Lon this is actually a great time to transition to the Retirement Board because the financial questions will be a will be answered by Mr ielo or the Retirement Board depending on what type what type of question it is I have a question mad chair is it pertaining to the petition itself okay yes and I know that Captain uh uh he's very good explaining things he famous for that would you explain me um the process imagine that people that are not well we have people that are not aware with this in a simple way a very simple way so my constituents can understand what we're trying to do here and I know you're very good explaining things step byep councelor thank you so basically every member is has a different situation some members worked for 10 years 20 years 32 years some members will work for 36 years and they will never never need to get extra credible service because they already maxed out in the retirement system God bless those members that can do that and they're healthy enough to work past the 32 or 34 years but others might be pushing 27 years 28 years and they might have had time as a reserve or had time working for another government Union in Massachusetts maybe it was four years they work for U the transit authority or maybe they had 2 and a half years of Reserve time when they're at that place after working 27 years or 30 years they'll be able to judge how do I feel today do I feel like I I'm at my Peak I want to give everything I can to the city I want to do the job the best I can this is a very important job and health is Paramount Health is very very important for a police officer and a firefighter so when they're at that place if they feel like I can take a couple extra years by that time and retire now while I'm at my Peak and let the young guys come in then they have the choice of doing that other than that they could stay they might say I feel good and they might never need to use the credible service but what this does it gives them an option to get those additional years where they might have been serving in a different capacity and be able to retire when it makes sense for their health and wellness thank you thank you one more question council president yeah when it comes to the home repetition and what we sending out to Boston uh for the State Rep and the then the Senators to approve and subsequentially the governor to sign into a law that AFF the city of L what is the maximum amount of time that based on this current law uh that we discussing uh the buyback going to take effect how many years is the max come back I I think under the law there's different requirements such as in provision two the current law that existed was a maximum of 5 years for Reserve time so the first part of provision two would allow up to five years of that some of these other Provisions there's no cap on it so again to your point if it was something that this Council felt it needed to be capped at a certain amount of years uh and that was that would be more been appropriate if that's what the community felt we needed but it I think it depends veterans I have a certain cap I don't know that answer it might be four years but it depends on what type of credible service they're purchasing so essentially that it is important to recognize the following every time that we have a buy back from somebody that U that didn't work for the city of L the city of L speak on that price uh and and and P on channel it it is important to know that to Des that because people and all that uh and and if somebody that just get high here in the city of L and they have credible time in another organization that they have no cop let's say 20 years and then we're going we're going to have to take a l Sal that that's that's what we have in front of us so we we need to we need to make sure that we we bringing those points to the discussion because I think that's important uh and it's also important to know that um those time were not served for the citizens of L or to the citizens of L they will serve somewhat else uh and and not having a c on some aspects will be will be a potential uh Financial impact tremendous Financial impact to the city so not having a c establish it here now uh it could be it could be an issue it could be an issue to me at Le thank you I think to to add um it's also important to recognize that any if if a city employee within the Lawrence or Police Department have worked for other state level agencies it does essentially impact the City of Lawrence it's a state level um agency that we do use Services of um we use the example of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority I mean people from Lawrence travel use that to travel to other communities whether if it's for work or or whatever it is whatever their reason for um so yeah so it it might the job itself at that time may not have been physically located in Lawrence but it does impact the City of Lawrence one way or another and at this point I think it's a great time to um transition to our retirement board Representatives that we have here tonight uh to give us an Insight on their perspective on this and and to recall councelor llant who is the chair of the ordinance committee did mention during the during an ordinance uh meeting that there was a similar situation a few years ago with the City of Lawrence and the Lawrence Retirement Board did emphasize that they wish they were part of the process before and um he wanted to make sure that was honored and um we're glad to have you guys here tonight thank you my name is Gina Rizzo I'm with the Lawrence Retirement Board I'm the executive director thank you for inviting us um many times with things like this we honestly just let you guys do your thing right you create laws for the city um so we don't usually take a stance but I'm here to try and help you if you have any questions and I'll do the best I can um again we don't create this sort of law but um can I've made a few phone calls to Legal over at paraka governing body um so I can do my best so shoot question questions sure councilor president I'm going to give you a good example my example my own example I've been in the city of L I've been working for the city I've been working for the city for 10 years about 10 years elected obviously uh it's not working for the city but I'm being elected but I also work for the state of massachusett for 18 years so if I decide to to retire today yeah and bring that 18 years and by back that 18 years I might be able to so if you're currently a member of the state you're paying into the state and you're also paying in here as a city counselor you can do what we what we call a dual member right now and if your membership is it prior to 2010 yes okay so you can actually physically retire from both systems so you don't have to purchase anything you're already contributing to right right you'll be atire from both so there's a there's a few different angles in there and everyone's different with that but we can you know definitely talk about that if you want to call the office yeah no I just want to make I just want to make sure like you know we we keep this this this whole conversation because absolutely it is an impact to the city of L we we need we need to talk about that stuff yeah so now if you had not if you had not continued your service with um the state and stopped at that point that you became a counselor your your funds would have transferred directly here