[Music] good evening and welcome to the laen city council meeting today is uh Tuesday March 19 2024 pursuant to chapter 20 of the act of of 2022 this meeting will be hybrid allowing participation both in person and at the city council chambers uh the zoom meeting the zoom uh links or code was provided to anybody that requested uh also this meeting will going to be transmitted through Facebook and YouTube uh through our lawen city council city city council page and our lawen city council YouTube page roll call please councilor councelor Levy present councelor l plant present councelor Luzon noted as absent councel Del Rosario present councelor Santiago present councelor Marvel present councelor Selena Reyes noted as absent Council vice president and fonte present council president Rodriguez presentent please join me and for a moment of silent in the honor of the laen Sergeant Charlie D sandan and the longtime Recreation direct Department director Nelson Ortiz please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance so now we will proceed to a public participation anybody that is on the list going to have two and half minutes we would like to please ask you to refer to the council as a whole not as an individual councellors uh Madame chair please call the roll call for um other counselors councelor Luzan councelor Selen Rees all right our first name on public participation is H Mali please say your name and address for the record 53 Chester Street good evening honorable members we the citizen respectfully request from this honorable Council please approve the contract for our awesome Superior police officers Union Lawrence Police with the impecable leadership by honorable Chief Castro doing excellent job to protect our citizen we support Lawrence Police Officer Union Superior officers Union Lawrence Police one of the best police department in the nation this Union of Pride and honor deserve the best contract Lawrence is a beautiful city because of our hardworking DPW workers and Leadership we support DPW Union demand the best compensation for our great DPW employees Lawrence Inspection Department thank you for excellent job we support our Inspection Department employees and their Union we must hire more inspector Lawrence teachers you are the most important reason for success of Lawrence Public School we support our awesome Lawrence teachers union please help our homeless bring food and donation every Wednesday to Bley garage we are grateful to this honorable Council for caring so much for Lawrence holding the company in charge of the parking enforcement accountable this company provide the worst customer service we must fire this company immediately Lawrence always is strong Lawrence always unite we demand the best contract for our brave firefighters Union with 3% Cola raise and Hazard pay we pray for the safety and protection of our police officer endangering their life to protect us we demand the best contract for our Superior officers Union Lawrence Police thank you for keeping Lawrence a safe city thank you for excellent job uh thank you Mr Mali uh just a reminder and anybody that would like to speak that is not yet on the list we'll still have an opportunity for you to sign and speak for two and a half minutes on any particular issue that we would like if you would like to speak please let us know the next person on the uh list for public participation is Francisco ver name man for the record 85 Colonial Ro Francisco ra uh good evening Mr President as well member of the council I'm here today with uh to just to uh call to the attention to some of the concern that the um here in the community they've been talking a lot with the radio station also in the street but just to make it uh let's say um polite uh diplomatic and Democratic I want to say that I like to see the mayor of the city to have a better communication with every one of you so you can serve us as you become elected by the people for the people and we want to see if he can have a better communication in order to have a better City and and uh uh uh for the future I also want to say Mr President member of the council that uh the community have a lot a lot uh support for every one of you okay so it's just the fact to have you okay show your um your at for every day and every week that you actually working for the city as a councils I think two million and a half would be not too uh it's not too much for me because I have so many thing in mind to says but enough to express myself and express my my uh support for every one of you thank you uh the next person we have on the list is Rich Russell good evening councilors my name is Rich Russell residing at 34 cross street last week I had the opportunity to attend a neighborhood meeting one of the main concerns was why is there a great discrepancy in the time frames allowed for the searching and applying for various positions in the city while we have no control over the public school system other than to pay for the budget with no recourse to reduce it the search for the super School New new school superintendent seems to have no end in sight after a rather prolonged search period meanwhile at 200 Carman Street officials seem to think that a 14-day time limit is the proper amount of time to locate a well-qualified individual after a proper search through trade periodicals internet and last but not least the good old boy Network yesterday a new job was posted for the inspectional service department with no end date posted have all of the qualified people from the good old boys network been depleted or is no one from the good old boy Network interested as a former member of the Personnel committee while a member of the council I saw people quite frankly that Bailey had a skill set to empty office trash barrels the past several Personnel directors have not been around long enough to make a lasting impression my thoughts is that the entire hiring process fell apart when Frank beray left that office he quite frankly had his act together when presenting possible candidates for a position while I'm talking about positions I think it's time for the city to stop thinking about changing the city Charter and change warrant to a city manager form of government One requirement should be city manager have a BS and Masters in both political science and business administration the city manager would be a contractual position quite frankly I think the citizens are getting sick and tired of electing mayor as the election process is nothing more than the beauty contest as po go said years ago in the comic strip I have seen the enemy and it is us you counselors are taxpayers like a lot of my friends my friends are not happy seeing the financial and political chicanery that goes on in the hiring of city employees you have an opportunity to do something about it thank you for the time to address you uh the next the next person we have on the list is Kelly EST stoski good evening Kelly sanusi 47 Hamlet Street I thought I was going to be up here ranting about my street again but unfortunately my signs match now and I do appreciate it so I want to thank you all my signs match and they match the ordinance that was passed my concern though um glad that you did not do an emergency meeting for um Lawrence Catholic Academy because I do feel that's how my street fell into this big mess it was promised to us as a trial it could be reversed 13 years later we're still here and it probably had five time changes and it probably should have went through Robert's Rule after the second one but it never happened so I would like to say though um in the Lawrence Catholic Academy handbook it does say arrival and dismissal vence Police Department in conjunction with LCA will be enforced forcing the no double triple around the schools of the school no parking in the packet Pharmacy across the street park uh please park in legal spaces on the street arrive early to get a spot cars will be ticketed and towed for not abiding by the law by the Lawrence Police Department hey uh the frost School basically allows that and enforces double triple parking without using their parking lot also in my street was passed 450 ft of no parking along the curb was supposed to be taking place probably the same thing that Lawrence Catholic Academy is doing is dropping off at the corner which is fine we allow cars all all along it we're double triple parking so that upsets me a little bit the other thing really quick is on your agenda tonight I believe quickly counting 17 handicapped parking spaces six streets want residents parking one want side parking um the new business is more parking that's requested a traffic study do we even do a traffic study I don't know cuz I'm still waiting on mine on Hamlet Street um but with that coming to you with all that parking the only people that are going to be able to park in this city is actually somebody if they have a handicap spot or if they have residents parking um and I mentioned that because we are the less strict regarding zoning and building from any other town and our ZB give out um variances like it's candy so I'm asking you know that eventually it cuts down a little bit we're running out of spaces to park and we're not thinking about good development next thank you next person on the list is uh Carlos Manana caros name and address for the record good evening um Council every one uh my name is Carlos Manan I live on 69 middleberry Street retired veteran I stand before you in concerns of um an issue that's been ongoing not only for me for other veterans obviously um when I go to inde Independent import where they fix my vehicles every time I park there I have a specialty place which I always have from every other state that I've been in serving and literally you could park anywhere and you don't get a ticket cuz you pay those fees to have those specialty plates and every time I stop at my mechanic shop right not even for two minutes to coordinate drop off or times or whatever the case may be I get a ticket and I'm wondering if there's going to be in the near future like a resolution or something that could be done in in regards to that that is my concern thank you uh thank you sir thank you for your service uh the next person that we have on the list is Anna espinal hello everyone good evening address for the record my name is Anna espinal and I have a small business in 205 Broadway Lawrence Massachusetts and I stand in behalf of the council today because I am requiring iring more not just Financial assistant but more um help to the small businesses especially um single moms um women and I stand here in behalf of a lot of uh small business owners that I am relating myself to that feel that they need more help and resources in the city um not just financially like I mentioned but for growth re uh personal reasons or um just trainings in general there's a lot of people that you know are starting businesses but they don't really know how to run them or how to manage them so I feel like that's something that the city and I would like for um Ryan Thea to also step up because I know that he talked before about helping small businesses but I'm not sure if I I'm the only one that maybe feels this way but we feel like we need a little more reinforcement when it comes to that because it's it's very hard as it is starting a small business especially from the coming from a Hispanic um community so I'm asking in behalf of all the small businesses here that we need more help and more resources out for people who want to become business owners as well thank you thank you for your participation the next person we have on the list is wner Gonzalez hello okay hello hello good evening my name is wander Aras Gonzalez we have a small business at 205 Broadway and we're here because um we're here representing the community because they need to pay more attention to small business because we are um working hard uh the youth here is working hard and we are looking to get more support and we're not getting enough support from the city and we um we're working hard building the community and that's what we need the support um from the city to keep on doing and we're also creating employment for uh in the city all right thank you thank you the next person that we have on the list is Erin seino hi uh my name is Serino um Mr President members of the board um and here tonight uh for two reasons one uh parking mirrors um I want to use the word ludicrous in the City of Lawrence in the city that's overcrowded I believe there was the wrong time to put mirrors especially in residential areas my business is one day night Jackson Street and I feel this is me that any one of my customers most of my customers from out of town I work very hard preaching outside like political people trying to get a boat trying to bring business to the City of Lawrence for some reason it cost me money CU now I got to pay the parking tickets to make sure they come back and I got to deal with that but for some reason in um veterans going to the other side that I don't let them pay the parking tickets I do it because it's not fair you go to Texas they don't pay Park they don't pay parking tickets they can park everywhere they already serve the country the least the least we can we can do is give them this tree that they can park everywhere we say this is a free country it's is united state but I believe that I feel that we are united divided we don't take care of veterans and we should pay more attention about that veteran come fresh we come seconds we are not third third world class citizens we are first class citizen we taxpayer we work hard and I expect you guys to pay attention to that a lot of businesses especially in my area they feel they are targeting targeting and you go to other places and you don't see those complaining because they are in peace but for some reason Jackson Street is the great Apple it's like the New York for the parking tickets for The Tick okay so we got to pay attention to that because eventually uh we losing money as a business of the business and I hope you guys do something about it okay thank you the next person we have on the list is uh Raul Gomez can you the the Gomez me market my name is RO Gomez I am the owner of Gomez Meat Market 274 South [Music] Broadway so with this is the second time that I come in front of you and it is for the same complaint about the prohibitors [Music] it's a concern because my business has a lot of [Music] movement so um and I think that the the people that are giving out the tickets um visit me very frequently and I think that it's because of all the movement I think that it's an easy [Music] prey and that is affecting me because with my client because what my clientele is not coming to my business because every time they come they will get a [Music] [Music] ticket so um my clients um especially during winter hours they try to go after the sun is down and then they um think that because the sun is down they will not get a ticket and they still get a ticket so it's very [Music] chaotic I would like to get some help regarding this because if things keep on going this way I don't think that I'm going to be able to sustain my business gra thank you thank you if anybody would like to um participate in public participation we still have a few minutes uh and we still have H time to uh take a few more people I have to sign good evening my name is Annie Bales and I live in 129 South Union Street I have one concern with the parking meters in South Union that it is a commercial and a residential um area unfortunately we people that live in that area doesn't have um parking because in in the alternative um streets that we can park unfortunately business owners or clients are occupying that that spaces then we don't have parking so if we are coming back from work or something something like that we don't have space to park either to pay the park um the ticket or get a ticket I mean what I mean by that is to pay to get park or get a ticket and and I would like to know what we can do about that thank you thank you so much uh going to end public participation thank you for the ones that participated one more all right um name for the record okay Felix Jose Cruz J Cruz dester my concern is this for the parter so does the city have an office where we could get orientation regarding the use of these and um there is people that do not know how to use it not because of the economic Factor but because of they do not have the experience using them so through the um newspaper or any other means um you need to publicize that type of information in case there is going to be orientation in this regard that is my concern thank you very much thank you with that said we uh uh finished public participation thank you everybody to to participate and express their concerns about the different issues throughout the city of lence uh we're going to go ahead and and continue with the agenda uh we have a full agenda tonight so I would like everybody to uh stick to the agenda so we can move this meeting forward uh we have a I have a public participation comment from Zoom we'll have one more uh to uh to speak on public participation through the zoom meeting uh Luis robes he me c robes for [Music] the L 183 abbet Street um I just want to put out that um I don't have an issue with the parking meters per se it's just the way it's being manage for example just last week my wife uh had paid the parking meter and as she finished paying there was already a parking enforcement officer reading her plate like you have to give people time to pay and uh enter the information in the parking middle you can't just be there within seconds so there has to be like a time frame where people park the car and and and from the time that they actually finish paying you got to give them time to do that because sometimes also a parking meter might not be working you have to walk to another one so they have to give people time for that so I don't know if there a training problem with the company or what's going on also um you have all these parking meters but the the streets a lot of them they don't have a a parking spot painted on them so cono that I hope you can take into consideration to paint the streets the parking side because there's people that Park and they take up one and a half parking spots where there could be two cars parked there so we need to make also the streets more efficient and and make lines so that people know where where to park and to locate the space that's available I can't hear the speaker another thing to consider is that if if people near residential areas that have parking meters they will and if they don't trust it people just end up parking in the residential areas like the lady before mention we already have a problem with this and if people lose trust in the parking meters and the parking enforcement officers then they're just goingon to it's just going to be worse because they're going to keep parking in residential areas and it's not even to avoid the dollar it's just to avoid the hassle of dealing with the ticket so overall I think it's good but it needs to be made more efficient and fair for the public and one of the questions I hope can be asked in this this meeting is uh what is the time frame between a customer paying the parking pass and that information being transferred over to the parking officer's computer because if it's through internet or whatever there could be a delay and I think that's what's causing a lot of the issues it is not transfering instantly to their system then this should be a grace period before a parking officer can give a a ticket thank youp with the agenda council president for records council president yes uh through you m chair uh Madame Madame vice president thank you through you um council president can we ask uh Mr roles um Lou Roes who's in on Zoom if he can actually it was very difficult to hear um his statement if he can send an email to all the counselors a written um statement of what like a summarization of of what he he spoke of during public participation so we can just go back and review it because it was audio was cutting in and out and also um we have a full room tonight so that was that was it was very difficult to hear um Louis yes I can send a a a written communication and I do apologize also everyone on Zoom right now we cannot hear the meeting so we're trying to work off of YouTube which has a delay and the uh the zoom meeting so there's a delay because of YouTube and also we cannot hear thank you for your comments please send us an email thank you uh we're going to go ahead and continue with the agenda we have full agenda so we're going to ask everybody to be patient because we need to move every every item on this agenda forward the first item that we have in front of us we have uh uh some Proclamation honoring a few students from the lawen high school and we are going to proceed with that coun chair I think you might need to turn your microphone on or Council TV we can't hear so we are going to proceed with the agenda and the first thing we're going to do is uh a proclamation honoring a few students from the uh Lawrence High School Russell and tetin uh with that said I going to uh pass the go to uh the senior uh councelor councelor La plant uh the former president of this Council so he can proceed with uh this specific item item 20824 