##VIDEO ID:EVDSKXybwrU## this government meeting is brought to you by eastworks and our local cable subscribers let me just admit these people and get back to this uh the meeting tonight is being recorded and broadcast by edia on Charter channel 193 and live streaming on the web page at eastampton media.org counselors and participants in this meeting are Gather in hybrid on the order extended until March 2025 allowing us to do so uh I remind both the members of the city council and the public participating remotely to remain muted until recognized by the city council president also for the members of the public please remove your camera for the duration of the meeting unless you are participating in the public speak um or the public hearing uh thank you this meeting is now called order Barbara con Dam here Salem Derby JP kazinski here Tom PE here Brad Riley there's no audio oh there can you hear us now Brad yes now I can hear you thank you okay we just called to order so we're doing attendance here Brad are you here I am here thank you Tamar Smith here JT Terell here Owen Zer here okay um so tonight we have a special meeting um and it's an exciting meeting where we are going to get to introduce a a new counselor um but before we do that if anybody would like to speak um in relation to this and and to anything really um please step to the podium state your name and address for the record and you'll have three minutes uh my name is Nathan Marquee I live at 37 Holio street I'm not coming to you as a constituent today I'm coming as the chair of the East Hampton Democratic City committee and I'm sure that everybody probably received the letter that I sent email a couple days ago but I'm going to read it into public record now to the members of the East Hampton um city council we as members of the executive committee of the East Hampton Democratic committee are writing this letter in support of the appointment of Felicia jadik to the vacant position on the East Hampton City Council Miss jazik resides in Precinct to and and has expressed her desire to serve her neighbors our and our community as city counselor for Precinct to M jazik has a history of community involvement in Civic engagement and she is eager to bring those skills experiences and passion for public service to this role she's a small business owner of a consulting firm and has extensive experience in working in multiple and diverse groups of stakeholders in her 20 plus years of professional experience she has developed the ability to listen to and understand varying perspectives we believe these skills will be beneficial to her role as City councelor M jadik has been an active community advocate for her neighborhood and for East Hampton she is a member of the East Hampton City Arts Coordinating Committee and is the chair of the East Hampton cultural Council her leadership and efforts as a member of the eastampton city arts led to East Hampton hosting its first ever porch Fest Music Festival located in the new city neighborhood in Precinct 2 this event was successful and doubled in in size the second year through this work she has built connections with neighbors and community members this has given her insight into the dynamic Dynamics within Precinct 2 and the city at large we met with Felicia and we firmly believe that our priority priorities closely align with our values collectively we share a vision of fostering a vibrant and Equitable Community supporting sustainable development and ensuring transparent governance we are confident that if Felicia jadik is appointed to the seat on the city council she will approach the role with utmost commitment integrity and respect for the voices of her constituents we believe that she will contribute in a meaningful meaningful ways as she serves on E the city of East Hampton as the chairperson of the East Hampton Democratic committee I submit this with full agreement and support of the members of the eastampton de Democratic executive committee sincerely Nathan Marquee East Hampton Democratic committee chairperson thank you thank you anybody else from the public like to make a statement and um if we don't have anybody here if anybody online would like to make a a statement just raise your virtual hand um or you can turn on your camera and I can recognize you that way seeing none okay we will move on um so I think uh as far as an introduction um of our candidate here I think um from us as the council we're very appreciative that you stepped forward um and we're excited to have you here and the next part of this is for you to make your statement so if you would step to the podium be great thank you all right greetings eastampton city council and to the members of the public online and in person my name is Felicia jzac I youi her pronouns and as was stated I am a resident of East Hampton's Precinct 2 I am very excited at the possibility in Prospect of joining the city council and I look forward to serving with you and serving the consti of East Hampton's Precinct 2 as well as the larger City at large I am a small business owner I have been running a workplace consulting firm for over 10 years now and I have been long very much passionate about serving and being part of the neighborhoods and the communities that I live in so everything that I do is around building relationships and forging those connections with people to make sure that we can work together to serve our community and our City for a better future if elected and appointed to this position what I'm looking forward to doing is to really focus on helping and being a voice in terms of guiding East Hampton into the future we have a lot ahead of us and there's a lot of uncertainty as well as a lot of opportunity and I'm looking forward to being part of those conversations with you all thank you great um so