and then you would have just continued to grow your retirement in one system and then effectively retired from one system um but because you're a dual member I believe Council of plant's a dual member as well right or we have councelor okay Council excellent so you guys are going to have a benefit no do we have any other questions or comments are you also councelor president councelor the planam thank you so I think the reason why um through you Madame chair that you were requested to come here and Mr ryanel were requested to to attend tonight's meeting was to answer this question because of of cost and I know that I can't speak for anybody else but I think I think as I look around most people are going to share my sentiment we all have a high level respect for our police and fire department and we all understand the tremendous value and work that they provide to our city and I think whenever possible I can't speak for anybody else we I want to do whatever I can to to assist and to show that in some tangible way um because how how important they are and their sacrifice that they made that's one that's one side one of the angels are talking to me on this side the other side I me and these could be the same Angels talk to me about my job as a city counselor where I have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers and the residents of this city so there's a competing element that I have to somehow figure out what do I do for the men and women of those departments who do the very best that they can who answer the calls whenever they have to in a burning building or crime that's taken place versus what is the cost of that and is that a fair what is that what am I asking the taxpayers to to to submit for taxes is that fair for them whatever that is so the reason why we've I've asked you and my colleagues have acquiesced is what's the cost if this bill goes in what's the cost of this Mr know I go to the wrong place I mean I I guess the Retirement Board and and our C you guys are we're talking about finances so you guys can inter and I have spoken and uh and she provided some information she has a an actual evaluation from cams but the short answer to to your question counselor is we don't know what the cost is because the legislation is very uh Lo loose I think the um the first thing that should happen is this should be this whatever proposal is and I have several proposals in my my packet here I'm not sure which one's the final one uh but it should be reviewed with the retirement board's attorney uh because they could give some comments about you know this is kind of open or this is that if that's something the council wishes to do but the short answer about what this is going to cost is we don't know because it's open-ended right now if it's to get uh certain employees um that were laid off or that were bypassed these words that I'm hearing it sounds sounds like uh you know they want to get credit for that pension for that time towards their pension even though they didn't work so that's quite a benefit that we're providing to to for our taxpayers I you know I always remind my staff somebody's got to look out for the taxpayers here and this is a very uh open-ended we have no idea what the amount will be but but I can uh the actuary uh gave us an example I guess there's 39 people that this may have apply to as it's written uh and and the actuary came up with a uh since G has it $35,000 for for one year but that's uh but he also indicates that that's a 3 and a half% for uh it's going to increase 3 and a half% for uh the appropriation through the final year or when we're fully funded 2036 uh it's still going to continue however but anyway that that amount I did the math it's about a half a million dollars just for these 39 people but that's not all the future people that this might apply to somebody gets bypassed on a civil service exam or bypass on a civil servers list for a period of time you know maybe if it's a month or two months maybe that's something reasonable about two three four years somebody gets bypassed I know it may not be uh the fault of the of the person who passed the test but they also didn't work those those times and and all the time that we have in the retirement system is based on time worked and that's how everybody gets a pension uh and I just want to remind counselors the police and firefighters already have a special section of the retirement law to recognize their sacrifice that they make and they're that's why they're in group four which means they retire at 55 versus the rest of us who have to go to 65 normal retirement age they have quite a benefit as it is uh and then then just from when I read the thing about layoffs well a lot of DPW workers got lay off they're not eligible for this it's only for police and firefighters so there's there's a lot of things to consider I think the legislation has written uh you know the Retirement Board has one of the best attorneys in the state for this type of stuff he would I'm sure he would have many comments to make because the Retirement Board if this passes has to has to uh um has to vote on it administer that practice and so they need some good written rules because how do you calculate somebody's pension so uh and I imagine maybe the uh you know when it passes the state it might get another level of review but I think the Retirement Board attorney and and our City attorney probably should get together review something like this if that's the council's wishes but uh but again the short answer to this we don't know what it's going to cost because we don't know how many people it applies to how many people in the future will apply to but I can assure you this is millions of dollars of liability and just as a reminder uh we have we're about 60 3.6% funded the retirement retirement system as a 1124 retirement system uh has done a great job investing our funds we were you know 50% funded a few years ago so we're up to 63.6 which is great but it's still far from 100% so we have to pay about 27 million doll a year in our appropriation of which uh approximately 20 million or 20 uh off the top of my head it's at least 20 but I think it's 25 million is almost past service cost and our normal cost is only about 7.5 million what that means is if we uh if our forefathers paid into the pension system the way they should have we wouldn't have to make up the taxpayers today have to make up for the taxpayers in the past who didn't pay their fair share when we paid our city employees uh so in 20136 will'll be fully funded uh but right now we're paying 20 million bucks worth of interest if you will as the normal cost on the pension is about 7.5 million and it's about 20 million it's what's considered past service cost so it we're we're paying that until 2036 uh and I want to remind counselors that are P unfunded pension liabilities about $225 million maybe 209 million at the last valuation that's what we owe we owe 350 million in OPB liability so that's that's one we haven't been funding we can't fund both because it's you know the OPB liability would be another $27 million a year that's that's the police and fire budgets combined uh so if we had to pay our OPB uh annual appropriate actuar appropriated uh amount we wouldn't have a police and and firefighter force uh that's how much money it is so there's so many things to consider here uh I I just think this is this is not something that the