uh with that uh with that I pass over to uh Council former president La plant good evening counselors so we have uh an special communication today and um uh part of this communication is a proclamation to it uh three laen high school students uh they female rustlers they went over to uh do uh council president go ahead Mr President very challenging meeting today but I mean we here and with different things um but the first first thing that I would like to say uh about this specific Proclamation uh through the communication aspect of the agenda is that uh I'm very proud uh to be uh recognizing through a proclamation three different students one of them which is Daniela Garcia I going to honor owner counselor uh vice president Stephanie Infante to read uh through the proclamation uh since she is the the counselor representing this area where danela live um councilors uh thank you for listening to this and I feel very proud to recognize and be able to bring this up in front of you thank you council president U the proclamation for uh D Daniela danela Garcia is States as the states the following be be it known that we the members of the Lawrence city council of Massachusetts by and through this Proclamation hereby applaud and recognize the Lawrence High School's Lawrence High School girls wrestling team on its successful 2024 season and more specifically acknowledge the achievements and accomplishments of Daniela Garcia actually where is danela Garcia is she [Applause] here I'm like I'm read conations sorry about that that was my mistake whereas danela Garcia is a member of the 2024 Lawrence High School girls wrestling team that successfully com competed in the Massachusetts inter Scholastic Athletic Association the MIAA division W girls State Wrestling Championships where the team came in second in the in in the entire State and whereas Daniela Garcia through her hard work and determination became a crucial contributing member of the Lawrence High School girls wrestling team and as a freshman competed in the all state tournament on February 20 24 of 2024 placing second in the state in the 126 pound class as a freshman that's amazing is your coach here as well ni aoro so uh the the girls wrestling coach is also a math teacher g t so welcome Mr nioro now therefore we the members of the Lawrence city council hereby applaud the accomplishments of Diana D danela Garcia and extend to her every good wish and her continued athletic achievements and hereby set our hand and cause and the cause of the Seal of the City of Lawrence to be a fixed on the 19th day of March 2024 congrat congratulations on the entire on behalf of the entire Lauren city [Applause] council say a word want to say something yeah um I want to thank my coach for um he trained me I couldn't have done it without him both my coaches and the ones watching at home cuz I know they are um without them pushing me this hard I wouldn't have made it as far as I did um and I'm really happy that I was able to be a part of this achievement for Lawrence stud our next recipient of uh of this uh Proclamation will be uh kadalin balanger Kate Kate come over and with that said uh I believe that she live in District a so Fidel Santiago Council of Santiago please join me uh well um Kate Banger throughout her hard work and determination become a p a pivotal member of the Lawrence high school girl wrestling team and uh as a freshman at abot Lawrence acad Academy compete at the All State uh in All State Tournament of 2020 uh 2024 uh placing first in the state at the 145 uh pound class congratulations uh Kate um I'd also like to thank my coaches and um for giving me this opportunity and for my teammates for getting me through the season thank you now I would like to uh call Hilary McDonald hiary she live she live in District D so we have uh councelor uh marmal coming up in front of us to actually Honor on this Proclamation ha McDonald ha um throughout her hard work and the termination have become a p a pivotal member of the Lawrence High School G wrestling team and uh as a sophomore compete in the all state tournament on the on February 24th 2024 beating the number one seed uh placing first at the state on 185 pounds and become the first Lawrence High School G rustler uh the school history to win an all State title congratul the picture come over um I would also like to thank my coaches and my team um they have been a great help for me um if you told me that I would get this award I wouldn't believe you in the beginning of the season but everybody has pushed me and shown me that I'm more than what I think I am and I thank everybody and all of my coaches for continuing to tell me to stay in the sport and showing me love that I didn't know I [Applause] had take this what you me uh appreciate it I just want to congratulate the girls um it's been a really nice year having you guys on the team um you fit right into the program you work hard come to uh practice every day um smile and you're having a lot of fun so um thank you for the great season and uh I wish you guys the best next year here as well I know you guys are wrestling the offseason and setting goals for yourself so um I'd like to thank the council for this recognition as well so thank you very much sure do you do you want uh if uh the three of the GS that well recognize if you can please uh join the counselor in the front I would like to say hi councelors it's is important to recognize that um captain of the fire fire department is here with us is one of the coaches Mike [Music] armano uh something that something very very unique and special about the girls wrestling is that they practice all together uh as strong as they can be uh together with the men's and and females so that's that's a that's a huge deal I never know anything about wrestling until start looking at it and I love it thank you councelors thank you everybody motion to recess second motion to made a recess and properly second any discussion hearing no discussion I'll call the question all in favor say I I no the eyes hav e e e e e e e e e e e e Rodriguez and members of the city council this evening I am pleased to introduce you to members of the alma Advisory Group who have partnered with the Lawrence School Department in search of a new superintendent who will lead our school system it is important to note that we have been working with the Alma group since mid de mid November first developing a shared purpose which guided every step of our work followed by as you as you may remember engaging the district forming focus groups holding in um private um question and answer periods and preparing for the um Alma people to come into the city to meet with constituents here in Lawrence as we begin each meeting we read our shared purpose so that is front and center in every decision we make I am going to read our shared purpose and introduce the Elma team our goal is to recruit screen and select the next collaborative inclusive outcomes driven superintendent of the Lawrence Public Schools our purpose is to lead a transparent superintendent search process engaging as many people as possible Guided by input of the Lawrence staff students families Partners leaders and community and designed to mitigate biases every step of the way leading the discussion and answering your questions we have two extremely talented representatives from the alma group I'd like to first introduce you to Elena perer Alana is originally from the Bronx in New York City where she started her schooling as an English language learner at one of the city's first bilingual school programs her experience as a first generation graduate and as the parent of a child with multiple accept ex exceptionalities have shaped her commitment and passion for working toward educational excellence and equity for every student Eliana brings almost 20 years of experience serving Urban public school districts as a consultant and District leader most recently Aliana served as the executive director for Equitable learning environments with the Atlanta public schol schools helping to create Partnerships and establishing structures designed to build the collective capacity of leaders in the district as a consultant Eliana was a founding team member with the Almer Advisory Group where she worked with the school districts Nationwide to establish or strengthen leadership pipeline programs and human capital systems she also has experiened in nonprofits including new leaders and as a social um School social worker serving immigrant students and families next is Sylvia flowers syvia is a Midwestern by way of Chicago and St Lewis and she brings over 20 years of experience in urban education and state level education policy and implementation she currently serves as the Project Lead for the Lawrence superintendent search and has worked with the Almer Advisory Group for four years where she has led successfully many executive searches for the almma education clients in 2009 she moved to Nashville Tennessee and later served as the Director of a tech of the technical assistance at the state collaborative on reforming education a nonprofit nonpartisan advocacy and research organization founded by former US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist most re recently Sylvia spent years at the Tennessee Department of Education as the executive director of educator Effectiveness and talent focused on implementing the state's educator education evaluation system and using human capital data to drive Statewide policy and strategy and Technical support for districts in recruitment retention compensation phys phys professional growth and recognition of effective Educators I am very pleased to welcome syia flowers and Eliana peria now you have to go to the beginning of the presentation good evening everyone can you hear us okay I hope that's a yes um thank you chairperson Mariano for that wonderful introduction and uh thank you so much to the members of the city council for allowing us to um speak with you tonight as uh chairperson Mariano said my name is Sylvia flowers I am the a managing director of um executive Search and talent for the alma advisor group and had the opportunity to meet many of you when we were on site on in January I'll let my colleague Eliana introduce herself and then we'll get started with our presentation next [Music] slide all right so as uh chairperson Mariano mentioned um tonight we want to start with with our shared uh goal and purpose and give you an update on the timeline then we'll share a little bit about the selection process and then go into um how you all can continue to support and be a part of this process um chairperson Mariano shared our Shar read to you our shared goal and purpose as you see on the screen here tonight we won't read it again um but this as she mentioned really guides our work together with the Lae subcommittee and our partnership with the [Music] LA Aliana and I don't know if we still have the I'm seeing the community now I wasn't sure if we still have the the shared purpose la thank you next slide I think we're there I hope we're there so our next slide shows an overview of the superintendent search timeline and as uh chairperson Mariano mentioned we began working with um the subcommittee in November to really design our process together and so we uh spent the majority of December through February Gathering stakeholder input and we did that through uh a number of uh channels first was of course uh oneon-one uh conversations with each of you members of the Lae and other uh members of uh the state delegation and then we launched a survey and planned our site visit for January where we were where we were able to have many focus groups and conversations with uh community members staff members and others from there we uh analyzed all of that information in order to design the job profile um as I shared in many of those sessions we do not have a cookie cutter job description we really want the needs and the ideas from the community to come forth in how we tell the story about Lawrence Public Schools so we were able to launch uh to draft the job profile uh present to the Lae and have that approved and then we launched the job profile in mid-February um really now our time shifts to building out the recruitment process and the selection process so we've spent the last month on recruiting and sourcing candidates and um really casting as broad a net as possible to find um find people who would be a good fit for Lawrence Public Schools we anticipate that March through April will be the key um uh selection process activities where we're doing uh multiple rounds of interviews in order to um recommend finalists to be to come to Lawrence to meet the community so we anticipate that the um mid to late April time frame is when we'll be at finalist stage and hoping for a miday early to miday um recommendation and offer for the for the position um Mar for next slide and just to synthesize um here's what we accomplished so far and what's coming next so as we mentioned in the timeline we have presented the community engagement report and our findings um which led to the development of our job profile that job profile was launched in February and we have been actively recruiting for the role and one of the things that Alma does is we're really looking for people who may be looking for opportunities and who may not be looking for opportunities and uh we have a wide network of potential Educators that we have been tapping into in order to build a really strong pool for this position um our team conducts the first round interviews and so those interviews have begun and what's coming next is we're continuing to review and Screen candidates for the position and we're also concurrently developing the next rounds of the selection process um in order to be ready for the final round interview uh days and so what you will hear in the coming uh weeks are opportunities for us to continue to align back to our shared goal and purpose and invite people to be a part of an interview panel that would include parents and staff and students and and others to really have uh the opportunity to participate la next slide all right um you know again going back back to our shared goal and purpose we want to create a transparent and Community informed process from start to finish and that begins with our community engagement that began in December and January and as you will see we met with nearly 400 people over the course of our time um both before we were there in January but or before we arrived in January and then throughout the month of January we conducted uh over 60 meetings and we had a tremendous response to the survey really really proud that we uh got to nearly 2,000 survey respondents um and nearly half of those um uh were completed in Spanish which is uh a great great number for us um as I mentioned March and April is really the intense time for recruiting and screening um we're conducting round one and round round two interviews during that time uh there will be a round two interview committee that includes uh members of the Lae subcommittee uh school committee staff parent and a teacher representative so the round two interview team will meet the uh recommended candidates uh for the next round and then that group will uh narrow the pool to our final round interviews we are anticipating that late April early May will be the time for our in-person final round interviews and have designed a process where people can nominate themelves or others to be a part of an interview panel um we will have seven interview panels as part of the final round interview process the final interview of course will be with the members of the Lae which is consistent with Massachusetts state policy and we're going to work um to make sure that interviews of that the students conduct that the parents conduct and that the Lae conduct will be live streamed and available for the public to view Eliana sorry we have to start wrapping so that we can get to questions for next slide and that's the last one all right so what comes next we want your help and continuing to spread the word about the position the job description can be found on the uh Lawrence Public Schools website um we will also have the nomination process live on the website this week you can nominate someone um make sure you spread this to your network so that people can nominate themselves to be a part of the process and then of course when we get to the finalist round we want um everyone in the community to watch any of the live streamed interviews and share their feedback and with that we'd love to open it up to any questions that you have um yes I have a question we we would like to open uh at this point with uh counselors uh two counselors if they have any particular questions U so yeah we're going to start first with uh counselor Rosario and then we proceed with councelor malmore and then um councelor Santiago thank you through you uh councilor president um you all know where I stand with the process and today it's it's today it's once again it it tells me that the process is not correct am I should be here for respect of the counselors for respect of the community they shouldn't be here in person um also to make you aware you guys are from Chicago you guys never been here and you know how bad our communication is through Zoom so for me it's very disrespectful that you guys are making tons of money and you guys could not be here in person and that's and that's one thing it's disrespectful for us and for our community you guys should be here in person I'm very disappointed but you guys know how I feel about the process and and and it is okay I send correspondence to all of you to us to be part of the process parents and also City councilors when it comes to choose the superintendent cuz we represent the people and you guys are denying us an opportunity and I would like the uh the chair of the LA board just give her a little reminder you're not allow us to participate on choosing the superintendent which is okay but when the when the school system needs money you come here and ask us for money and we'll provide you the money so we should be participating we should be part of the process not just data collection um and I'm going to make it very clear and this is how I'm going to end it I'm very disappointed I think it's very disrespectful once again to us and also to our community that the person that is choosing the most important per person in the city the group that is helping us choosing the most important person in the city after the mayor is not here in present facing our community that is sitting here they don't know how many people are here they don't know how many people have been here waiting for this and they not even here that's very disrespectful to our for our community and that's why I think oh my personal personal I don't I'm not dragging none of my colleagues on a personal level this is a failure thank you coun m so in order for us to be able to have transparency and accountability for uh this organization in choosing our next or facilitating the process of choosing our next superintendent do you guys release reports or allow access to all the candidates um uh that have applied uh all the candidates that you guys have selected to move forward to the round one of interviews all those candidates that you have selected for round two of interviews um in addition to attaching their resumés and applications any other questions councelor Greg did you did you did you listen to there's the question about the applicant pool say say that again you did you get a question which one was the question was it the the the comment from councelor Gregory or was it the question that came afterwards L did you listen to the question at all you had an actual question about the applicant pool and the first one seemed to be a comment so which one would you like us to respond to the council M just asked a few questions regarding the the process when it comes to uh uh people that apply in uh in the first round and second round Council M do you mind repeating the question oh I heard her question so to be clear we are recruiting candidates for this position who have been assured confidentiality up through the finalist round so the Lae subcommittee that we are working with um will have access to the applicant pool um at that at the time that we recommend candidates for uh an interview and a round to interview so Alma Advisory Group does the first round interview screen um and at this time we are not sharing any information about the names of applicants uh because of uh candidate confidentiality at this stage of the process when we get to the round two interviews the round two interview committee will obviously have the list of the applicants and uh our recommendations on who's moving forward through the process um when we get to the finalist stage of course we want to announce the finalists for the role and invite broad Community participation um in that in that process noral at this time we can share the application um statistics and demographics with you all so um since we posted the position in February we've had over 1,200 views of this position um from the variety of sites that we use to recruit candidates um we've had 42 applications submitted as of today um and of those uh we also have a EEOC compliance survey that candidates