do any councelors have any questions for Miss Json y so D good to see you um I have the pleasure of chatting with you a few times and you've been participating in the municipal Academy um which has been um really great so you're also kind of seeing the city and meeting residents and whatnot so I guess my my my question is um Precinct 2 is our most diverse neighborhood or Precinct um it's racially and ethnically diverse um it's economically diverse um there are businesses in that district there are res you know residential areas in that residential neighbor neighborhoods in that District so I guess my my question to you is um you know what are the things that you'll be doing to be able to outreach and to get input from folks um and uh really working to um get feedback from the community so that we can best address the needs of of that Precinct absolutely I think that first of all I've already made a lot of con connections living as a resident there so I'm going to be trading on those those relationships and those connections that already exist but as you mentioned it is very diverse there are businesses there are parts of what a lot of people consider to be main area of eastampton there's also neighborhoods and there's neighborhoods that are not always um considered when thinking about some of our larger activities and and focuses and so what I'm hoping to do knowing that this is an appointment that I am stepping into big shoes to fill of homar Gomez and that this is something that will be for the next few months and not the next two years um even with that limited amount of time to me what I'm looking to do is to set up a weekly or regular Cadence of community meetings where my thinking is it will be somewhere within Precinct to likely a business like for example shellburn Falls coffee roaster where I'll hold essentially open Office hours and so that way anyone who wants to can come connect with me I'm also very online and I have different social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram and whatnot and I'll be continuing to hold those accounts and invite people to connect with me online as well because I know that in person is not always feasible also I have already been doing this but I intend to continue to go to different events and openings there's new businesses that are opening in eastw Works coming up the next few months there's um all all sorts of activities that are happening and so I intend to be a very prominent figure and present at some of those activities and Community Gatherings so that people can connect with me in person as well especially if folks are not able to come to for example an open quote unquote office hour great thank you very much thank you any other counselors counselor Smith in your letter and in discussions that I've had with you um you talked about your commitment to the Arts and I just wanted to ask you first of all how the porch series went what you thought the best aspects of it were and just explain what that was for anyone who doesn't doesn't know that particular event and then in the future in your plans as a city councelor um how would you consider the Arts like what do you mean by that statement absolutely so I'll start with porchfest so this or I should say in 2024 was our second porchfest event that we held it is essentially an a Grassroots organic music festival for anyone who's not familiar with it the idea is that unlike a traditional concert where you would go to a venue that holds concerts and you would maybe pay or go somewhere where it's more of a business this is around really meeting your neighbors and connecting with people who live in the same Community as as you may live and so it's really about this blurring of public and private where essentially the public is getting invited into what are traditionally more private spaces such as a front porch a back porch a driveway a backyard things like that so it was our second year this past year we were able to double in size and we actually expanded into two neighborhoods so the first year was just in the new city neighborhood and we had six host locations and 12 performers this past year we doubled in size and we were also able to uh have a presence in the Maple Street neighborhood as well there's been a lot of excitement around that and people are really loving it and so what I personally have loved about this event and why I ended up initially wanting to bring it to eastampton is for that exact reason of connecting with people in ways that aren't always available to us it was actually inspired by cultural chaos so when my husband and I moved here in 2021 on a Facebook post around the time of cultural chaos somebody posted during the event and said hey this event is happening I live one or two streets over I'm playing music on my front porch come on by and that really inspired us and inspired me to think oh this is exactly the kinds of connections that I'm interested in seeing where it's not about setting up a date and a time to have an appointment it's not about having a play date with your kids or running into someone while you're walking a dog it's just about coming together and enjoying your community and enjoying your neighborhood and meeting your neighbors on a personal level having done this twice now I have met a lot of neighbors who live next to me near me and on my daily walks I'm constantly bumping into people it's been really great in that regards because it also gives me as I was saying earlier that sort of foundation on which I've already made these connections within the community Comm and we've been hearing a lot of really positive feedback as far as people saying this is so great we didn't know that this person lived here or that this space was here or I never met this person before or this musician and there's been a lot of