city should entertain my recommendation to the count Council and to the mayor uh and and to the taxpayers this is not something that we should do there is one one thing that you guys mentioned and I did read into it in that's that chapter 234 or 235 that they the section that they took out the council could pass that um and and at least that has some again I think it's quite a benefit I'm not sure if it's necessary but um but the at least that that does have a a finite period of time I think it had uh creditable service for uh yeah maximum of 3 years so at least it's not uh you know if I got bypassed on a civil service list maybe it's a couple of months okay then I got appointed that's not too bad but what if I'm bypassed it's 5 years later I finally got appointed we're going to allow that person to buy back five years worth of time and and it never worked and and taxpayers have paying for it the the only thing the firefighter or the police officer has to pay towards is their uh retirement contributions had they worked uh but they still get the whatever that years of months or years of service are which is quite quite uh you know quite High uh and so so the short answer is I can't estimate what this is going to cost the the uh this one provision these 39 uh uh Personnel that we identified that might be eligible for some of this the actuary uh came up with that cost it's roughly a half a million bucks uh and it'll be much more than that uh because we don't know how many people in the future are going to apply for or going to um will follow the statute because it's it's effective which means it's anybody today who had this and anybody in the future unless we limit it and say oh that's for people in this period of time sure so through you madam chair so just that's important to note I just want to make sure you said half a million dollars is that a half a million dollar annually or half a million dollars going up to 19 19 203 the actuary uh let me just get my report out here the actuaries uh report um came up with I I uh hang on one second here it is uh the actory report had uh for the layoff piece like you I don't know how many people calculated uh 22,800 for the layoff piece and then the reserve piece uh just for FY 25 uh 12 12,800 so combined that's 3 5,600 and then he has in his report uh the change in the 26 appropriation amount will increase annually by about 3 and a half% until the system is expected to be fully funded 2026 uh and so I just did the math on a spreadsheet and and calculate out it's 35,000 for 26 36,000 for 27 38 and so forth three and a half and that's half a million bucks through 2036 but it still is after 2036 it still has to continue so I understand and I'm going to relinquish the floor here in a second but my my question through you madam chair is so two more which is I want to make sure I understand that we're looking at um about $335,500 annually with a with the cost of living adjustment of maybe 3.5% every year 3 and a half% every year going in and that's where you've adjusted so it's just for these 39 no I I I get that and I'm going to get that to a second uh I want to get to to how many 30 39 people I think it's 39 uh I think they looked at the records thought I want I want to swing back to that I don't want to take too much time I do want to swing back to that but before I go back I just want to know is it your experience and understanding what other communities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have provided this kind of across theboard benefits that we are seeing that's being proposed now before the city council yeah I don't think there's anybody with this that's why it's home petition uh how many people adopted chapter 235 um how many towns adopted chapter 23 that's not my question that seems like the easy that seems like low hanging fruit that's low hanging fruit it seems to me and I think I can jump on board that fairly quickly but I just want to know I mean it's my understanding that we're talking about individuals that have gotten home rule petition as opposed to the entire municipalities that are provided to and I think that's from my in doing the research that I've done on it that seems to me as being part of the issue which is that we don't know necessarily what the universe of people is going to be and that's why we are rolling the dice and you can't give us a number but you did give us a number on 39 individuals that you said that were res me that's the actuary act give the numbers are the retirement board's actuary because you know how long do people live and so forth that's what the actuary's expertise is so Gina asked their actuary the retirement board's actuary uh and they pulled some numbers on on who would be applicable to the layoff and Reserve whether they got them all we're not sure but they what they thought was the the number and they provided that information to the actuary probably their earnings and and so on uh with whatever the actuary asked for so he could come up with an estimate of oh what's the cost to the retirement system and that's where he came up with the 35,000 there was going to be other questions by this members of this committee and so I don't what I want to is put my ore in the water now as saying this I think there's an opportunity for us to tighten this thing up where we're not looking at this ambiguous uncertain cost at the very least if we know what the potential cost of maybe 39 people the actuaries have singled out that's saying these are people who are affected now we have a bottom line definite number that we as policy makers and decision makers can make a decision saying yeah I think it's worth the $35,500 this year in the next fiscal year to help pay for that into 3 and a 12% going to into 19 I keep saying 19 to 2034 at least I know that that that that's going in and and when we're talking about people who were laid off especially that to me there's commitment that those people made no fault of their own they were laid off at least that makes sense to me I I like to show some fairness there I know you may argue with that and I'm interested in hearing the argument I really am um but and the other part of it is is the reserve list as well they were cut off at 2009 that they could have gotten potentially up to 5 years and I realize your argument they didn't work for this why did we do it but they were essentially at some point before that 2019 SJC ruling they were provided some understanding and Reliance that they were going to get this and then things switched on them and what Captain Mr Roman I'm going to call him Mr Romano tonight what Mr Romano said I think resonates to me to a certain extent which is the the rules kind of change Midstream um and and it's a finite number I think that's going to be impacted in our city so at least I have a a justifi a a a a defined figure and it's not like oh my God I don't know where this is going as far as numbers I just want to make one point as well and that is when when we hire our city employees there's a retirement law that uh that they're eligible for and everybody knows it is chapter 32 people can look it up if they want but that's the that's the contract we make with employees when we hire them it's not oh after I get hired I'd like to get something else on top of that uh that's that's not what the city signed up for when we hired them uh so that's just just some a point to make one thing that just was discussed