have the option of completing so for those who completed the survey out of the 42 16 are identified as male 13 identified as female uh nine identified as white or Caucasian eight identified as African-American 11 identified as his Hispanic or latinx and one identified as more than one race or multi-racial biracial we also have a supplementary question as part of our application process and around whether the candidate is bilingual or biliterate in Spanish and 19 of the 42 have identified as bilingual and biliterate all this information all this information that you just provided are you able to provide that report to the to the council in addition I would in addition I would like to also um uh understand what method is being used to conduct interviews are you guys doing this via Zoom or um are are these interviews being conducted personally so um the we submitted this presentation to someone in your Council support team and you are welcome to have access to it um I can't remember the young lady's name who we've been contacting in order to prepare for this meeting I think we got information today about how to prepare for today's meeting um our first round interviews are conducted by a member of the Alo Alma team via Zoom or via phone the second round interviews are conducted or will be conducted by the uh round two interview committee and those will be via zoom and then in person people will meet with finalist um in Lawrence at the end of April early may all right C just want and you can work with eileene Bernal to get access to this presentation I just the record we do have the presentation but the data that you provide and otherwise everything about the Lawrence superintendent search is posted on the Lawrence Public Schools website for the record I just wanted to state that we did receive the presentation but the data that you provided in terms of like the numbers and the stats that was not attached so that's why I was requesting if that information that was not submitted if you could submit that as a report to the council at this point okay that is on slide nine of the presentation in the appendix and it comes after the thank you slide all right um Council Council of Vice President Infante thank you through you council president um first I I want to um I'm hearing before we continue this conversation I'm I'm hearing some of the concerns of my colleague and I and I want to make a few points first um the city council does not hire the superintendent secondly um the school system is under State receivership this Advisory Group is hired by desie and the state appointed um committee which ultimately they should have been the ones to be giving uh the full presentation they should be the ones informing the elected officials on the exact process because they're getting this information from their Consultants that they hire to do the back end of the work um and I also want to say in terms of Technology it is not our our participants fault that we have not upgraded our technology this is not we have counselors that have also participated in City Council meetings through zoom and you don't see our department heads or anyone saying oh well I don't want to listen to this or walking away because a counselor is on Zoom I don't know about my colleagues but I've also participated um in virtual job interviews in today in the 21st century using technology is a very normal thing now yes it would have been nice to have a representative from the AL Advisory Group but also I I just want to say personally as a counselor I received six different emails from this group asking for inter one-onone interviews asking for counselor input I'm know and I know I am not the only counselor that they have reached out to I received a call from the chair of the appointed um education committee also asking if if I had my interview with the Alma group this is a lot more than what we're doing for like another important position for the city I'm not I'm just going to say it the police chief that we should be having a similar process and no one saying nothing about that but this this particular position is we're State receivership honestly the state should be giving us the presentation the state should be giving us the the information and I do not know why they're not more involved and I don't understand why they're letting this Consultant Group take all the heat on their behalf thank you council president thank you um now I recognizing uh councelor Santiago hello hello okay this meeting tonight was to give us I'm not update and about the process and I don't want to the name a personal information but I would like to know how many potential H how many potential candidate do you have at this moment so thank you so much for that question we have received 42 applicants for the position wait let me mute my other screen um we've received 42 applications for the position um and we are in the process of reviewing resumés and screening those candidates uh for the role excuse me I didn't say application I said potential candidate now at this time I recognize councel plan [Music] hello see the trick here you see is you have to speak and then be quiet because they're in the back room trying to figure out which OBS de press and so if you speak right away you get back feed so um I just wanted to speak for myself council president and say I I don't feel disrespected the amount of times that the LA board and their representatives have reached out to me to make sure that I fill out the this questionnaire I had a one-on-one conversation with Elma I went down to South Laurence e school to speak um I've never seen and I think I've seen two or three different superintendent searches I've never seen the kind of Outreach to a body frankly that has very little to do with selecting a superintendent of schools so I I just I just want to speak for myself and say I don't feel disrespected by this process thank you thank you coun Council plant uh now at this time I'm recognizing councelor Lon oh well thank you for the presentation uh and and I'm going to join councelor Le plan I don't feel disrespect I also attended the meeting um the public meeting at I forgot the location but I attended the public South Lawrence East I thank you so much for what you're doing but I mean it's something that I I asked before is that uh basically we don't have any role in this process because it's not up to us so why are we spending why are we spending uh time in asking so many questions uh this my a concern right um as far as I understand the process I want not to clarify a few things uh once we have the finalist I believe that there's going to be seven different subgroups uh that are going to be meeting uh with the finalist uh and on those groups elected officials might be one of those groups uh so essentially at the end of the process once we have final we will have a participation to uh perhaps not interview but um discuss or talk to the candidate uh I don't know how it's going to be the process but I know that seven different groups are going to be interviewing the finalist uh and they're going to spend two days in the city of lawence uh talking about with different groups and and talking about uh with different part of uh stakeholders on the community uh am I right that is correct um we are working with the school district to um oh sorry officials of the city now as as Sylvia expressed earlier right now there's going to be a nomination form on the school department website so if any of you are interested in participating in their final round of interviewing the three finalists you need to fill one of those out and self-nominate yourself or if you'd like to nominate someone else you can do that also and then we will announce what that panel looks like based on what we get for applications so those those are going to be available on the school department website I believe starting [Music] tomorrow so again you will have the opportunity to ask questions of the three candidates and send us or as you all meet you'll debrief and we'll get all the notes from what you feel or who you feel the right candidate should be we're not shutting you out as a city council or any elected elected officials yeah thank you for the information um um at this point I think that if any other councilors have any other the particular questions about the process uh the intent of this uh this presentation was to uh to dis to clarify and to and to get informed about the process uh as of how uh the alma Advisory Group is is performing this this uh search uh it is a national search it is it was a profile for the uh for the uh for the candidates or a profile for the uh for the job in for the job uh description that was developed throughout the city and uh and the and the the current uh at this point the the AL Advisory Group is going to be uh PR in the the first round of interview once they get to the finalist and then we will be U more involved during the process and anybody that would like to be participant of the on the process they can apply uh on the website to be part of the of that uh those part of that seven different groups of uh different stakeholders uh on the city of lawence so it is important to share that information with with your college it is important to share that information with people that you believe might uh uh might be a positive uh input to that uh to the process and and and we need to work all together to make sure that our next superintendent uh for the uh for the school system is it represent the community uh and also have the best interest of the students uh the main priority should be the students our students our future generation counselors if there is anything else that we would like to uh hear from the Alum Advisory Group or from the U uh from the state that is here with us uh this is the time if it's not counc president Council thank you I don't have a question but I want to thank you Pat also I want to thank you Alma and the superintendent and all the people from the school that attended today I'm so glad that at least at least we will able to get them to come uh our petition because we asked them to give it an update and this is what we are getting so thank you so much for coming tonight and letting know what's going on and where we are at this point thank you so much if there's not any other questions comments on this matter uh at this point this point I entertain a motion to withraw U this it uh 11524 sub mov uh no 11424 sub mov second there is a motion to withdraw properly second all please say hi hi thank you so much now we're going to proce proed with the next presentation which is the item 11524 which is the startle review of The Board of Health uh Dr Gore um is invited and he's he's here with us as well as the members of that uh b h um uh that represent the community thank you uh first for being here for providing us with an update about the B ho and we here to listen excellent um first I'd like to hand out to all the counselors a memo that I think kind of spells out the challenges that we are facing right now not just at the Board of Health level um but also um in our health department and I'd like to thank president counselor and all you counselors for allowing me to come before you it is truly an honor um I have dedicated my entire professional career to Lawrence uh I came here in the mid90s and still live and work in Lawrence as a family doctor Lawrence is faced with Incredible challenges when we talk about public health and there challenges that run from homelessness to our food establishments to the keeping our our our housing code compliant to the the massive public health issues that we face with Active cases of tuberculosis a huge influx of of immigrants that have health challenges and have no insurance um a city the size of Lawrence that faces the public health challenges that Lawrence face should really have a robust well functioning health department and over the last few years what we have seen is a whittling down of our health department to a health department that is the most underfunded Department underfunded Health Department in the state of Massachusetts I just want to quickly give you some figures the annual budget for our health department we allocate $1 in 52 cents per individual in the city of Lawrence when compared to the city of Methuen they allocate $21.63 per capita annually so the annual budget right now for the health department in the City of Lawrence is $133,000 mthu allocates $1.13 million to their health department so this gives us absolutely no resources to hire inspectors that have any background we cannot we have been unable to hire a registered sanitarian there's low morale poor experience lack of background lack of training rapid staff turnover poor morale and basically lots of our new hires generally lack the minimum experience and require extensive supervision and training this is not a function of of lack of trying we do not have the the resources this department does not have the resources to hire the people that we need to help us improve the public health of this city I have been working with the administration the current Administration I have met with mayor depena and with Mr spanner and Mr Matias to try to work towards improving this department first and foremost state Law requires that the Board of Health is a three- member board for years we have existed as a tw- member board which makes a quorum rather difficult in many instances so um we have we have sent several prospective candidates to the administration to consider to as a third board member for the Board of Health we implore both the city councilors and the current Administration to increase the budget of the health department the budget as I have mentioned is embarrassingly low for a city the size of Lawrence that has the public health challenges that Lawrence has faced for years another issue that is certainly significant is Lawrence has just been cut out of a three major grants the public health excellent shared services Grant which was going to bring close to $2.5 million dollar to the City of Lawrence to assist in training and bringing our food establishments up to be code compliant they were going to bring in Consultants they were money to train inspectors sadly the Department of Public Health has just stripped Lawrence out of this grant there's also the americ corpse Grant the America corpse Grant is a very very important grant that addresses um you know safe and healthy homes in Lawrence and Methuen it's funded annually with approximately $344,000 this grant um was delayed by one year because of Lawrence's inability to hire a qualified director to manage the grant the America there's a third grant that we were offered by the state to hire an epidemiologist and this grant also has at Great risk of being removed from Lawrence due to its um it was the money was used inappropriately it was used to hire foreign spectors none of whom are an epidemiologist so we have a lot of work to do I think in my conversations with the administration they are motivated they are interested and moving towards improving our health department their intentions are are are good and that they want to move towards a healthier City I think the problem is a true resetting of of our the structure of the health department under the ISD department and I want um I brought Ethan moscou here who is a consultant um from the shared services Grant who we rely on constantly he's a registered sanitarian he is someone who has a vast knowledge about food establishments housing code um and we rely on him constantly but for some reason or another he was given a letter saying that he was not to provide any more services to the City of Lawrence and this basically violated the terms of the public health Excellence shared services Grant and it stripped Lawrence of close to $2.5 million over three years to accomplish all the things that we have been trying to accomplish that money is so incredibly important to this city given the extreme lack of money provided in the annual budget to our health department so we have to find a way to become in in compliant with the requir requirements of these grants it is so essential to supplement our budget and to really face these major challenges that we have in the City of Lawrence from housing food establishments infectious disease um you know direct observe therapy for tuberculosis patients um training our inspectors appropriately hiring a registered sanitarian hiring an epidemiologist hiring an additional nurse having someone doing Outreach having someone working with our homeless having a counselor a peer support person these are the things that Lawrence needs to improve the Health and Welfare of our city and so we come before you both Mr Hill and myself are your only two board members we hope that there will be three shortly and we implore you as we work towards the next budget that we realize that Lawrence health department needs to be fully funded to accomplish these goals it also needs to be um we need to understand that when the states give us grants large grants that could really put us over the top and this is the first time in years that Lawrence has been offered this kind of funding to help train and hire we have to stay in compliance with the guide guidelines that the state has laid out and that is just not being done I would love the opportunity for both Mr Hill and Mr masp to comment but I come before you because I think we can improve things with the will the funding and and and we all want a better Community a healthier community and I think we owe it to our our our residents to provide just that who would like to go first do the do the details you're you're the big you're the big gun here and then I'll just do an overview all right address for the record please sure thank you my name is Ethan masou as Dr gor mentioned I'm the shared services coordinator for the methan uh La Lawrence shared services agreement Grant um just very briefly and then I'm happy to take any questions if you have any the very briefly Dr Goran had mentioned most of what I had uh written in the memo I come with over approximately 30 years of experience working in public health local public health I also teach at an adjunct basis at the Boston University School of Public Health uh looking at local public health issues and something called Legal epidemiology which is the intersection of Law and public health so that's in my areas of specialty uh as regards to my work here um as Dr gor had mentioned uh this department here requires a lot of work however there's also a lot of opportunities and those opportunities are first of all as I said I've been working in public health in over 30 years and the state has for even longer than that has been asking and been encouraging communities to regionalize to share services and to become more robust and to become more active in a partnership with the state this is the first time in my career where the state is now backing that up with significant money um part of the reason or significant reason is because we've all gone through shared experience with covid-19 and the pandemic and the state and the government the Federal Government funding part of this effort um recognizes that Health local Health it plays an important role in responding to not just epidemics but to everything that we deal with in public health and for the first time the money is there this is unusual this is unique and in my experience I don't think I've ever seen anything as robust and as important as I've seen now coming from the state um also let to there's a lot of wonderful opportunities in this city um it's an exciting City it's an it's a vibrant city um when I first came here about a year and a half ago or so as a consultant for methu and Lawrence um I was literally Blown Away by the excitement and the passionate people that work in you know these new inspectors that were just hired under the various Co grants um and asking them when I introduced myself and they I asked them why are you here why did you take this job you could have taken other jobs and they said well I live here I want a better City I know there's things with the city that needs to be improved and I know we can't do it all nor can we do it all quickly but the the passion is there and the desire is there and you have a amazing wonderful City to to um to uh to live and work in so those are the challenges because there's been the department has been so chronically underfunded and so chronically understaffed and poorly staffed for so very long it's almost as if that they don't that people don't even understand what they don't have um and yet you know the for example Dr gor had mentioned uh there's a grant that to hire epidemiologists well what does an epidemiologist do an epidemiologist is someone who studies and looks at the rates of disease where are the causes of diseases um they look at where diseases are going and how do you stop that how do you mitigate that how do you provide remedies so what are some of the um things you can do is that different kinds of inspections different kinds of responses or collaborating regionally and also work as a partnership with the state um unfortunately here in the city I believe my my understanding is is that the rather than hireing epidemiologists they hire four inspectors which we need but they're not epidemiologists with all