relationships that have been fostered out of that going to the second part of your question around how I intend to bring in the Arts into my role on city council having been a member of the ECA for um just over two years now I've had a front row seat and an side look into a lot of the Dynamics around Arts within eastampton some of the challenges and some of the opportunities that we have available to us and so I think that I bring a really unique voice into that where not saying that Arts is not part of all of our our interests and things that we want to support but I really come from that sort of on the ground having heard from example for example from artists who were affected by The Cottage Street Studios change recently having heard and worked with them over many months around how this is going to impact not only them at an individual level but also the city and so that's really what I'm interested in serving as kind of this liaison between this community that I've been part of and being part of the conversations that you all at city council level are having that are trickling down and impacting people in these in these spaces great thank you so much appreciate that um it looks like councelor Riley go ahead Council Riley uh thank you Mr President um so uh to that point from the the last response um I did also want to take a moment to um honor the work that Felicia has done in this area so I first met her two years ago uh through the appointment process as chair of the appointments committee and um and I've been able to see her actualize all of the things that she said that she wanted to do um and she's done them to the highest expectation that I thought would even be possible um I believed in her vision when when we met and to see what the um Concert Series has become is just it's been a joy to watch that so I wanted to take that moment initially to to honor the work that she did and and to verify that she was very clear that this was something she wanted to accomplish and she did accomplishment um so uh to Felicia first I want to thank you for volunteering to serve in this capacity um you know in my opinion there's no greater service than public service and it takes a lot of guts and empathy and intellect to help run a city of 16,000 people and it's not lost on me the Endeavor that you're willing to undertake to serve your Precinct so I I wanted to thank you for that um you know my question for you is really an attempt to rip the Band-Aid off of a pervasive issue in the way that um City councilors the mayor and school committee members have historically communicated with each other in hopes that your career path may be a much needed Salve for what ails us um elected officials in East Hampton have a history of unfairly weaponizing social identity to attack The credibility and credentials of each other or to use it as a shield to hide behind transparency and accountability and simultaneously there are very real issues where the government like all governments across the country simply doesn't serve every citizen in East Hampton in Fair and Equitable way ways that it's supposed to this behavior and this problem predates my time on the council but I feel like over the last you know three and a half years or so that it's it started to get worse um and you know and I will say that last year we were able to welcome councelor Smith back to the council with a sociologist perspective that I think is much needed but being able to have someone with your professional experience I think is an additional opportunity for us to engage in these kinds of different ult conversations so with all that contextualized how would you use your professional experiences to help heal the dialogue across the government so that way we can get back to serving the people of East Hampton and to to you know see each other for who we are and and to respect our identities and our cultures the way that we're supposed to Yes uh I will start by saying it's not lost on me that again the shoes that I'm hopefully going to be filling are also big ones from an identity perspective so homar is leaving and that's a big loss as far as what kinds of identities are represented on the counil My Hope Is if I'm appointed that I will help to alleviate some of those Dynamics a little bit in terms of my own identities and to your point councelor Riley what I will say to the uh the question around healing um without having been part of the city council you don't know what you don't know until you get into it so I don't know if I can fully answer that but what I will say is that I do have in my professional experience a lot of experience with discussing both identities at a high level and having what some would call difficult challenging courageous tricky conversations so it's something I'm very used to it's something that I have engaged with especially over the last five years um with with the rise of covid and the murder of George Floyd and The Great swell that came out of that in having some of these types of conversations now the city council as a whole is a unique organization and my entering this will change some of those Dynamics just by virtue of my presence alone so I'm not entirely sure how I will uh impact until I get into this role but what I will say is that in addition to counselor Smith's really valuable experience as a sociologist I can augment that through my experience having now um over 15 years of experience as a Dei or a Dei be practitioner diversity Equity inclusion and belonging for those who aren't familiar with that acronym having this deep experience around knowing how identities play with each other knowing some of these deep systemic inequities that are at play um through no one's choice but just that this is the reality that we live in in terms of this country and understanding how that