earlier is buying back time and so forth uh that happens all the time um uh although we mentioned dual membership but but if if uh if uh somebody were to work in another governmental unit um they generally can buy back that time with one caveat the caveat is that uh and I know UMass uh uh UMass uh school is one that has had a lot of people who they work summer jobs while they're in college and they don't pay into the UMass P State Pension system so when they want to buy back that time the retirement system uh would say well okay uh uh I had uh two years working at at a at the University of Massachusetts but they would the Retirement Board would ask them well will you accept the liability for that for that two years that somebody worked there because now they're working in Lawrence and they want to buy back that time and off I know the UMass uh UMass always answers no we won't buy that time or we won't uh uh certified that time because they when we hired that person it was a non pensional position it's a part-time helper or whatnot we have the same thing people who work under 20 hours here in in Lawrence are not eligible for our retirement system that's a Retirement Board rule so anytime worked under you know somebody works in Lawrence as a pool guard or a summer helper or something like that they aren't paying into our pension system so if they go work in methan and oh they want to buy back this time from Lawrence 30 years from now uh we would not uh certify that time or or pay for that time but the retirement boards uh do bill each other annually it's called the 38c payment uh I learned and uh they bill each other for all this time uh that people have in different communities I'm not sure about the I guess the is the MBTA not part of the pension this Commonwealth of Massachusetts system is that why that was that just use as an example okay oh just an example yeah just an example the Retirement Board does this all the time they can best answer all of those questions TR you did a great job my job easier um I mean are you asking specifically about the um circumstance number one or the MBTA or no that was the CLE mentioned that and I just said that that's an example such as that you can tell by the uh uh language but from the beginning the sentiment of the council was that we want to work together we it is you know we see your points about it being open-ending and if there's anything that we can you know we can figure out and finetune 100% time we we would like to to do that we would like to know the the opinion of your attorney and also the opinion of of the City attorney um and as far as a cap like Mr armano said this is it's up to the council I mean this is this is why we're councel this is why you have both drafts in front of you this is why we have um the Retirement Board AR CAO in front of us too to work together to to to to get this to a point that perhaps we can meet in the middle and and perhaps see if if this is might be good legislation I I also met with every president of the Union I met with the fire um Union presidents the patrolman the patrol officers Union president and the superior officers pres um Union President we all met together and I also had them look over this and give feedback and also ask questions about it as well um the reason why and I just the reason why they're here is cuz they they haven't had a union meeting they wer going to have a union meeting in time so this has not been presented as a union as a whole but I did get feedback from from those individuals um and quite frankly um I'm not going to mention which one but one of the presidents went through a similar situation and he explained to me that the the process was was a pain for for him he believes that this will streamline things a little better in terms of buying back time um but again this is it's up to the council if there's a cap great if the council as a whole we believe this is not li like it's not a good idea as a whole we scrap it like this this is the job that that we're elected to do um so that's my comment I just have one more comment on the legislation sections two and three sections three I think had uh something about using uh paying it back and making a truste to trustee transfer I'm not sure if that's allowable defer to the Retirement Board on that but but those sections need to be reviewed by the retirement board's attorney to make sure that fits in with how they accept uh payment I have one more question I have one more comment um before I pass it on to to another to another counselor this is my one counselor my my my opinion on this um in terms of fire and police having a a special claw and and and our laws about their retirement penion stuff like that um these are individuals that put their life on the line every day they go into fires they we've lost officers um in the act of Duty I have and if if you walk let me talk about my district if you walk through District e and you talk about emergency Personnel District Mo the majority of District e constituents support fire and police so much they don't play around when it comes to Public Safety they don't play around when it comes to our our emergency personnel and those who have spent some time in District you know I see counselor Ry is not and they know that they don't play around um when it comes to these to these individuals uh I also see we we we invest all we approve funding for projects and other organizations that we don't even know what they're doing with today we approve I mean we support pensions of of city employees that quite frankly we and I'm going to say this because we've all had we've all received feedbacks that quite friendly don't even know how to do the job and yet people that put their line on their life on the line every day for not only us but for our kids and for the entire city of City of Lawrence um there's always a butt and uh that's that's the that's the uh that's the last comment but like I said if there's a way to do this obviously I want to work it out see what we can do and at the end of the day if it does not make sense then we don't move forward and that's what we're here to do um councelor Maro let all your hand up through you madam chair um I'm hearing the word buyback a lot and um I don't want to offend anyone and I think um I it could be quite embarrassing not understanding what that is uh but I think it's important um if possible if you could give an explanation as to what is what does it mean to buy back and what is that process like considering that um our uh Madame chair um explained the fact that it's difficult and they're having issues and this would help streamline it so if you could give an explanation as to what does it mean to buy back and what is that process like sure the current laws with retirement with respect to retirement under Mass General La chapter 32 which is which is the 104 retirement boards in the state fall under if you worked for a community within the Commonwealth of mass um in a an entity that paid into or has the city retirement if you did not pay in you can purchase that time you can um like Mark said if this you know we if it was a community outside of Lawrence um we can ask the other community to pick up the liability for the service often times they'll say no and Lawrence ends up picking it up it's not hard to do we do it daily um if you worked in the in the City of Lawrence clearly you know we're going to give you the option to