due respect and they and that's not what the grant requires the grant requires working on a different level with different skill sets and to do that effectively so that we can do that work very quick just to clarify from that grant that you mentioning is that was the that was the grant that we actually um uh yes have uh recently to that since Co we actually re uh reapply and get it again I don't know for sure because I I'm not familiar with that particular meeting when you discuss that Grant it might very well be there are a couple there are about three grants I'm discussing right now one is shared services another one is the americore Grant and the third is um uh it's the I forget the name of it right now um but it's for epidemiology it's it's continue contact tracing okay that's to build on the contact tracing um grants and experience uh but to make it more robust and more um a higher level kind of response to illness and disease um I also want to mention for example exle the um the grant as well since it's now been terminated by Lawrence um I was I was um the city of methan was asked or told by the mayor here in Lawrence that my services are no longer needed and by doing that that canceled the terms of the grant um and therefore um I'm no longer uh working on behalf of the shared services agreement with um with Lawrence um methu and to keep the grant is now looking for another partner or Partners to continue on with the grant funding which I think they will succeed in doing um uh the the the grant itself uh is being renewed for three years um and that final renewal will be next week and it's doubtful highly doubtful I'm told it's actually impossible for Lawrence to uh be part of that process because the times period is so short and that Grant will not be renewed for 3 years so based upon that information Lawrence has potentially lost approximately a million um no I'm sorry $2.2 million in funding for um for the health department and related Services um I'm I'm it distresses me to to mention that and to to inform you of that and I I've done everything I could possibly do to to try to rescue it and I've I've run out of run out of ideas um other than to speak to to the council here and to talk to the board members um I can say more uh one of the recommendations as you see in my memo and I'll be very brief about it is I think as well it's important I recommend to do an audit or try or do somewhat of an audit of the health department that's housed within ISD I've talked me a lot about um the idea the necess necessity of Independence within the ISD division um because the Board of Health has certain responsibilities that must be accomplished under the state sanitary code for example there's housing there's food establishments there's um indoor air quality and ice skating rinks and you have an ice skating rink here that's very popular and going through the records the Board of Health has never once certified that ice skating rink or ever done an inspection of that ice skating rink in I don't know how many years and yet they're mandated by law to do so um food establishments we don't know how many food establishments there are in the city and those that are here those that we do know of they're not being properly inspected at times and for example I mentioned in the memo there was a complaint um at a food establishment in a public school and they never responded to to the complaint properly en closed the case um by the way these are the because of the the diff the the vagueness and the way that ISD is structured that um there are many the the sanitary code is the is a sole responsibility of the Board of Health and the board of Health's agent the agent speaks for the Board of Health the agent acts for the Board of Health in the times in the event the Board of Health itself cannot go out and do these inspections which is unreasonable in a large city like this that's why they have agency that's why they appoint agents and you have an agent here um and she has been she was appointed over a year ago a year and a half ago and her work has been sidelined and been marginalized within the department and it's also made it more difficult to accomplish the bare minimum requirements by the state all right I've said enough I'm happy to take any questions U because I can go on all night president um c c Council of Vice President Infante thank you um thank you for all the information I I'm going to ask one question I'll wait till the end because I know we have a more presenter but what you when you mean when you say that our uh the work of of uh what's what's what's her name um the the agent but what is her name Isis her name is wisda Perez Miss Miss Perez when you say that's been sidelined and marginalized can you provide an example of what you mean by um a couple of very brief examples for example she has no resources to do the work that she needs so she has no ability to direct or to um supervise let's say admins or other inspectors because it comes under the um ISD directors and there's some confusion or vagueness even within the ordinance as to how that operates um another example is at times cases will be closed um without the knowledge of your health agent and the health and it's the health department it's the health agent and the Board of Health that has the sole responsibility legally to take those actions for example when to open a case when to close a case how how to report the cases and and also to vary so for example in a housing case if there's a housing inspection the way the code demands and requires the response is within a certain very short period of time the report goes out in order to correct and then in that order correct there should be a notice that says all affected parties May appeal this particular order to the Board of Health for a decision as to whether or not the order should be repelled modified changed or what have you and also for hearing maybe there need to be a VAR a variance the city does not do that the city writes a ticket which um normally there's a process of how to do that but the city does not follow the exact requirements so what happens is is that um the tenants for example that might be living in severe substandard conditions don't even have knowledge that they're required to have is supposed to be in the report that they have these certain rights so what happens is as well under the 40u ticketing I me again a little tech technical here but it will eventually be appealed to a hearing officer months down the line without the tenant even being aware and then the hearing officer will make a decision as to whether or not that hear that that ticket and those conditions are valid or not or should be withheld and whether they should be dismissed without any input or knowledge of the Board of Health um and when I mean by marginalized as well to go back to that there have been there have been cases um I'm not sure about this particular one I describe but asking s the city solution's office for um an opinion as to how legally this should be handled because the law and health responses go hand inand as I mentioned earlier and there's been very few times when the responses have been affected and I don't think it's because the city solicor I suspect there are the reasons why there's been no response thank you councilors at this point I will open the floor to any uh any of you that would like to ask questions uh in regard to these mod and um I'm just going to close so I think it was a question I don't know so uh councilors any particular questions councelor Levy thank you councelor president uh principal good evening uh you mentioned that we that you recommend to do an AR yes to the health department of the health department I'm not look I'm not recommending because it's not my area of concern of all of ISD that's a different I'm not commenting on that at all I'm talking about the health functions within ISD can you explain okay very briefly as I mentioned before the state sanitary code is the core requirements of the Board of Health so for example housing uh food uh swimming pools summer camps for children and by the way um we suspect there are summer camps here in this city I would imagine there are and never once has the health department reviewed or certified or licensed those summer camps every time every year when the state requires a response from the local Health departments as to how many summer camps they have um they have licensed the answer from Lawrence is zero because no one has done that um and I'm not blaming the Health Department you just don't have the resources you don't have the ability and yet your the children here the the health codes for summer camps are very very thorough and robust they review such things as qualifications of counselors the um the ratio of counselors to Children um Cory checks and Sor checks um the conditions for various health conditions of the children all those things come out it's a very long process to review and to certify five summer camps and we don't know within the health department even if there's a single summer camp operating in the city um and I I suggest there are but never once has the health department followed through on its legal responsibilities of certifying and reviewing summer camps so that's another example thank you CC Lan yes sir okay um Mr G and here do you remember when was the last audit for Department of Health and would you know what's it was a in my tenure as the chairman I have never seen an audit performed for the health department any kind of review from the estate from no whoever no no no now it's St to get a better uh like outline of what we need to do because the state after we passed through that horrible pandemic and after we ran through that horrible pandemic and health is on the mouth or in the ears of everybody now they're actually expressing a structure of how we should be doing it and I've been doing it wrong or we've been doing it wrong for for about nine years I've gone through three administrations and uh least this Administration I am have a conversation with them and they are willing to come to the table but unfortunately this has been uh a sore spot in the City of Lawrence not letting our laurentians progress because of the the the constitute of a lack of a budget to actually take care of our laurentians I have a more question how many people do you say that the board should have um we should have uh we have two but we should have a minimum three I did send uh application up to uh uh a pharmacist that actually is a maner in lawen general hospital and I'm really pushing for her to do it I think we're going to be in trouble in a little bit if Stuart goes out of business I think we need to create a a side panel or a group to discuss it and since she is a manager at Law in general I really pushing for her to put it in because we're going to need her knowledge base if that happens Mr go can I answer yes very briefly the state law chapter 111 section 26 requires a three- member Board of Health in a city such as Lawrence unless the charter says otherwise it is the responsibility of the mayor to appoint the member the the members of the board um but uh there have been other applicants I'm I I I'm aware of uh but yet even previous administrations have not appointed another board but the law says they the city shall not may but shall have a three member board that is a requirement M living uh one more question please so you said that we should increase the budget how much is the budgets right now for the B Health like I had mentioned the budget now for the health department is $130,000 as a comparison with our neighbor Methuen they have a health department budget of 1.34 million they we base Public Health budgets on allocation per capita Lawrence right now is less than $2 per capita methan is over $20 per capita um you know and I think that more importantly um the loss of this public health Excellence Grant will really adversely affect our ability to hire and train and take this city and uh to the next level in terms of Conquering the immense public health challenges that we Face the budget is important we do need a second nurse we need an epidemiologist we need peer support individuals we need Outreach um we need to hire a qualified uh Health director that can be our agent because a Board of Health can only be as strong as um the health director the people working for us and if we can't hire good people we don't have the resources to hire those people um the Board of Health has limited ability to make change it is important to recognize that that position is funded on the current budget so we were not we we haven't been able to hire somebody but the position is funded and the fund is available for to hire position the health director correct correct and it would be most important if the health director that we hire is somebody that has some Public Health background whether it be a masters in public health or more importantly be a registered sanitarian we do not have a registered sanitarian in the City of Lawrence the only person we have is Ethan who now is not um Consulting for the city for reasons we are not really sure why my sure I like to add one more thing here to that discussion um part of my memo I mention or I recommend the following recognizing the the city Charter and the city ordinance that it is the mayor's responsibility for hiring and managing and firing and all those aspects of Human Services and I respect that and I encourage that however I strongly recommend what I see in the successful cities that I've consulted in is that the boards of Health are included in the process of the hiring as an advisor an advisory role not to overturn the mayor's decision and to respect the mayor's role as it is as it is defined under the charter and the ordinance but successful departments part of the success is when they rely and the on the experience and the knowledge of the board members you have a city physician you have another member of the board and they come with experience and background as well and they can advise the mayor and the human services department or the Personnel Department as to how to find good people and how to vet those people as they move forward in developing the department you're done quickly uh excuse me um both Mr Hill and myself have met with the mayor and his staff um they are highly motivated to hire the necessary individuals and they have come up with a a a diagram of how they would like to restructure the department um which both Stephen Hill and I support um bringing on more staff having a health director Health Board of Health agent that is um the the the the manager of the department um and I think giving some autonomy to the health department uh not having them work under the Building Services but having some autonomy would really go a long way to be able to make an impact so you know Stephen and myself will continue to work with Brian depa and his staff making recommendations regarding Board of Health members epidemiologists prospective Health directors but again it's very hard to accomplish these goals without an adequate budget so going forward I would like you all to take that into consideration thank you uh one more questions it's okay thank you so much Council La plan if I could I'm sorry thank you council president so um uh what you have just distributed to us is nothing short of a bomb I had a chance to really read this very quickly uh and listen to your testimony through you Mr President so my question here is in the email that was sent by Michael Hugo from the mass Association of the health boards I think it's what MH mahb stands for um was the following done which is this important note to Dr Goron Mr Gil please consult with your city solicitor before any discussion of the content of this email are you uh as you are a quum of your board of health and you must respect the open meeting law has that happened I can't speak for the board members uh we have not talked to the C city solicitor I did speak to the leadership and I did get the a diagram of the structure uh they are aggressively trying to change the structure of it but we have not spoke to solicitor um and I just wanted to touch base with you guys to make you aware of the issue that's going on for then I can go to the solicitor and hopefully with your backing uh of the things going on and actually get some movement on this that was advice that apparently I I don't know if that advice was wrong right or wrong but that was the advice that was given by an official who is by the way Michael Hugo he's I'm sorry I answer my own question director of strategies and government relations for the mass Association of Health boards they they are under contract with d pH to um to facilitate the shared services agreements on behalf of the state of throughout the entire Commonwealth and Mike Hugo is part of that team I believe he's the uh he's right under Cheryl sabar who's the director of that program so he's been advising us as well as other regions as well understood so in your testimony tonight you mentioned the amount of money and it was a very large amount of money um that was lost um and a lack of partnership a lack of response and reading this email quickly there were certain words in here that were used to to talk about employees um egregious actions was one of them that I saw um he's pessimistic that DP be will to continue with your inclusion in the in this I mean these it's a lot of the language is quite damning little to know no time left and highlights zero I mean there's like we are writing you off Lawrence is what I'm hearing so so my point is this I've been around this Council long enough and one of the things that I've learned on this Council is's always two sides of every story so I'm hearing one side it's compelling I mean an official with with the mass Association of Health for Association is making a comment he's writing it he's signing it and we have an individual who's a sanitarian with methu who's doing some work there's a lot of information on here council president I you know well it's important for us to hear out of fairness in the process I before we start jumping to the conclusions that are here and by the way part of the conclusions are the administration is being helpful from what I'm led to believe they're going to be adding another um Board of Health member they're going to be doing some other things they're going to restructure and realign the department and and have it fit so it makes more sense for the Board of Health to be more uh efficient in its in its Management in its process and the only thing that you're looking for now to make that come become a reality is funding which of course happens at the third floor not at the first floor um so I think you're doing the right thing as far as getting the money out there but I think council president if we're going to be honest about how we go forward on something like this I think we take this information I think we send it to the to the mayor's office and potentially the city solicitor but most lik the policy maker which is the mayor and his design to respond to this these are serious accusations that are on here and I don't want to I I I want to deal with it seriously because they're seriously put before us but I also need to hear a response and I think that's the way we should be dealing with this and any kind of serious allegations and accusations as well documented as these appear here to be thank you thank you counc um um thank you uh Council plant uh we definitely take into considerations uh your suggestions uh but I think that at this point we we need to uh keep them keep the conversation open so at least one side of the story is developed completely and eventually the mayor knows about this meeting because I inform personally informed the mayor about this situation and uh since it was not an official communication um they choose to wait perhaps and what we need to do at this point is continue the conversation since we are having a a necessary conversation that we never have before I'm glad that we are having this conversation to be honest with you because this is this is very critical and uh and we're going to continue once again we're going to be sending hopefully we're going to be sending this information over to the uh to the mayor so they can respond appr properly uh the proper way to the health department and therefore the city council so through you Mr President Council L counc rosar have the floor at this point thank you so much Council Rosario have the floor at this point Thank You counc president Dr gor you mentioned that you met you guys met with the administration and and you are very happy with the proposal basically it's a proposal that how they're going to restructure this this department health department and and ISD Department can you share with us some of the movement that they plan to do besides hiring are they talking about budgeting and putting more money into it and and what is what is what is the what is the proposal and and why are you guys supporting this proposal The Proposal set forth by the dep Administration um expands the health department to include um excuse me Dr uh mayor the mayor the mayor depa excuse me um to expand the department to include um not only the hiring of a director uh Health director um and but put the the health department Board of Health