sometimes comes out into the discussions that we're having at these levels the other thing I'll mention is that I'm also very cognizant that my my role will also be to be a voice of representation especially for those communities within Precinct 2 that may not necessarily have been historically represented or may not see themselves in certain levels of government or within the city at large at East Hampton and so that's something that I'm also going to be taking very seriously perfect thank you so much for that answer I really appreciate it any other counselors councelor there thank you thank you so much for being here uh felicitia um uh I really appreciate you stepping up into this role I think um as has been said I think by everyone here um not only are there well semi big shoes to fill I don't know exactly what the rep Gomez's shoe size is but he served this um he served this city honestly and extremely well um and as president for two terms um but um we are all our own people and uh as he as he leaves his own legacy so too is an opportunity for you to create your own um but that's also to say that um um you're the only one who applied and I think that also it speaks to a lot of things right it speaks to kind of a reticence to participate in um Public Service uh but it also speaks to your own courage and willingness to participate in that process as well um and I'm very grateful for it um your CV speaks for itself um clearly you have multiple skills and experience that is going to only serve the strength in this Council in the city and then um your actual Municipal CV the work that you've done here in the city volunteering and actually proving that you're C that you're not only capable I not is the word that comes to mind but um you've you've made such an impact in your time on the Committees you've been in as well as with porchfest um my question is somewhat similar to uh councelor Riley so we didn't rehearse this but um you know as he said participating in any environment work environment or otherwise is complicated you interact with a lot of different personalities um and inevitably there's personal conflicts there's professional conflicts there's personal and professional conflicts there's person professional conflicts um but elected elected service like this is even more complicated because you're basically thrown into a dynamic that sometimes almost feels like a real reality show right tune in every Wednesday as the voters of East Hampton has played nine City councilors to deliberate on the matters of the city and so here we are and things get messy sometimes we the the work that we do sometimes can seem tense just because we're we're literally deliberate all the time um but we're at our best when all nine of us are finding ways to Fire and all cylinders and we're all working together and that's optimally what we want to see from our Council regardless of any disagreements personal professional or otherwise um when I think about uh and I don't have a crystal ball but what is likely to happen here is that you're going to take an oath of office and um in that oath of office there's two words that always strike me when I hear them it's faithfully and impartially right those okay good I got that right and so how would you feel that you will honor that oath and those specific words faithfully and partially in your work for the city council for the city and how you engage with both constituents and other stakeholders what I can promise is that should I take this oath I will be someone who is going to be very engaged uh for anyone who served on a committee with me in East Hampton or elsewhere or as my husband can tell you um one of my uh I don't necessarily want to call it a failing but one of my traits is that I just can't help myself from sharing my opinions and I have a lot of them and so I'm going to be showing up and doing as much as I can to serve this city while I've only been in East Hampton for 3 and 1/2 years this is the place where we've chosen to settle down and put Roots into and so I'm really a big believer that if you want to live a certain way or have your community look a certain way or feel a certain way then you have a duty to be part of that and you shouldn't just expect it to happen organically without any kind of involvement and so that's how I think about that faithful aspect of that first word in terms of the impartial nature also um that is something where you know of course I have my own personal beliefs and values and I'll be bringing them into this work and this is about relationship building and it's about also understanding where people are coming from especially when they have a different opinion than I will or that we will um and when we disagree and those are the moments that in my work and in my personal life are always moments as I call it of curiosity where is this disagreement coming from where is their resistance coming from why what is going on underneath and there's always a story to be told underneath that and so I'm going to transfer that practice that I have in terms of the work that I do on a daily basis into this work for city council because being a city counselor in my opinion and feel free to correct me if I misunderstand anything but being a city counselor is about serving everyone within the city not just the people who I like or who I agree with or who are my immediate neighbors or who I have friendships with and so that's going to be a really critical role as part of this this job and that's something that I also take very seriously as well thank you any other counselors councelor Kinski I want to thank you for stepping up uh what struck me most recently is your talk about working with people who you may agree with not agree with be alike or similarities or those who are totally opposite you it is very fascinating