buy it back you're going to buy it back this is all um very open service that that first bullet point is for people like the massay transit authority they have their own private fund so they didn't pay they don't have they're not part of the chapter 32 umbrella so the only problem I would say with that is they're saying such as the mass transit authorities so you could be talking about hundreds of governmental agencies that don't that have their own retirement system so now you're taking entities that aren't part of the system that part of chapter 32 encompasses and you're saying you know maybe you have a police officer who worked 10 years prior to and he was a bus driver so now he's going to be eligible to buy his bus driving service um you know I mean this is just a giant umbrella yeah so you know that stuff to us again as a Retirement Board you know we don't tend to get involved I mean like you Mark said we could ask our our attorney but that's something the retirement board's going to pay for you know to go through legislation that we don't create you know we can maybe if you had certain questions and you wanted to ask I could certainly try or they have peric attorneys who what happens when it goes up to the state level they it goes to the state level they'll send it out to a committee to research it and that committee will reach out to pera's attorney they're the government you know the the body that governs all of the mass laws and they're going to make this bill with you know the conditions you set work with chapter 32 so to have our board get directly involved in that I'm not sure if my board would want to do that well the only reason why I mentioned that is because it is going to cost the uh depending on if this is poorly written it could cost the Retirement Board a lot more money and so we would want I would recommend that uh the Bo's attorney look at it but certainly there are parak attorneys who maybe could look at it as well but I think there's uh you know other words the City of Lawrence has an interest in it or the bence Retirement Board has an interest in getting this law right because if they uh as as stewards of the system they're the ones who who are going to figure it out and uh and again if uh if we're accepting liability for time work and a community that doesn't take the liability our taxpayers is going to be on the hook for the whole thing just that buyback program just the point I just wanted to make for councelor maral was if if uh if I worked in Methuen uh and bought back my time uh or I I I worked from methu and withdrew my money and then and then came to work here uh I could buy back that time that I had Methuen and methan would take ownership of oh yeah he did work here 10 years and they would accept the 10 years of liability so how they actually bill each other back and forth I don't know Gina can answer that but basically they figure that out so that methan pays its fair share towards my service here in in in lawen so that's the buyback situ and then it's all under the umbrella of of any system or any City in town that is part of chapter or any entity that pays into chapter 32 before um that was the last point was if I did buy back the time I have to buy back my my time and paid in and they charge me a certain percentage of Interest the Retirement Board makes those rules and that's why I mentioned one of these things had a truste to trustee transfer I don't think that's allowable I think they have to pay cash or or pay over time uh Retirement Board could set that up but not sure if they would accept a check from a 401k plan somewhere we do uh oh you do okay they do that's the reason why I asked this question um or I was urging for you guys to explain it because I remember um not back a few years ago when I was younger not being so knowledgeable about retirement as I should cuz I work work for the state but when you use the word buy back it's like it makes you think like am I buying it back as an employee or is it so that's why I thought it was super important for you guys to actually explain um step by step as to what does it entail that way um we we have a a better understanding and making a logical decision Mr con I I I know you is there anything you would like to add to this discussion uh yes I thank you for the opportunity councilors thank you very one that's there I know that we have um a lot of you know questions and a lot of things that are going through uh the process of trying to understand this but we're looking to try and work with uh Miss anelo and also Gina um Gina Rizzo from the Retirement Board and the paric attorneys we want their input we want to try and resolve this so that we can get something that is going to make sense we're not trying to do something that is not equal and fair we're trying to make something that is going to help uh the men and women that protect and serve this community trying and get a service that we should have gotten but because of particular issues it hasn't been included as an inclusive process so in in your packet you do have circumstances and situations where this issue has been addressed and it's been done so it's not that you can't it's whether you're willing to allow this to happen if we want to cap this to let's say um not an infinite number but four years that that's great let's do that but let's make it fair and Equitable so that everyone has an opportunity um and I think that the most important aspect of this is here we have a situation where if you're working for different entities and you're trying to do it there's very few situations I think that the MBTA is is one of those singular anomalies where I'm not allowed to let's say and so now we're trying to close that situation so that you can um the other issue is regarding the buyback you you're basically investing money into a retirement system and I know it doesn't make it 100% but you're taking money and and what I would like to maybe have is for someone to give an example of what one year would cost to buy back that time and then if you were to make four years of it some people are at their limit it's not like you're going to have people from aund you know like 50 years ago buying into the system because you do have a limitation of retirement so most of the folks that are going to benefit from this are probably already retired they're gone they're not probably even working and even if let's say tomorrow I decide to retire after I buy my time back I might pass away so I'll never collect any of the money that I inputed into it it's a Gamble and I just want to make sure that it's clear that we're trying to make this work and we need everyone's help we're not trying to get something for nothing we're trying to make this Fe and Equitable I appreciate everyone who's there and I thank you for your time and um Mike uh thank you Mike armano for presenting this and and making this uh a little bit easier to to explain because it is intricate but we're looking for your help thank you thank you C president council president and then Council I have a few questions can you can you buy back time to be able to get bested um yes as long as you're a member of the system you can buy back time within the Comm the mass you know that is pension no within this or within this law within this law sure I mean if this passed the way it is um just with the way I'm reading it that's the thing I mean it there's so many variables so many moving