under its own umbrella it will no longer be under the building department ISD will be the overarching um supervising body of both the Building Commissioner the prosecuting officer the administrative supervisor the director of health and the well but there will be the addition of assistant director of Health there will be um a director for the americ Corps Grant which is vitally important because we need an ad administrator for that Grant to improve the the um to bring our housing stock up to code um there will be um the addition of several inspectors as well as a second um City nurse at current at present we only have one City nurse so mayor depena has P put forth these ideas which we support at the Board of Health level um amping up and of course with this change and with the addition of a second uh City nurse an americ Corps director um several more inspectors that are trained um and adding an assistant director of Health this will require an increase in the budget of course so that clearly will come from the third floor um and will be presented at some point to the council Dr G it's is this proposal supposed to begin as now or we waiting to pass the budget the if the administration actually it tell you when are they they looking to proceed with this I I'm not sure exactly the timeline in terms of the budget but in our conversations with the depena administration we have expressed our concerns with the mayor Deena's Administration we have expressed our concerns and the extreme need to increase just not just the budget but the Staffing within the department and they have uh been been open to listening and responding and I we both feel that they are moving positively in that direction um I think the the the the letter that councelor lelant refers to um addresses some some other issues um in regards to how Lawrence um you know potentially has lost the grant but that is separate from the administration's plan to restructure the health department adding staff and increasing the budget which we have pushed for and they have listened and and and they they are being supportive of are you going to be part eventually of the hiring process when it comes to physician or the molus and all all this particular people that need to be certified um well I I I certainly we have both been in been involved in recommending um individuals um what their qualification should be um what we are looking for and not just a health director but a a a a co-member of the Board of Health um and they have listened thank youon oh thank you for the outdate and I just want to say that um and also to say to the administration to congratulate Administration for their willingness to work with the board but also we need to um keep in mind that the administration fail uh what we witness today is a failure uh over the administration and the way that I see is uh they put Politics on over uh the well-being of the community and that is very concerning also uh through you Mr President again there's no there's no one here from the mayor's office uh where's the chief of staff we don't have a way to ask the questions um that we have so I hope that for the next meeting we can ask the Chief of Staff of of this Administration the new Chief of Staff uh Mr Matias because we have a lot of questions and we never get any answer from uh the office on the third floor thank you councilors any other questions in regard to this item I don't have a question I just have a comment according to our Charter and this is not our ordinances but our Charter of the organization or the reorganization that Dr gor and commissioner Gil speak of must be approved by the city council under Section 6 so um and unlike most other things within our Charter whether it's ordinance Etc there is a an entirely different Pathway to get to a proposal for reorganization to adopting a reorganization and so I just want to while you're it's important clearly to get the mayor Buy in on this clearly and so doing that is an a critical First Step but it's also you also need to convince at least I think five members of this Council that a reorganization uh is justifiable and isn't it would be a good a service to our residents thank you Mr President thank you councelors any other questions concerns about this this item I have a few comments on these um well the first question I mean the first word that I actually wrote down on my Note it was autonomy and uh the the reason that brought that up is because it's extremely important for for the B of heal to work properly uh is if you have a proper autonomy and and the proper uh resource uh to work with uh to make sure that they we deliver the the the the quality of the service that is supposed to um so essentially um it's according to the the state law The Bard of health is an independent body uh that is supposed to work with the agent of the day-to-day operation of the city of the of the city uh that essentially happened to be most of the time the the the director of the inspection of services uh correct so until the last year or so that the the I believe the dph recommends to change that and that was the the dph recommendation to change the uh the previous agents to the current agent we have that is not the uh the director of the of the department my understanding is that Wisa Perez is the agent to the board but currently we do not have a health director that has the autonomy that you're talking about and that's what we need it and I have been a proponent since the beginning that the Board of Health and their agent SL Health director should have the autonomy to make the hard decisions that are free of politics um and until the Board of Health and its agent are you know can work independently not under the umbrella of ISD um I don't think we're ever going to get to that point and that's why my initial recommendations was to take the health department like it is in many other cities and remove it from the umbrella of ISD but as councelor l plant had mentioned that is a process that is spelled out in the city Charter it is not an easy process and you all have to agree that that's something that can lead to positive change in the city I wholeheartedly believe that without question the health department of this city given the challenges that we Face should be an independent body 100% And and and that is something that I feel strongly about from my experience and from seeing how the decision making process can have undo outside influence that it really shouldn't have right thank you thank you for for saying that through you Mr President so in total uh you you mentioned that we lost three Grands what is the amount in total I just want that in the record the amount them uh that we lost and the three grants that the seed of the administration the the the shared services the public health Excellence grants is about is a little over 500,000 annually um that one is a three-year Grant so that's 1.5 million um the americ corpse Grant is another 300,000 300,000 per year for three years so that's another 900,000 and then the the um one that the emiology Grant is about contact tracing Grant is epidemiology um it's about 400,000 400,000 that um if I may also add something to that I think what's important here in terms of the grants not to get too much in the details but let's say the americore grant it's only a three-year Grant but it's an important Grant because if it's manage correctly you can leverage that grant for more grants that Grant is essentially about encouraging and and encouraging more a better compliance with the pre-rental inspection program which is not well complied with already currently and that goal is to increase that it's also a shared Grant though with methan and that's also at risk because they now pulled away from methan so I'm not sure if americ core will continue to fund it if let's say assume that it was be to be continued to be funded um if you ask the right questions for example you know we we we we've had good laws in the books since the 1970s and we still have substandard housing so we try things like pre-rental inspection programs does it actually work so by doing that you have three years under the grant to find out well ask that question does it work or if it doesn't work where are the failures where are the successes and if you can document that and assess it and do what an epidemiologist would do with that information then you can leverage that for even more grants because the country is asking that question many cities are looking at that across the country not just Lawrence but no one has has the data right now and Lawrence is in a unique position to gather those data and then leverage that information with what works what doesn't work go for More Money More grants and it help support the city in really working on how to improve the bottomline question is how do improve housing quality and standards how do we get people out of substandard housing into housing that meets those minimum standards that's the core goal of the Grant and and that's I just want to point that out that sure thank you thank you so much uh it is important to recognize that um uh those those grants that we just mentioned uh we haven't have that uh the the final termination from the pH we have not had the final termination I have a small amount of hope that if we can show that we're going that we have the will and the determination to make the changes that they have recommended that we can salvage maybe not all three but but some for sure that was that's what we all hope and I hope that uh that uh we we get our act together when it comes to the health department uh councelors any other particular questions um other than that I will continue with my quick comment and then we can uh we can close out this this item so essentially something very important that I would like to to said is that that I would like to set is uh I would like to pay special attention to our current uh agent that is representing the Board of Health in a day-to-day operation and the reason that I'm saying that is because the last thing we want is to single out single it out a person and then have that person at risk and not be able to defend what what she's currently doing it is very concerning uh how the city is moving uh on this uh on this matter because um council president cor of order yes council president it sounds as though you're ruing a comment or an opinion from the chair I feel I'm looking forward to listening to your comment but in doing so you must release the gel to the vice president under under rule four of our rules so uh so essentially let's start let's start now we have the floor so let's start from the it's not it's not going to be a a a a comment since that former council president actually is very concerned about the process uh we need to respect that but we all know what is behind this um it is what it is and at the end of the day what we need to do is keep things going in the way that is sure sure I'm I'm on top of it uh so essentially we would like I would like to make sure that we don't single at out a person that is currently doing the work that is that is that required by dph uh to for the city of L to continue doing um and and essentially the B of ho is a great support uh to what the city is doing we understand what you guys are doing uh with only two members uh in in the effort that it takes after the pandemic so with that said currently so aan aan was good right um so um currently you are not working for for the water hul of a consult right I'm sorry can you repeat you're not working for the board not for Lawrence not for lawr been asked not to do any work with Lawrence however I'm also available to the board to the city council if they have any questions for me sure so essentially uh the work that uh you were doing for the city of L that was for the inspectional services or that was for the Board of Health it was actually a Board of Health agreement uh the two boards entered into a shared services agreement through the Department of Public Health and it was through the health boards that that entered the cities but through the health boards so so essentially um what we saying here is that even though you were working on the an independent autonomous board you were asked by the administration not to continue working or that was by the administration or somebody else it was by the administration uh the letter came the letter came from the commissioner of ISD but I I don't know I assume but I can't know for sure because the letter came from IST I assume it came from the third floor from the mayor's office okay so it it come directed uh to you uh from the director of inspectional services that is correct so that's the fact uh so essentially the V did the B did the Bol actually uh say anything in regard to that matter we were we were not informed that this letter was going to be sent there was no conversation no correspondence we were just informed by Ethan during a meeting um that he received this letter from the director of ISD um let me just reiterate that we rely on Ethan we have always relied on Ethan to provide us expertise and so this came as a shock to us this letter was not accompanied with any explanation it was not followed up with any explanation and um and we're still looking for answers so let me ask you a question were you part of that video that went vital I'm sorry I couldn't hear you were we were you part of that video that went vital yes yes after that you were released um no was after actually I've I've been try they tried to I've been the city has tried to fir me twice one time they fired me was um about a year ago when uh Mr Alfonso Alfonso was the um director and methan refused to respect that request so I continued on because I was employed through the city of methan this time Methuen um said that they they would honor the the city's request that I not participate in any work here in the City of Lawrence um so I have to honor what uh methan has asked me to do because that's who I that's who employs me that's where the contract is the the methan is the contract administrator got it council president can you um sorry to interrupt I know you have a floor but can what is this viral video that you are referring to that you're asking there was at B ofo uh video that went idal uh issues that were they were discussing oh I understand the question I'm sorry so answer yes yeah that yes I did not I my Spanish is very poor and I did not understand the the vid the uh recording very well but yes it was after that recording so it was right it was right after that approximately situation so it could be it could be we could probably say it without having confirmation that perhaps it was as a result of the meeting we don't know I don't know I can't answer that with with certainty excuse me so just to to make it clear there was a viral video that that went out there was a video that went viral the explaining issues that were wrong that were going on between within the the health the city's Health Department within ISD and after and I'm just I'm just going to State what I've restate what I'm hearing so I can fully also grasp it myself after that video after the city became aware of that video whether we know when or what whatever when that video went viral that is when you received a letter without any explanation of why the city wanted to no longer the city wanted to no longer work with you correct just yes or no yes thank you all right so essentially uh that is that is very concerning because uh you the the B of Health was speaking out on issues that we currently have it is it was nothing related to personal matters or it was not related to any other issues that is not that is not a a health issue as I said before I don't I did not understand the complete um video because my Spanish is so poor and I was looking for a translation I still don't have one so I don't know how to answer your question um so when it comes to a specific requirements uh of The Bold and and uh the and dph um what is it that we have agreed so far that uh that we are going to be in compliance with uh so so far before the budget season start so we agreed to separate the department but the did the administration also agreed on the budget repercussion of that of that specific proposal the the conversation um regarding separating the Board of Health from I mean the health department from ISD um was was brief and was truncated by the challenges to accomplish that in terms of the city charart so I believe the plan was to expand the health department Under the Umbrella of ISD hoping to expand the budget but in terms of the idea to make the health department fully autonomous was a suggestion that I had that has not been adopted by the administration as of yet all right um thank you thank you for providing in this update and thank you for answering this questions about uh this specific matter is extremely important to the community to have uh what it takes the last thing that that I hear that is extremely concerned to me is that uh when it comes to the health of the city uh and a potential fatality uh or some issues regarding to that it is a matter of uh when not if it's going to happen because of that is that uh that is that uh the trust that the state have on the city uh when it comes to that and that's that's very concerning so in in in summary I I would like all the counselors to look at the memo and if we can make some changes or or Lobby to make those changes immediately um this could go a long way in preserving the public health Excellence grants we have one week and um you know it would be a it would be a heroic effort to get there um and I I think together we can do it um but it's going to take some footwork thank you thank you councelor just for the record U for the record mam Vice uh vice president uh it is important to recognize that I have a conversation with the mayor about this issue on Friday and we discussed this for about uh 30 minutes IET uh it was a situation that it was uh um that it was some success in the conversation it was an understanding that it was an issue uh I was I wasn't 100% uh happy with the with the answer because I don't want to react to the issue I want to be proactive and that was the only reason why I actually go ahead and decide to to have that conversation with the mayor because it is it is concerning that we are uh and the way of losing any type of funds when it com to the public health so I just want to say that for the record thank you m thank you counselors before I give back to the gravel I just as the oh I have I have to finish oh well thank you all for what you do at this point there any other counselors that have a question or a comment um to add to um item 11524 mtion I see none there's a motion been made by council president Rodriguez is there a second second second seconded by councelor Santiago discussion all those in favor say I and the eyes have it thank you so much thank you for your time thank you thank you going to um one uh one more issue out of the out of order and that would be that U the safety the Safety Committee report share from the Safety Committee report thank you um let me just so the safety the the Public Safety Committee met last week and we discussed item hold on just one second we discuss item 39-24 um Community concerns regarding the parking meter Citywide that was brought to the city council by councelor Gregory delario um at this point uh the committee um decided to send this item as a committee report and I make that as a formal motion second discussion thank you um this this item council president and and fellow colleagues uh we we have heard many many people speak on behalf of this item tonight and I actually I want to thank Council Greg Greg um delario for taking the initiative on this um he's been very adamant um very vocal and and I appreciate especially because we heard from one of my constituents tonight a business owner in District T um that this parking meter situation I have been trying to address it with the administration for over a year now and the answers that I've been receiving both myself and the business owner was that the administration was looking into other areas to replace the meters from the intersection of South Broadway and and over all the way up South Broadway like like if you're going towards 495 that we have that's more residential than than business um in that area and every time I would I this business owner would call me and every time I would call um the administration to get an update it was it was always oh yeah we we have we have a location to to relocate the parking meters we're going to do it we're going to do it and it's a year and a half later and I'm still my constituent as he mentioned came twice to the city council um and I since then have also asked for updates so um and it's it's uh it's I want to say I'm glad but it's also unfortunate to see that my constituent isn't the only person being um it's every it's it's it's everybody um so I before I and I do want want um Council De Rosario um to to take over cuz he he's been doing an excellent job on this and I again thank you Council thank you at this point we're actually going to entertain the question uh the motion to accept it as a committee report and then eventually we'll send another motion to open up for discussion so um all Us in favors to accept this as a committee report please say I