to find people who enjoy getting into the thick of things with people of all types you'll find that here if you reach out I think can you elaborate just a little bit more about maybe some of your experiences on that subject in terms of um building building relationships with people who aren't like you who don't share your values who don't share your concerns because you will be the representative of everyone in Precinct too should we vote for you and I think it's going that way absolutely so as I mentioned already my work has been as a Dei practitioner for the past 10 plus years that's been my my soulle focus and especially in the last as I said four or five years or so so transparently the work that I do is training Consulting and especially 2020 onwards a lot of it was mandatory Dei trainings with people who did not want to be there and so sometimes these were people who didn't share values sometimes these were people who didn't agree that certain inequities that I believe exist exist there were people who didn't just want to you know listen to talk about these subjects and so again that's where a lot of this experience of mine comes from because even though again there may be conflict or disagreement I still fundamentally believe that at the end of the day we're all human beings together and so there's a connection Point around our shared humanity and I've told folks that moving into East Hampton was interesting because I'm part of a new wave of people joining the city and there's a lot of feelings around that there can be big feelings around that and on the street that I live on there's been all sorts of folks who some have lived there for many years some have lived there uh for shorter amounts of time than I have and some of it is just understanding where are those points that we can agree on even if it's a very very minor Point like the sun is shining today you have to start somewhere because that's how you're going to build that that relationship and build that connection and we can still leave at the end of the day and and disagree with the majority of what the other person believes in but it's about not shying away from having those convers to begin with and I find that a lot of times in my personal and professional experience where the breakdown occurs is when people are scared or avoidant or um nervous or just unwilling to lean into discomfort because discomfort feels all sorts of certain ways to folks and so for me yes I have a lot of experience with leaning into discomfort does it mean that I love it not necessarily but it means that I know that I'll okay but it's important to do that work anyway thank you anybody else councel good evening i' I'd like to say thank you again like my colleague said for your willingness and obvious enthusiasm for for this um potential opportunity um I just have a question how do you see yourself positively impacting um the community both in the short term and long term as a city counselor I think that it's important again to to have representation so I think from that standpoint that's a positive impact I hope will be present for the community so I come as a potential City councelor who is a woman I'm a woman of color and I'm also disabled and I think that those identities are important to show community members because as I forget who it was who mentioned it earlier but someone mentioned there's just hasn't been there wasn't any other folks applying for this role right and I know that for a lot of City councilors you ran unopposed and the last election and I think that it's always good to have choices and people should be engaged it's challenging when we have a small community like East Hampton which is only a little over 16,000 people because that's a lot to ask for from a small population but I'm hoping to show people that they might be able to do this too where maybe they hadn't thought about this before my wish would be if I choose to run in the fall my wish would be to not run on a post that would be my my greatest wish um other aspects in terms of a positive impact again I'm really hopeful that I can show folks that eastampton is open to the kinds of values that I espouse and that this is going to be part of that conversation and so again having already been really involved in the community just an extension of that and showing that this city is special there's a lot of opportunities ahead of us and that there's a lot of of interesting good exciting things ahead and my hope is to bring as many people along into that conversation as poss as possible thank you anybody else okay um so before I entertain a motion I just want one thing that keeps I don't have a question for you but one thing that keeps kind of coming back to me is that we got lucky um I think like hearing you speak and hearing the skills that you are bringing to this position I think that we got lucky um and so I really hope that this experience is a positive one for you and that you don't hate it at the end I hope so too but if you do then you know that's that sometimes that's how it works I hope you love it actually so um saying that I would love uh for someone to make a motion I move [Music] to nominate Felicia Yanik to the position of Precinct to city counselor second okay we have a motion in a second any further discussion and we have to do a roll call because councelor Riley is on here um councelor is there I just want to amend the motion to make sure that the uh Council appropriately learns how to pronounce the applicant's name forward Felicia yes yes so noted okay okay uh any other discussion yeah councelor D same thing I just appreciate you stepping up I think it's it is a it's a big deal to want to to be a part of the democratic process and I think it's also really important for someone who wants to step up and be a representative for their