pieces like able said maybe it's only a handful of people but we don't know that with with you know circumstance number one they you know and and and again I'm not going to I don't want to I'm a proponent of the police enire I they you know I know they do a city I'm always going to back them but this leaves a lot of room where you say cost for the city you're asking me about the cost and I know Mark is going to look at the cost but I'm going to tell you with this it leaves It Wide Open for abuse so now you get somebody who is 10 years you pass this law it doesn't just affect people today this affects people forever so you get somebody who works for one of these quasi agencies that doesn't pay into retirement and they work there 12 years and they say well you know what I saw this on the books now I'm going to go get a job as a policeman and Lawrence and now I can get 12 years you know and buy that back um and we you know to to put a price tag on that you can't you'd have to find out what they paid in you know got got paid as a job you'd have to figure out the percentage whatever the interest rate you guys are setting and then you know that's 12 years that now they've got to pay in a piece but then it could cost for the future I mean my recommendation again I'm not going to recommend I shouldn't recommend to you but if you're going to do something like this and like Abel said if it's for people right here now find your people make it just for them cuz he showed you examples every one of those examples he showed you were for a listed number of people you weren't opening up to two departments wide open for the rest of the future um the the pieces that Mark said that we did the um Actuarial study on I think are great pieces personally because um like Michael armano said you know we have always in chapter 32 offered 5 years of free Reserve credit as a benefit for our Public Safety workers who put their lives on the line every day that SJC case came out and um it it took all that away from anybody after 2009 there's only six people that that incompasses in the city right now the price tag just for that Reserve piece $12,800 the only way that would change is if the city started doing Reserve again they don't do it anymore so that's that's a a cap um the the chapter 235 which the layoff piece 33 people there's a price tag on it that would be open-ended though so if in four years the city laid off another group of people they would again be able to purchase again there would be a cost um you know as far as again the bypass date so those people were not working there's no price tag to that there's no Financial they're going to get free credit and I can't tell you how many people are in bypass list I have no idea what's the criteria for that going to be is it just somebody that sat on a list for 12 years that's been working at Home Depot and then he gets put on the department and now he gets free 12 years well those nothing is free so that's going to cost the pension fund the fund that you people are paying into you know I'm not against this but I think it definitely needs more study and and something something important something very important that we haven't mentioned uh during this discussion that once you get Vesta you get health insurance forever years rested yeah you get rested in 10 years 10 years I mean theal Insurance the health insurance might become an issue as well once you get vested like bested by not providing the service I mean I agree with everybody has has said here I definitely appreciate the work that that uh the fires and the police department we do but we also need to understand that it might become a liability to the to the taxpayers and we are me personally the way I see it is like you know there is negotiations with it with the with the unions and um this this last contract that we have it was was something that we didn't have before we have the the quein bill that we added and to to the Departments and so far so on and that was something that I mean it was very well considered and and and very well costly and we definitely reched and everybody was happy about it and something that you know we need to take into consideration uh having this in front of us today is like a challenging because we need to we have an open an an open-ended like you know conversation like you know it might something might happen in 20 years from now and we make this decision today it's like I don't know but I mean it's kind of tough to say like support that I have for the for the fires and and police have nothing to do with it you know not me not necessarily being in favor of the way that it is right now I think the intent is wonderful but I you know almost feel feel like if they pulled it apart and just named the people in each thing you know and it didn't open it wide up but I think they want to benefit all of the department I think they want everyone to but I don't know how you can put a price tug on this and I don't know what this you know could do you could send it up to the state like this and they could pick it apart and I don't I don't really know and again to remind everyone we're not looking for a decision tonight this is this is a conversation this is a there we have we have questions we have scenarios we have this is just we're bringing everyone together to see if it's even possible refine you know refine this and present we have to present it again present it if the council still feels like you know then then it's that it doesn't pass or or if we do our you know some job and and they're like okay us as a whole this covers most of our questions great let's move forward I this is what we're here to do so Mr armano I see that you have a comment just just a couple points of information U thank you for all the discussion and conversation is great I think some of these there very easy solutions such as the vesting it could be a member who's already vested uh which completely aligns with the intent of this home rule petition very easy to add that in there as well as your cap council president that you suggested that could be something if it pleases the council just a couple points though with as far as reserves go there's a lot of men and women in the police and fire when they're hired they're appointed Reserves at least um when that happened more often that was a commitment to these men and women to stay in one system and stay in the city of Lawrence as opposed to going to other departments uh and that's happened in our department where there's other offers it might be with the Boston fight department massport LOL wherever it may be and when they were made a reserve they committed to waiting for that position they also delayed other career path always another pension system so you have a private system which or even Social Security which the private sector pays into and the public sector is separately is separate and what this does it bridges that Gap so you can have a full pension system with all being public I also want to point out this isn't a a department-wide thing it's actually very unique uh there's very few people who worked for a government unit that did not have a public pension system in fact there's 104 different public pension systems so it's Unique and what this does is for the one or two people in these departments that this fell under it it fills the gap for them and gets them up to speed in a public system as opposed to the private