I there eyes have it now councelors I will entertain a motion to to motion for the purpose of discussion there is a motion for the purpose of discussion uh properly second discussion uh CC president counc rosar thank you to you um it's it's very concerning when even 3 weeks after the fact that we were here I get another issue when it comes to to ticketing now one issue is added cars are driving around unfortunately I drive around and now handicap parking with the plers are being ticketed um besides me getting the tickets back continuously with people they already pay the tickets um one big concern also and I want to the employees or the ticket Department to know and realize you guys are not police officers you guys regardless if you're charging money you're a customer service um and I heard somebody in the podium today that we need to open an office to educate the people people how to use the meters maybe but that's what you pay for when people are not not don't know how to use the meters that's when the customer service should come out out of you know the police officers cuz you're not a police officers and another issues that I've been seeing on the streets cuz I drive a lot is the they Park on double parking uh obstructing the traffic on a street two of those uh cars they actually put the tickets on it you see one on the on a on the side a curb and the other one right next to it obstructing the traffic on rhawa when is rosaa on EX Stree every day 247 but the main reason that this is here it's cuz my constituents and again we were here three weeks ago and it hasn't stopped people are still showing me the tickets being in ticket and they pay for the ticket handicaps that come to us with the blocker and they being ticket and once again the director or the manager of the company PCI went on and say that they not making any money and I think that's the biggest issue I I think you guys are money hungry and you guys need to to slow down stop the service somehow sit down with the sit down with the city and stop the service double check your issues and then go back at it when it's better fixed go back to retrain you you people they are working you put cameras on it now they feel more more as a police officers people are going to be mad cuz you tiet them and they already pay for the parking so you should be trained how to react to these people that you already ticketed you're not going to take the ticket back and they already pay it's like taking money out of my pocket try to take the money out of my pocket and you see how I think that I think it will be um a productive if we actually so I'm unproductive C no no no no no wait let me let me finish um if we discussed the item that was discussed because a lot of the information that was discussed there was part of that and you have great points during the discussions at the subcommittee level so I think that bringing this up and and asking those specifics to the company uh the issue continues the issue continue and then you actually brought very important topics at the house at the Safety Committee maybe if you kind of like it through there maybe but I'm telling you all the news issues that have been erupted including with the same issues that we discussed three weeks ago but that's okay I'll give the PCI people the floor and they can actually let us know what they doing what they have done after three weeks and why the issue still continue yeah can you mention a few of the issues that you guys brought up at the uh at the Safety Committee so they can um they can give us an update what they they have changed if any change any any particular changes or anything like that regarding to that so we can um the issues that were BL up at the first meeting was the same issue that people were paying and they got the tickets that they pay and they still get a ticket uh what we got from the company is that there's a delay on the communication but it's still a delay on the communications because the issues still continue so we want to know what exactly are they planning to do what they have done because in three weeks we still have the same issues maybe worse because right now actually also handicap people with handicap plers are being ticketed okay perfect uh uh Cel Rosario still have the floor so that um they might be able to answer a few questions of you have thank you councelor president it's Brian Kern I'm the president of PCI Municipal Services uh yes we were here three weeks ago and let me first start out you know I've been in the business since 1990 I've been over probably 125 plus cities I can tell you nobody likes to pay for parking it it's been that way forever nobody likes to pay for it we get that but successful cities need parking programs and what you guys decided to do a year ago back when you put the the uh bid out in 22 was because your parking people were just everywhere they were parking and it was told by the city council that people were out there for days at a time people were circling the blocks six seven eight times to be able to find a space and that went up on a lot of streets a lot of the side streets so the city decided they wanted to expand it and they expanded it by 1,00 plus spaces to make it over 2100 total spaces I think that was very necessary for the city now when you put the RFP out counselor uh it asked for a specific you know program of which we responded to as part of that program we spent over 1 .5 billion to be able to put up the meters buy the vehicles and do it the way you asked for and as I sit here tonight I can tell you by industry standards we're doing far better than what you're ever going to find on a paid parking program when you do it by paid license plate yes we do have that issue we are addressing it you're saying that we haven't addressed it for 3 weeks I'm going to show you a few stats to where we have we understood we understand what your concerns are we've talked to David Rodriguez numerous times every time David and I talk I make sure that I address the team and we make sure that we are doing things to try to help the situation so so the issue was regarding the delayed delay tiet so go ahead so as you can see here this is when you what you had before when somebody paid the meter they had to just go back to their vehicle and they had to put that on their Dash our Enforcement Officers then went over check if that was a paid receipt they did not give them a ticket nothing went through the internet nothing went through the data with this system that you asked for that we bid on this is the process that it takes once they pay that payment at the meter or they use their mobile phone that information goes to a cell tower via VPN tunnel that takes a little bit of time it then transmits to the IPS data management system that takes a little bit more time that payment data then transmits again to the Kelly and Ryan enforcement database here in Lawrence that communicates back through the cell tower and it goes back to our enforcement officer handheld in the field that process can take some time we heard you counselor and we have told our guys because of the as part of the RFP we were required to use a system the Kelly and Ryan system which wasn't built for parking it was built for your taxes and collecting of taxes I'm not downgrading Kelly and Ryan that's what the system is but it's not a modern system it doesn't have a lot of the modern techniques and stuff that we need and that we use in our other cities now it's not Kelly and Ryan's problem that this is taking this amount of time this is just like when you're telephone has five bars and you walk down a block and it's at one bar it's the same situation we're reliant on that data to be able to process through so it comes back to us so we can see real life data that is what the how it works now if you don't want to do that system we can go back to putting tickets on the cars but if you go out there like I have many times you'll notice there's a lot of vehicles out there that don't have tickets they get the receipts now they do not put those receipts on dash they don't want to have to go back to their car now just for the month of May we've had over 32,000 payments at the meters of the 2100 spaces of those we've issued 2,4 tickets which is 6% of those 6% there's only been 55 invalid tickets 64% of those are over 5 minutes it's because of this situation I think we're wanting to jump on that we have some of the few issues and I get it if somebody paid and they get a ticket I wouldn't want that either I totally understand their their frustration but there's ways with the new modern technology if we were to move on to a new platform to where we could help them and I I put some of those on here we could do mobile LPR scans as David Rodriguez will tell you we have had some problems we do void tickets because when our guys are out there they have to manually put that in you don't have to with these other new systems they're mobile LPR scans it takes the manual process right out of it in addition it takes out the fuzzy matching when you ask for us to go to the new license plate technology people have to put their plate in they make mistakes this new system that we use across the country it actually does what's called fuzzy matching if an H shows up as a three or a k as a z it actually sees that up to two digits and our guys are able to tell that and they don't write those bad tickets we eliminate those bad tickets it also has a web based appeals process if we were to give that ticket in the field counselor that that wrong ticket they could actually go right on their phone or on their computer when they get to their office or home and they can repal it and we can get it out of the system right away it's customer friendly we don't have that right now that would help us we could also void the citations you brought that up three weeks ago to me we went back we talked to a system that we use they have that they can make that work in their system to where if somebody came up to one of our enforcement officers and said hey I got this ticket wrong they could actually go in right then and there and they can void that by calling our office and it would void in the system and we we wouldn't have to worry about that being lost that ticket being lost which is our concern right now which is why we don't allow that currently so we did hear what you said we've worked on it but when you think about that when we have less than 100th of a percent of bad tickets of the people who are paying it's pretty impressive and you're probably not going to find a better system in the United States that are hitting those numbers and we have a gentleman his name is Steven Snider he's with IPS who is the manufacturer for readers he could tell you some of that stuff of how well this is doing now the reason we're doing so much better now is because they put 40 new powerful antennas to help the situation to get that data moving faster and going back to your comments you have your numbers thank you C president you have your numbers but those are the numbers that you manage there's people and I discussed that with you guys three weeks ago that just for the hassle they go home and pay in those numbers you have it as positive but they complained just for the yelling of your official or whoever is doing the work they go home they don't want an issue and they go home and we even though with the ticket that they pay they go and pay it you get it as a positive but we get the complaints and we see the pictures and when I tell them so why did you bring it over he say you know what after that guy yell at me and I don't want to take a deal I don't want to go to City Hall I don't want to take an issue I paid the $25 so those are also issues that you calculated that's a positive ticket but you don't deal with them they don't deal with that us I don't know if they do I'm talking about myself cuz District here is one of the districts also most busy in P downtown I don't know if my celor or District B is dealing with that which is mostly downtown I deal with that on an everyday basis also again you're not reflecting the the data of the handicap ticket they they get the tickets again they go home and they go they go home and they pay but once you're going to play that ticket right you write the you write the license plate and you're going to play the ticket and you see that Placer and you still leave that ticket there that's unacceptable I agree and we don't want that we don't want to give out wrong tickets I'm going to let Darwin speak a little bit about that he works in our office he's one of our assistant managers for the program but you know just just so you understand we are trying to address those things if if we write a bad ticket we want to be able to help the person and we do that as much as we can we also provided our guys in the field cards so if they have any type of Confrontation they can just call that number and deal with Darwin in the office because he's part of our customer service team and he has helped many people but I'll let him speak to you about the handicap NE address for the recer Darwin assistant manager so in regards to the handicap um which you talking about they are the the only thing that the handicap doesn't get ticket for is for overtime Park which is for not paying the meter any other violation the handicap is entitled to get ticket no no which that's yeah no no that's not how it is that's not the state that's not how the state Lo work if you have your hearing officer which is um David Rodriguez you have that consulted with the attorney um so I suggest you to actually yes uh consult that with the attorney because that's not how we work I believe I'm afraid it is if if if a if a handicapped person double Parks blocks a street they get a ticket if a handicapped person parks in front of a fire station they get a ticket all those are ticketable offenses they they get a ticket they're exempt the handicap plet allows you to pocket a meter and not pay you can stay there all day with a handicap that's all you're allowed to do they get T handicap person speeds they get a ticket it doesn't exempt you I'm sorry it's just it no it doesn't essential for a violation because you're violating the you violating the U other uh law but I mean you you park in a driveway block a driveway and your handicapped person you get a ticket you get a ticket for all the parking violations there are except for parking at a meter all right uh so what are the violations that a handicap par can actually so the only one that they sent to is for not paying the meter and what are the violations that you guys are giving out ticket for so we give all the violations that like what um other than ticket expiration ticket V hydrant double parking restrict the area um 23 off uh interception on a crosswalk sidewalk Etc ony Point clarification to pass second there's a motion to pass then properly second discussion discussion discussion I asked for discussion before the vote was called discussion discussion thank you go ahead thank you listen we're about to go past 10:00 tonight thank you I will tell you this there's going to be a vote we're going to do this but here's the issue make the issue this is the through me make the issue so here's the issue council president thank you go ahead the issue is this we decided or maybe council president I decided you decided you know where I'm going yes you decided council president without consulting any of the city councilors for a vote as you would have done had this been perhaps last year that we were going to have one meeting for by the way for the first time in the city's history since we've had presidential elections going as far back as 1988 the first know I I got the floor council president and I'm the president and and I I'm not done speak through me I am speaking to you council president go ahead I'm speaking directly to you yes so what we have done here is that we have had one meeting this month and it's now we're not even near halfway we have a public hearing for for LC that hasn't even gone we have old business that deals with easements that are supposed to be done in a timely manner we've got other issues that are coming up we have 72 items in the ordinance committee council president yes that hasn't has a committee report needs to be read on those things plus housing plus committee on the whole council president that has to deal with Municipal aggregation which again is a complicated and intrinsic conversation that we had before the committee on the whole I just want to object council president that that what we have done what excuse me council president what you have done you corrected me and by the way going to take the you have done is now s us back because the rules say that we are can go after 10:00 with a vote and there's a reason why that rule is there council president the rule is there because we are human beings that have a full day in and the and the rules were put there why because the later it gets in the evening the less it's just human nature we're not as strong we're not as vibrant as we were at 7:00 8:00 and 9:00 that's a reality so there's a reason why that's there so I'm hopeful council president we don't do this again and if you decide to do this council president I hope that you ask members of this Council what they think about it thank you okay thank you so much now we're going to answer to you uh you have the opportunity to call for a special meeting and nobody support you you have no support of the council you if you get a signature with two other the counselor only two counselors to support you on another meeting you would have an special meeting but guess what the issue was not supported to you to you Council councilor La plant nobody support you on the issue and you know what you did you went ahead and went to the mayor's office asking him for a support in an special meeting and guess what you couldn't have it because nobody supporting you on that issue and you making this issue going past 10 first time you do it in 18 years that this is happening because we always go past 10 always and you acting directly like because you wanted to go your point across and you guess what you have it but you don't have the support now I call the question all of favor all those in favor please say I there I have it thank you so much you have the floor I was I was going to make a thing also three weeks ago what I said is all the tickets that I'm defending is the tickets that are wrongly tick all constitu are wrongly ticket it cuz they bring it to me I read it if there a violation that it has nothing to do with it I say no you have to pay this cuz sometimes they don't understand according to them but when it comes to the handicap I understand the violation and it's only those that I'm defending that they've been in parking meters and they getting tickets even by mail so um from my my experience um I mostly work at the window downstair um most of the tickets we get back that are error is usually because they put the wrong play number either they're off by a number like missing a number whatever the case may be which we do take those tickets back we don't make them pay we do try to educate them so like that they could avoid the um having to take away from their time to come to our office and like that we don't have those issues um other things that um we try to that you said that we don't educate them most of the people are against us and I don't know if having um Community uh like to you for example I don't like the way you speak about my co-workers and and I I'm saying that and I'm part of this community I grew up here but stick to the issue yeah these guys here oh sorry um these guys here they actually live in the in the city they get paid by the hour so I don't see why would they go out of their way to ticket someone that is not doing a violation um yesterday for example we had an incident where they were just checking to see if the person paid and some guy just came and knocked the phone off the hand and things like that do happen so sometime what what they try to do is they be like oh go to the office and that's the reason why is to avoid certain situations so for me it's easier to handle things like that cuz I'm behind the window for them it's more difficult to go and try to educate someone that is being aggressive towards them and that's the reason why they being directed to the office and we also do have um a meter downstair in our office which we do anytime I get a person who gets a ticket for overtime violation I do offers the service to tell them like that you don't get a ticket again I could teach you how to use a Meer have you tell yourself just point point a clarification there very quick when you say that you got a a a a license plate that is off by a number how do your system read the license plate because I'm assuming that your system is supposed to read uh the the car type the Coler and all the stuff before you actually emit the ticket because you need to confirm that that's the right car no um so we have the vehicles that go around and they pick up those plates and as they pick up plates and it gets a ping that's violation they may get three four five on let's say Essex they pull over to the side or they pull to the next street then they go down once they go to those vehicles of those three four that pinged as a violator they then have