Community particularly when it's as diversity dis is um and so I really commend you for taking that um that step and and and being so willing to to be a voice for your community thank you okay uh seeing no more discussion Barbara County denim I Sal Derby hi JP kazinski hi Tom Peak hi Brad Riley enthusiastically I Tam Smith I JT trell i Owen zero I uh motion passes unanimously and so here comes the fun part um get sare you win but I don't have to say your name quite yet right I state your name do solemnly swear I Felicia Jazz do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and impartially that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all duties discharge and perform all duties incumbent upon me incumbent upon me as precinct number two city counselor as precinct number two city counselor according to the best of my knowledge and abilities according to the best of my knowledge and abilities agreeably to the rules and regulations agreeably to the rules and regulations of the Constitution of the United States of America the Constitution of the United States of America the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the City of East and city of East [Applause] um after okay congratulations congratulations thank you congratulations um so we have you're sitting up here now join us yeah um and we do have um one other item um on our agenda which is the discussion about the council reorganization so just wanted to um let everybody know that we received for the position of Vice President we received three um letters of interest uh and so that means that um the when we do our vote at our next meeting which will be one week from tonight um it will be rank Choice um and the way that will work is we'll have a paper ballot where we indicate our ranking and then we will um state that um for the record uh and we will do the calculations to see um who is going to be the next vice president um we didn't receive any um letters of application for president so um but we will still have a vote for president um at our next meeting as well um and with me potentially being the only applicant um does anybody have any questions about this process and and I willor Brad go ahead councel Riley sorry that's okay thank you Mr President so uh just a point of clarification for that process will we be able to ask questions of the um applicants or will we just be voting like should should we have these conversations outside of the meeting or will it be able to occur publicly um that's a good question I haven't thought of that uh I I was expecting it probably to happen be you know outside of the meeting um and just have the meeting be for the vote just to expedite the process um but if counselors are would like that to be part of the process I'm open to that as well so I'm I'm indiffer either way I just I I just wanted to know when I should be asking these questions so I will defer to um the opinions of the council thank you okay does anybody else have any thoughts on the reorganization um so as far as timing um I I think uh it could potentially take a little bit just to so we might need to um meet earlier on next Wednesday um and and you can't I can't okay um so I'm I'm just curious I don't want to uh bump up against our public hearing because we have public hearings at 6:15 and I don't necessarily know that we'd be able to complete this process in that time but councelor denim do you have a yeah so as this is an item on our agenda if someone speaks to four people that's a violation of open meeting law so it seems to me that questions should happen at the meeting fair enough I'm just sure just to make sure we're not violating open meeting law yep okay yeah one challenge we do have a a finance meeting uh just before just before so well at 530 um so that uh that that does well I think you know I think potentially what we could do is just adjourn the meeting at 6 um have this be the first item that we deal with and um if we're not finished with it we can pause it do our public hearing and then return to it after it's done um I don't does anybody have any issues with that that way we can avoid any conflicts with prior meetings or work schedules you're saying postpone the or or put on hold the finance meeting no the finance meeting would go on as scheduled at 5:30 um we would adjourn at 6:00 p.m have this be the first item on the agenda um and so start at start at 6 right start start start at 6 have this be the first item on the agenda um if people have questions for candidates which it sounds like councilor Denham thinks is appropriate to have then maybe we can do that before for the first 15 minutes um and if that doesn't take 15 minutes maybe we can get into the voting um but if it does bump up against a public hearing we can just pause and return to it after the public hearing for me typically we'd have public speak before the meeting right right good so keep the regular keep the regular and then have that be the first item have the first item okay I see what you're saying right after roll right after um roll call yep and so everything else would get bumped down yep okay okay um and I think you know this um could potentially take a little while so it might be something that um as we get into it we'll see right away that we're not going to be able to get it before the public hearing so we'll we'll have an idea and we can pause it and move through our items and then re unpause it as we get out of the public hearing I think that should give us plenty of time okay any other thoughts on this okay see none um I would take a motion to adjourn so moved second okay we have a motion to adjourn all those in well roll callor hi JP kazinski Tom Peak hi Brad Riley hi Tam Smith hi JT trell hi owener hi con oh yeah sorry now she's got to get the name conratulations okay thank you next week