system as far as the layoffs go I think it's very important we talk about cost I think Mr inello could probably give us the exact numbers but my understanding it's thousands and thousands of dollars to rehire some of these firefighters and police offices and send them through the academy at one point I think I think it was $155,000 just to go through the academy so when these members get laid off uh one thing you may or may not know is there's a right to go serve in another city in fact they go on the number one position to get rehired in in fact this happened in Lawrence where they went to L and havl and walam and some of them stayed a little bit and they were paying into the pension system by the way and that's not what we're looking for we're looking for the gap of time the 4mon period when they got laid off from Lawrence and then it took four months before they got picked up by these other departments but then they decided to come back so they're not going to recover the time that they served in LOL or walam or whatever it was but these were laurentians who loved the City of Lawrence wanted to serve the City of Lawrence and thankfully they came back so we didn't have to spend thousands of dollars and lose all that experience that we had with these veterans so they came back it saved the city money and it's not out cost is not that easy it's the same thing like we talk about with injured in the line of duty we're not the typical city the city of Lawrence is unique we all know that the social determinance that we have the effects that it has on our residence alone lowers our our living age in some places I I read a stat in my public health world uh that I think it was Chelsea had an 18-year difference between Chelsea and Newton Lawrence is much different than marac or ramsbury or Newberry Port that's just if you live here never mind if you're a firefighter police officer living under the stressors of a community that suffers through so many social determinants so I think I I I commend you for all even having this this discussion but I think this is a big issue and it's a lot of support that you're giving to again protect one of the greatest assets we have as a city and that's our employees at the subcommittee meeting earlier we were talking about paying for storage and we wouldn't think twice about buying assets and paying for storage for different things these are our our assets our employ always these are people who care about the city that serve put their lives on the line and they every day and they think nothing of it these are lench and they want to serve here so it's it's a great benefit to protect our assets I think cost is can be defined in so many different ways but it's important to look at the other costs the things like what would it cost to rehire what would it cost if a firefighter police officer was on that edge and again they pushed and pushed and pushed and now they're injured in the line of duty and what are the costs to our our firefighters and police that we don't see it's it's tragic when we've seen the deaths that we have in the City of Lawrence and we have had some it's tragic when we see the deaths around Massachusetts but what about the guys and gals that have cancer so many do because they're going into buildings and we have many fires and they're investigating fires and they're smelling this stuff and touching this stuff and it's on their skin they're taking it home I think there's a reason I I really appreciate what you said Council vice president about protecting this profession and it's it's why I'm so passionate about it I mean for me it goes back into my family it goes to my father my grandfather both of which who were injured in the line of duty one from heart heart uh condition my grandfather and and my father later from cancer and thankfully you know he's doing all right but this is the profession and this is and he was a proud man and I'm proud to stand before you and advocate for the profession of fire and police and I think it means a little bit more and I I really appreciate you recognize recognizing that thank you thank you Council uh and thank you Captain C through you Madame chair I didn't see y uh and yes I think we all appreciate the work the hard work that you do uh the fir fires and the police department but also uh what we have in front of us lives uh too many doors open and I think uh my opinion is to uh take time to create something that closes those doors and also take in consideration the financial pece because we heard maranelo he we heard him is stating that we already in trouble financially and if we're going to compromise for something at least let that that be um something um that that we can afford as a city so what we have in front of us is not what we should be sending I think we need more information uh I would like to get more information on the financial piece and um and from there we can take a more um reasonable decision thank you Madame chair thank you Council Levy thank you m you um yes I agree with uh with with the counciling we need more information about the financial situation that's one of the most important you know that we don't want to open a door and then we can how can we to inv the city you have here yes I got it can you hear me okay so we don't want it like to Embark the city in something that maybe later we will not able to afford or to comply with so there are so many things in here um um Mr aelo gave it to us a lot of information regarding the situation that uh regarding the financial situation I would like to see everything you know in in writing I think that we still need more information Legal Information that we should also get in here our City attorney of and give it to us information you know on where we are going from here to there um to over there and see we decided to go forward we all we all knows you know the work that the firefighter is doing the work that the police department is been doing so we are all proud that's you know about the safety of our community but also the safety of all of them but I think that we should get uh all this information to put it together I don't think so that today we should approve it I think that maybe we should table and maybe this conversation can be continued you know later and while we get more information inclusive from you guys uh uh I know that you mention all of the things that can bring later maybe not today but it's going to continue whatever that we do it today is going to be forever let's say and the city you know is the one who's going to be uh suffering or whatever decision that we can make it uh in here we're going to be practically the first city that is going to engage in doing this home R peti we should be be looking I don't know but this is my concern we should be looking on ask uh other City around and see what they think you know about doing the same the same thing on their own City and nor and met so close City you know the City of Lawrence is going to be a city of first because we have another home rule petition about voter identification and we will be we will be the first city that we will be the first city for that as well in the common wealth we going exactly that is something that's we are trying to do another home run petition on that but we're going to be the city of the first I think so that there are so many things that happen in the city that we are you know practically the example for other city