to take that and they have to manually put that ins into the handheld the Kell and Ryan handheld when the customer gets a ticket said I paid they'll bring that to the office Darwin will look at that he'll notice that was off one and he will void that ticket because they either our person put it in wrong or the customer put their plate in wrong understand uh Mr President so not not to defend let's do one round now to defend the community but since this was implemented people are being R ticketed a lot right and that's why they some of them are aggressive you're going to find aggressive people and that's why they reacted that way I just put you in a example it's like taking money out of our pockets and and what I'm trying to say is try to take the money out of my pocket just because and that's how people feel and and and that also it it needs to change cuz when they come to you also with the ticket that they pay to show you and I seen it you guys that you don't like me how I talk about them but I seen it you don't I have nothing to talk to you you go to the city hall and that's not the reaction that we want cuz you're job is not just tick and your job is customer service at that point is when the customer service training should come out and that's why people are so agress aggressive to you by the treatment that they've been getting for the past year and a half from some of you guys I'm not saying all of it all of you some of you guys thank you coun president counc infant council president infant thank you um first before before I I I State my comment I want to apologize to every thank you in the gallery um for what just happened a few minutes ago um secondly what I would like to add to the comments that uh my my colleague councel the De Rosario stated so this is related it's a separate note but related at the same time um I've also have heard stories of of uh City parking employees um being disrespectful to Residents but I've also heard the opposite too I unfortunately have not seen it by with my own eyes the the the employees but I'm sure I have counselors here colleagues here that have not only seen it but also you know they've been it's been reported to them what I can what I can say um from an experience that I had um I shadowed our Police Department over a year ago uh myself and councelor Le plan and we saw incidents where our own police offices we're just trying to have a conversation with some of our um community members and they just you know so that is why I I 100% believe that this is also happening um and and I and I don't know where can we meet in the middle because it's coming from both ends and we can't we can't you know we can't just focus on one end because like let's say we give all the training in the world to to our employees but at the end of the day we're human beings and we can only take so much so if we have on the other side we have community members being disrespectful for no reason what a city employees will will explode like it's just it's human nature so I'm asking I I honestly I'm I'm stating this I don't I don't have the answer colleagues but it's something that I I want you guys to to think about and hopefully we can find a common ground for for both for both stakeholders and I understand that and that's why we know it happens both ways and our guys try to stay patient and calm but they do it's a hard job and that's why you can't keep guys very long in this position because it's very hard to be on the streets and get yelled at because again nobody likes to pay for parking and nobody likes getting tickets that's why we did the body camps it's really for both benefits and we'll be able to show you videos of where it's actually calmed the customer down once they've realized that was the situation but it's also for us to where we see all that so if our guy is going off on somebody we're going to know that and we will address it and our manager Sam Ortiz who's in the back anytime he sees anyone double parking they've been talked to about that they've been written up that is not tolerated I I to to end um and then whomever would like the FL to to end my comments I believe that this the parking meter situation is not just a a public safety one night and then full Council one night um discussion a two night discussion I should say I think we should continue um having these these con these um discussions I don't know if the answer perhaps is uh creating a task force where we we meet or something um monthly or just get an update we have one or two I I don't I don't know what what the what the point is I don't know what the solution is but what I do know is that this is not just this is a conversation that cannot just end tonight because we will continue to have problems on both end we will continue to face um um situations and ultimately we're the city's in a contract I I I forget I don't recall if it's for three or five years but we're in a we're in a contract with with these parking five five years so unless the city is willing to pay a lot of money to get out we're we're in this country contract for 5 years so what is the solution for us like we need to figure out solution and we need to keep these conversations going thank you councel councel Le thank you councelor president um well that is why we are here I think so know just to try to get the best solution to solve all of this problem that bring to be working with the people in both side uh you know but uh you mention you mentioned that uh now the officer that work for you guys came boy the what I'm saying is there's new modern systems to where we can do that with the system that we're required to use currently no we cannot void that in the field okay but there's new systems that allow you to do that and with the approval from the office they can look in the system see it notice if it was a bad ticket and they can void it right there in the field that way there's no worry of a lost ticket that's why that we don't void it now in the field okay so because like we explain it to you uh sometime it's very hard and very difficult so people when they has to come here to the city to fight for a ticket they sometime need to get out from job or lose the time for getting to the war or go to whatever that they have to do it and spend time you know uh doing what they have to do to get the ticket boy or um or to get back the buy I agree and that's why I agree with the vice president we need to get together David and I David Rodriguez and I and director haime we've had discussions we just need to move forward with getting a new modern system that will allow us to give this better customer service yeah I think so that like it's um our vice shair you know from time to time we should me or or ask you to come by and then can we can discuss or not discuss but at Le to see how the situation is getting better or is getting worse so not to expect maybe another year or whatever six mon for you to come by and talk to us and talk to the public to know that practically are this P of the the people who's getting um most of this well let me tell you a little bit about what we've done on my dime to make it better my partner and I decided that you know we understood the counselor we understood everybody's frustration so we actually brought in IP's back end on so they now have their system so that's after we get a hit from Kelly and Ryan saying it's violation we then go to their back office we then go to the mobile back office ubio we have now brought in a third one it's called Park loyalty we now go to that so where we used to write tickets in 30 seconds it's now taken us 2 and A2 minutes so in essence what's happened is we're giving customers 2 and a half minutes of grace Time now but we're doing that on our dime if we had the new systems we wouldn't have to do that and remember we agreed to pay you $1.2 million as part of this contract and it and we also invested 1.5 million but what you asked for and what we saw and the number of spaces that you wanted us to manage and Patrol everything that we proposed the number of hours of enforcement is exactly what we're doing we're doing exactly what we promised we're not doing more we're not chasing people we're not trying to write tickets but there's a lot of people violating and again you wanted the streets open now you can go to any Street and find spaces you go to a lot of the businesses you talk to them they'll tell you they're pretty happy now they don't like it that the owners are that that the employees have to pay because now they're having to park three blocks back but at least now the customers have a space to park right in front of their business go talk to them I've talked to a lot of them yes you're always going to find people who don't like to pay for parking that's that's the world we live in I don't like to pay for shoes I wish I could walk into any restaurant in Lawrence and get a free meal I can't can't get it just stick to the topic Mr President through you again uh it is possible for like it for us to get a report I don't know see it could be good to get a report of everything you know uh every two three months or every four months acly report regarding you know uh everything that is been done in the city that's maybe could be a little bit helpful for us to understand better what's going on and see we have regarding those report we have a question we can call you guys back and again talk to you and try to to see how we can s whatever that we can see in there I promise I will give you a very very detailed report of all of this stuff that we're talking about every quarter all right thank you so much and I'm willing to come back and talk to you anytime all right thank you so much and thank you so much because uh you've been like you said you've been doing a couple of changes after the the meeting that we already have thank you councilor may I add to to your comment councelor through you council president um councelor Levy mentioned that she said thank you for what you're doing and one of the first things that I want to point out when you guys came up to the podium was you told councelor the Rosario councelor you spoke and we're listening um so I I'm with councelor Lev on that thank you thank you for listening my question uh through you Mr President uh my colleague covered some of my question but uh the issue is not only in one specific area it's around the whole Community they have concern about uh personally I receive a lot of tickets and especially with my car have a special logo and the logo say city council but I need to send every day one or two ticket to David I think it's not right because you supposed to know what is that mean through this logo but uh my question today is about what we can do because uh we have a lot of mle in uh residential area is not right because when I go around to my community I see a lot of mle in from the residential uh is a is a big issue uh because uh our community also M because we have a lot of midle for example uh Union Street but it's not only uh a small business it's combine they have business on the first floor in residential at the second floor so we need to take that in consideration too I want to know what we can do especially because uh we had today uh some coning and they mention and and I'm be there and I saw the the person to be there and putting ticket uh I go to to to Gomez Market in South lawence and they put a ticket at least and left the 50 men I take the ticket and when I go inside the grocery when I go back I have another ticket so what does that mean because it's like a 50 minute the car is the same spot and I receive two ticket and less than 50 minutes so we're talking about for the real issue is happening in our community if we want to see some solution because I know nobody want to pay ticket but we need to uh find out a some solution because uh you do a a big investment but our community we need to care about that thank you thank you Council Rees now um Council Mamu uh before we I proceed with my series of questions um I think it's a matter of understanding as to how you guys function so who who makes the determination as to where the parking meters are placed is it P PCI or is it the administration it was the administration so now I know how to Target certain questions um in terms of so um council member the administration they put they put an RFP with a specific Street uh a specific areas and and companies come over analyze the areas and they provide uh own their datp they provide a and a specific uh amount of money that they going to give to the city every month or every year out of the contract and then the the the city analyze each contract and they uh accept one and reject others so with that you know some of our issues I guess we're going to have to there's some that we will have to bring it upon you guys to fix but with that answer council president through you that just tells me that our issues also have to deal with the administration um because some of these meters I believe that they're being placed in in in locations where they have no business being placed at you know we've had several people complaining on the fact that it's not just commercial zoning areas it's in residential areas um so specifically with District D you know there were par there's parking meters um specifically at Essex Towers which is where a lot of the elderly folks live um and and a lot of high traffic in terms of PCA workers they're going to be there for hours at a time um but I digress um what I want to address is you mentioned 64% are over the five minutes this just leads me to understand that more than 40% are under five minutes um and the way you speak it's as if that is a positive thing um you also mentioned that the Great period that you you give us is 2 and A2 minutes as if you're doing us a favor um well remember there's no grace period and and that's sad because I've been personally given a ticket the exact same time as I'm trying to add more time um using the mobile app um so I want to say that there were several times when you were speaking um and I say this respectfully you've you've said you said it several times that a lot of people don't want to pay for tickets or they don't want to pay for parking and the majority of the concerns that we're receiving is not necessarily that people don't want to pay for parking it's the fact that um okay it's the fact that they either are paying but because they are conducting business for some reason by over a minute by a minute they're already being issued a ticket which is why a lot of business owners are complaining um so again there's ISS issues where I'm trying to understand how could we collectively I I don't know if this is a matter of how the contract was drafted if these are issues that we need to bring it upon you guys to fix or if this is extending Beyond um including the administration to be part of the solution as well yes and I didn't mean any disrespect I I totally get it and again we like being here we we appreciate the contract we're just trying to do it the exact way that it was designed and that Grace period the reason that's happening is because we've had to bring newer technology because the way the system works currently we're willing to sit down though if we I mean I I've said this numerous times let's talk about if we don't want to use this pay by Plate System any more we could always go back to the pay in display now it's not as convenient for customers but we could always do something different we're willing to come to the table and sit down there's Financial constraints with everything obviously it is important to recognize that uh during the discussion of this uh this contract the the the grace period was brought was brought up but also uh during that part of that answer was that it was not a grace period built in the system or in the contract perhaps but there was a an opportunity for people to have a little bit of time because there were not a walking uh situation perhaps there was a car that R your plate and then uh the car parks and come back to issue that ticket not right away so it was kind of like a race period building right but it was not necessarily in in within the contract um establishment and after you said that to me three weeks ago we made sure that the every car is being used the proper way now we we were asked the mayor's office asked us to do like a roving Patrol on the S6 and common just because they wanted to get that turnover so we were doing walking patrols more in that area but we are definitely using the cars and that is part of that grace period that you asked for is it a moment is it customary practice for other cities and towns um that there is no grace period whatsoever not because you don't know I mean when you go out there and you put that handheld and you put it in the thing you don't know how long they've been there it doesn't tell you so there's no way of doing that grace period councilors uh any other councelors counil you have a question oh we have the same with well Stephan is going councelor Infante is going to speak first but I think we have the same concern we have the same thank you to you council president we have the same concern and because Council lone was not part of the city council when this happened I I asked to go before her um there is to my to my new colleagues there is an element to to this that is not being um mentioned and for the sake of transparency the locations of the parking meters the contracts everything went through the city council we approved it I and I can only speak for myself um I have gone on the radio and have acknowledged that sometimes when a when you have a plan in paper it might look like a great idea and then once the plan is implemented it turns out to be the opposite I am one that have that have mentioned it I'm not afraid to mention it um but that is one factor that should have been mentioned from the beginning the streets the locations everything did go through the city council so I just wanted to yeah yeah m madame vice president but I mean it is important to recognize the following it was a contract that was provided to us it was a contract that was provided to us give me a minute uh that it was that we were not able to change at all because one of the change that me and Council former councel payano the current Senator we were pushing it was on adding uh the section of Broadway from um Hao to the line of mein and that was not part of the contract originally and that was during the discussion that was not allowed to be add because they were going to collect data and uh and and then eventually they added on but we were not able to change the the actual streets adding or subtracting because it was the intent of coming to the city council it was only for the purpose of extending the time from 3 years to 5 years contract not the designing of that actual project or the the actual contract the contract was was uh developed through an RFP process and uh and then eventually presented to the city council for the purpose of the extension of the time from 3 years to 5 years so it was it was not out designed in the contct thank you thank you for the reminder U but I I did even with this reminder I did feel it was important to to mention this as well because we all have a piece in the pie and um to keep the the integrity and transparency of of this matter councelors any other counselors coun thank you councelor infant for bringing that up and my question to you Mr uh president who is the contact person for for this company who is the contact person in the administration for for for the company locally the DAT to the operation who is who in Char who's your contact person no who's the contact person in the administra for you guys who do you go to Sam Ortiz is our general manager yeah but he works for the city or he works for you PCI Municipal services so who uh Department in the city is in charge of overseeing your contract David Rodriguez D okay because I feel that through you Mr President I feel that we ask him then uh so many questions that are unnecessary and and believe me I I receive complaints for my constituents uh I I'm also a business owner uh and I receive complaints left and right but the meters are not going to go away are you going to be able to relocate the meetings The Meters maybe not because you're going to have to restructure the entire system so uh and I feel that we are supervising this company instead of the administration that that's why I was asking my colleagues when did this happen who was involved cu the contract is there for five more years and so what we doing here and I know we are tending to complaints from our constituents we are very concerned we are also sometimes victim but what we're doing here is a waste of time thank you thank coun so let me let me go around first to see if if any other counselors would like to speak and then we can go back to the first first person any other councelors that haven't speak yet uh councelor Rio and closing and closing two things they mentioned that the city cannot get out of the contracts because they're going to have to pay more money they're not making money they don't want to get out of the contract either because they have to pay the city money just to be clear of and they he stated three weeks ago they not making any money the concern most of the concerns uh and I'm going to be short now cuz we