but we want to do it on the correct way sure so that everybody can be included not somebody be ex uh somebody be excluded from and like you mentioned there are hundred of way for retirements you know that's uh can be affected can be work for and that we can get the help for all of these people just the firefighters the police and whoever that work for the city any any anyway so and that's is my my advice in this in this Cas I don't think so that we should do any B we should table and we can continue working you know and another another time we knew that we when we say okay let's send it to the H uh to the committee of the H is because we knew that this is something that is going to take a time and we need to understand what we are avoided mostly when our constituency are the one who's going to pay practically for whatever decision that we make it State thank you counselor ly I 100% agree with you with everything with other counselors have said and I think um I I think it's it's an I I don't want to use the word honorable but I guess I'm going to use the word honorable because I can't think of another term right now but that we are a city we are becoming a city of first we are looking into into topics and into into things that other municipalities aren't doing and perhaps um whether it may work for us it it may not and um like like I think we all share the same s sentiment we want to make we want to do the right thing and make sure that we you know cross our te's and do our eyes so I 100 100% you know agree with that and um you we'll we'll see where it goes so if I here um I will say there's almost no way to put a cost on some of this because it would be individuals coming approaching with lists um gathering information um the two pieces that we were able to put a price tag on which would be um if you as a council adopted chapter 235 which is the layoff piece um and and I have some information I can give you which is what we um collected from our actuary and then the reserve piece those are pretty straightforward it's the other pieces there's no way to put a cost I mean I've talked to the attorneys up at perac there's no way to no matter how much studying we do unless we had concrete information and you know they the people that that would Encompass um circumstance one and three they'd have to provide that information to us for us to even anticipate a cost and then it would be the cost to them the cost to the city it's um but I can give you this is the c those pie yeah yeah yes uh the financial things that I mention was regarding whatever that's uh Melo explaining you know I would like this is okay thank you that's that piece Council love sure council president why don't we send correspondence to the attorney which is called par mhm sure it's Public Employee Retirement Administration commission sure and able to get some motion has been made by council president is there a second seconded by councelor lzone discussion quick question counc Council so earlier we we had a conversation regarding sending it to perak and getting an opinion and mhm would they respond to municipality's request for that or they only going to respond to the state delegation no probably you because you would be the one spare heading the you know I I don't know i' have to actually ask and that's my first question someone talking about pay would is that going to come out of your high in your budget if we ask for an opinion on this thing that come out your if we asked our own personal board attorney okay right so the our we pay an attorney to help us with our retirement law you know not to so we're going to parac not your not your board's attorney so we're going to go there okay if it goes up to the state level they're going to reach out when they it goes to um a study to per directly got it thank you so you're just sort of bypassing you know not wasting time having it set up in the legislative level so um when it comes to sending correspondence how we how we can we to be able to to send that correspondence can we send it to you able to manage sure send it to them absolutely cuz I mean when we send it to Teresa she' be like okay sure who is this abolutely okay so all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it any other questions or comments so just council president so uh um Mr C do you mind providing also the extrapolated number that you putting together that you ended up getting like half a million dollars out of this 35,000 here give it here cuz if it is 35 today we make it happen it's not 35 yeah I just did the math on the from the provided by the actuary so the total is $467,500 of 39 people right just what they know about today that's correct and that's with the petition being open anded like with as we claim today just as as we're in right now this would be just the people they know about today I think people they know today but I mean that would be anybody that was feel like they were bypass and they get a proving case at the Civil Service those cases we don't know right I think it's a future cases we don't know I think what they know is there are certain people that laid off during the last few years and I think that's what the Retirement Board provided to the actuary and then uh some people might had uh if they were reserved was it the reserved firefighters was the other piece so we have the laid off and the reserve nobody like no bypass no Bypass or no no any other that have other retirement right uh none of that because Nam the time of can you go to the to the podium please it's okay it's cuz we have people watching at home so they won't be able to no I met with them they were wonderful um they provided me a list of names of the firefighters and the police officers that were laid off I was able to break it down further many of them went to other communities so they left Lawrence they were laid off um they went to say um havil they worked there for a year then they were called back to Lawrence so there was only maybe a 3-month gap as you can see in some of them um so we you know we had concrete amounts names service so our actuary could take that and and produce something the the other pieces it's very hard to put a price tag I can't you know and it just leaves a lot of room but I think it it warrants a lot of study I mean I think it's great what they're doing and want to do but it's you know right thank you so much yeah thank you motion to table motion has been made seconded by councelor Santiago okay can I make it an I'm just do Mo table table can you withdraw your your motion can counc can you withdraw your motion or resend your motion can you take back your motion down we it just counc hold on are you taking back your your motion C take back my motion Madame chair thank you Council lby okay the only thing that I want to add to the motion is just to send the or a correspondent to the City attorney so and send him this uh this proposal of this hom Dr petition or his review and his recommendation so motion has been made to send this petition to the City attorney for review and recommendation is there a second second seconded by council president discussion seeing none all those in favor say I I and the eyes have motion to table motion made properly second it all those in favor say I I and the ice have it motion to motion to adourn there second second probably second all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it thank you so much counselors e e e