we need to go most of the concerns I know are by people paying the parking tickets and being ticketed and I know we have an issue with placement of the meters but most of the complaints most of the complaints are for people that actually pay in the tickets paying the parking meters and getting tickets that's why we had that's why we brought them in last three three weeks ago um David was here and every time we come from the outside where we go we go to David we don't see them I mean we might go to the window I've been to the window a couple of times but at the end of the day we end up talking to David and one of the why they brought here is to the fact that David said well we talked to David and said well we should come in front of you guys and explain the issue the issue is a technical issue and they they address it it's a technical issue it's not an administrative issue it's not a city issue it's it's it's mostly a technical issue that the service provider they are they Nick to face for our constituents to be paying correctly if they need to pay do you Mr President uh give me one one minute let me clarify this uh the issue that was brought up when it comes to timing three weeks ago I know that you present some information and you suggest another system to be implemented uh so far with the system that we currently have in place have that is that issue has been solved that's system that is in place the program that is in place you will always have tickets that are issued just because of that the way it goes through the system and how it has to go through the data just like when AT&T went down if that go if their system goes down or slows up and it takes an extra let's say 30 minutes while we're doing that ticket even if we give that 2 and a half three minute grace period that we spoke of it's still going to be a invalid ticket but new still a delay because of the delay yes it's still a delay is the delay have been changed when it comes to reduction well again because of what IPS did they put in 40 high-powered antennas they switched out 18 of the machines because literally one machine was working great 150 ft away same modem it wasn't so they switched out 18 of those that is part of the reason why we're getting so much better stats right now so yes we have fixed a lot of that issue that DeLay So the the delay have reduced but haven't been eliminated it'll never be eliminated it can't be unless you change the system okay councel and and I um uh thank you uh council president so my suggestion uh to you Cil president is to maybe create well to uh promote collaboration between the contact person in this city and this company and Hope you hear me and perhaps we can send in our suggestions because what I'm seeing here is a contract that it's not going to be over in five years correct four years in four more years and we getting a lot of complaints yes we are but also we are acting like supervisors no we vendor this is my opinion Mr President Mr President my op not the city council so we are acting from my point of view as a supervisor and I know councelor Rosario brought a lot of great points but those points can be resolved in and uh the city should resolve those those problems the department they're supposed to be the contact person uh for them I just wanted to put that out there uh and I think celor infant mentioned something similar yes we are getting complaints from our constituents they are very concerned I'm concerned I get tickets and I have to pay the tickets uh but unfortunately we cannot continue wasting time dealing with a contra that is in place for the next four years so uh ccil it's important to recognize the following uh as a as a city council we are not responsible to to the day-to-day operation of the city and also the enforcement of any contract so it is important to recognize that we are not uh serving us uh as as uh anything perhaps on this contract because we are not responsible to eliminate the contract perhaps or to improve the contract because that's the that's the that's the that's the day-to-day operation of the city at this point councelors any other questions or concern regarding to this specific issue uh councilors I entertain a motion we have a motion to uh for the purpose of discussion there is any motion motion to table uh due to the fact that we should leave it here just in case uh we need to discuss it again so motion to table motion to table properly second no discussion on the T on the table matters uh all those in favor please say I I eyes have it thank you so much so now we're going to go to I possible councelor can I take an item out of order item 3224 which is the increase of the sality of the city position uh J G uh to $30,000 can I hear can uh can I get a motion to take this motion to take out of order 32 item 3234 there is a motion on the table properly second discussion I hear know all those in fav please say I I I have and now we have item 3224 which is uh the discussion for the potential increasement of the salary for our city physici uh there is anybody from the administration that is here uh to discuss on this issue all right uh um the chair of the ordinance committee uh Council former president the plan thank you Mr President uh document number 3224 is the full the committee ordinance committee sent up with a fable recommendation to send of document number 32324 an increase of the Sally City physician Dr Joel Gorn to $30,000 and to make that in the form of a motion second there is a motion to um can you repeat the motion the motion is to increase St salary stien compensation is probably a safer word to Dr Joel Gorn to to $330,000 the recommendation was to from it was to increase there is a motion to increase the salary of the city position for the stiping of $30,000 currently is $15,000 10,000 10,000 and it's going to be increased to 30,000 uh any discussions on this matter councilors uh I hear not all those in favor please say I I the eyes have it thank you so much thank you councelor council president do this council president uh Madame Vice Madame vice president come to my attention that I do have constituents here tonight for the public hearing so I would like to proceed at the top of the agenda please going back to the top of the agenda item 20 20 uh 21st 24 which is no Park no parking on S Street uh that's a public hearing uh Madame Sheriff uh please read the notice notice is hereby given that the City of Lawrence will hold a public hearing on Tuesday March 19th 2024 at 7:00 p.m. in the council chambers 200 Common Street Lawrence pursuant to chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 and in accordance with the recent revised city council rule 2 this meeting will be hybrid allowing participation both in person and remotely to accommodate any participant with a health consideration that prevents them from participating in person to receive access codes for remote participation please contact the city clerk at eileen. Bernal cityof lawrence.com 9786 620 3230 the meeting may be viewed on Facebook and YouTube the purpose of the hearing is to gather testimony information and public input concerning the proposing Amendment to the revised ordinances of the City of Lawrence to be further amended by adding the following new subp paragraph to section 10. 36.0 one0 of the municipal code no parking to be inserted in a proper alphabetical order Salem Street Southside from a point 20 ft west of Parker Street to a point 270 ft west of Parker Street Monday through Friday from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. persons wishing to be heard shall be afforded the opportunity the public hearing is now open anybody from the public that would like to speak NE for the record please Monica Lucy 240 Canal Street I'm also the principal at Lawrence Catholic Academy um we recently had our groundbreaking and be by the way of a um police like special thing they were able to stop the parking on that side of the street um for the drop off and pickup and during the day it's gone extremely well um councelor llant came out to see us the other day to see how drop off and pickup is going things are a little tight now that we've started construction on a brand new school um but it is working I do have pictures if anyone's interested from school vacation week where there was no one parked on that side of the street during the day at 11: in the morning so I don't believe that we are negatively impacting the community that lives across the street from us and we would very much like for it to continue for the duration of our construction council president council president any other uh any other person that wishes to speak all right uh I hear there is anybody else that wishes to speak on this matter I hear no so now public hearing is now closed councilors what's the motion motion to approve there is a motion discussion discussion thank you very much council president I I listen I just wanted to um make a real quick comment regarding the absolute fantastic job lc8 had with the groundbreaking ceremony that took place a few weeks ago and the other thing I wanted just to quickly bring up is uh this is an unbelievable project in the Commonwealth not just Lawrence why when was the last time a Catholic School actually got built from scratch like it has hasn't happened like in maybe decades or longer I mean the we are closing down Catholic schools in our city and council president we are about to increase and build one privately privately in in South Lawrence I couldn't be more proud of the institution and its leadership and what it's trying to do and I think one the other thing too as we look back upon our history is this earlier we had the superintendent search we talked about Lawrence Public Schools at the highest level at the superintendent level one of the best things we had going in our city for the longest time was the Catholic school education why it took the pressure off the public schools the number of schools that we had throughout Lawrence made it a lot easier and so I'm glad that we're going to be voting in favor hopefully in favor of this this evening but it's it's important to understand what they are adding to our community and what they are adding to our city and I want to congratulate them on the steps that they're taking right now to make uh Catholic Education affordable and frankly as a taxpayers relief relieve a little bit of the burden that we require in our public school system thank you uh thank you counc uh Council plant um at this point any other councilors would like this matter c r i I thank you through you counc president I only have one complaint I wasn't able to go to the ceremony and we did not get a shovel I will I will bring you a shovel we even got we a got we a got we weren't able to go to that and we a got a shovel we all do so we so so we need shov sh thank you president by the way with still waiting for the police department one that's you'll have mine first I promise you whoever can get the message to the police department please we need our TR uh Council infan Council presing infan thank you I have two um two things to say one related we and nothing against my colleague but my my colleague always uh emphasizes the need to be informed when things are happening in this district and I wish I would have been informed that he was going to visit the traffic as this school is in my district um but I know it was a good intention I'm saying for future reference if you're going to preach about something make sure you also practice it as well um to to the Lawrence Catholic Academy I could not make your groundbreaking but I saw the amazing photos and I am very upset that I couldn't make it but it looked great and I'm so excited for you it's going to look beautiful Father Paul shared photos and and and I'm just excited for for you guys um I do have a short update from Detective Tom cudy who's been the one on top of the traffic um for that area and it's it's Sim it's exactly the same of what the principal said uh he couldn't be here tonight because the police department has a banquet but he told me that they've been modering drop off and pickup and it seems to be working well for the time being um between the hours of 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. um the stops are empty as well as weekends from right now what the police department has um has noticed or analyzed that traffic has little to no impact on the residents uh but they will continue to monitor the traffic in that area and that is all uh counselors any other questions from the councelors any other questions at this point I'll call the questions uh all Us in favor please say I guys have it uh don't forget our shovels please I'll deliver I'll deliver the shovels nine shovels I'm on it 10 committee reports thank you committee report we're going to committee report committee reports we're going to go to the committee of the hall uh Madame uh vice president Infante uh committee reports sorry uh Council of PL is over here making me laugh so hold on where we report um Committee of the whole report yeah so the committee of the whole met last week um actually I'm I'm going to I'm going to do the reverse I'm going to leave um um item four of um sorry 57- 24 for second and I'm going to take the second item as the first one so the first item I'm I'm going to take this out of order um 4 16623 the replacement of plaques on Monument at Tomy Fountain and Isabelle melendes Park uh which was brought to us by a former counselor Rich Russell at the at the at the committee level we all discussed uh for the the record all discuss uh that the plaques the the name of the mayor the names of of the DPW director and Etc are much l larger than um than than the actual um hes um we did ask to get um correspondence from someone either from the mayor's office from the or the DPW um office and which we have so I would like to do you do you want to vote on the okay so so I do I do want to add this as as as part of the committee report because we did receive an answer today um we received an answer from the off from the DPW office supervisor and she reached out to the counselors on behalf of director J haiming and mayor Brian depena and they have agreed to proceed with The Replacements of the plaque of plaques at the following location um told Tomy Fountain um Tomy Fountain Isabelle melendes Park and Stockton Park she explained that this was an oversight on their end and there were some time constraints uh with the design process so it was rushed for deadlines um but it was an oversight under there and she also stated to us that this will happen until July 1st when the new budget becomes available that is when the city will will proceed with um um the the replacement of the new plaques but the city will be replacing it and um that was the response that's the recent update that we got today so with that being said I this is the committee report and I make that as a formal motion second properly second uh discussion no discussion uh all those in favor please say I I guys have it uh it is important to recognize also Madame Vice Madame vice president uh that um this item has been currently tabled at the ordinance committee and um we we need to make it as one so I think that um we either there send this up to the ordinance or keep it at this level uh I prefer to just keep it on this level and then withdraw the other item because was it discuss so because the committee most of us where were at the committee of the whole I would I would prefer to keep it here and table it at the full Council level so then after the July 1st and the new budget goes into effect we can then call um the stakeholders back in to ensure that they don't forget it's a few months from now that they don't forget so that motion to table there's a motion to table properly second no discussion all those in favor please say I I I have it m from the committee of the whole thank you so our last item under the committee of the whole is item 5724 the approval of the Lawrence Municipal aggregation plan proposal brought To Us by um Anil Na navkal and mayor Brian depena and we actually have Mr call here in addition to the would like to do do you mind presenting the committee report and accept it first oh yes yes so the committee [Applause] report so we have a we have a committee report that uh we're going to have to allow them to speak with this uh with the Department of Public U utilities to continue with the process so and I made that as a motion to accept the the committee report second there is a a motion to accept the committee report properly second discussion none all those in favor to accept the committee report please say I at this point Council we have a committee report in front of us and I entertain a motion for discussion and uh and allow I to make a motion to adopt this second uh there is a motion to adopt uh when you say adopt that means that um we actually allow them to go to the state to proceed with the process yes council president is correct thank you so much uh uh Council uh Council plant um there is a motion to allow that U the organization in front of us to uh continue with the process when U that is um can hear a second properly second discussion I hear not anything that we would like to add on that what is the next step voted let me let me I just want to say thank you I I can't thank you for waiting when I came here that was my first thing I thought I would deliver on it thank you thank you thank you this is again what is what assuming that this is going through uh what is the next step yes Mark cap own colonial power group five M Royal a if this was voted to be approved tonight we'd move on to set up a a uh meeting with the Department of energy resources it's about a half an hour phone call and then after that we would file with the Department of Public Utilities uh the the the counselors there is a few changes that uh we were discussing at the uh at the uh Committee of the hall which was section 2.2.1 that's correct counselors uh um did you uh do did you guys have the opportunity to read that a specific section and the difference how it was before um I believe that we should take a vote on that to make sure that this is the the version that is going through if you guys if if the council decide to so motion to accept the amendment section of two 2.1 2.1 second there is a motion on the table to accept uh that Amendment on that specific session just discuss discussion uh discussion uh can I hear properly second uh discussion C thank you so much council president so I just want to make sure we're clear on this this is essentially the language is trying to share the responsibility not only with the the mayor but ALS with the council but with the mayor's office as well so we're we're SE we're sharing that responsibility for uh filling the verb right there pH that that that is exactly correct for the plan that's correct okay yep all right so that's what we're doing and U I don't think the Administration has a problem with that do they through you Mr President do they have a does the administration have a problem with this I would think not right no okay thank you all right there is a motion on the T properly second any other discussion I hear know all those in favor to accept the specific Amendment please say I I the eyes have it now we proceed with the approval of that uh of the uh of the next step of the process uh any discussion on that portion of the of the of the of that item uh at this point I call the questions all Us in favor please say I I I have it FR please just for the record thank you she wants a roll call Council of Santiago yes Council Del Rosario yes Council Luzan yes Council plant yes Council Levy yes Council vice president Infante yes council president Rosario Rodriguez I'm sorry who my mind uh yes perhaps um oh we we just approve the committee of the H so we going back going back to the top of the agenda it's a specific uh items that probably perhaps we should take on on top but I mean I'll just go to the through you council president the housing committee met on item number 8-24 regarding 47-47 a Newberry Street map 87 lot 6 Declaration of surplus property we have our asset officer Charlene n Pasqual um this uh committee on housing did uh recommend uh for this matter in a favorable recommendation to the full Council concerning this matter so um uh Madame shair from the housing committee this is just to declare Surplus in all of your items currently right correct so item 8824 to the clear S Plus property located in 4747 a of new BET Street uh did you make that as a form of a motion I submit that as a form of a motion uh there is there is a motion properly second discussion I hear known all those in favor to declare the surl please say I hi guys have it item 8924 okay the housing committee met on item number 89- 24 Newberry Street and Garden Street map 87 lot 7 Declaration of surplus property I submit that as a form of a motion can you hear a second second um discussion um I would like to table this item just because we are still in um The Works of trying to get some clearance on that property that we're still working with uh the City Assessor and also the tax collector uh councilors I entertain a motion to second there is a motion to table properly second no discussion all Us in fav please say I I there eyes have it item 924 mare from the housing committee housing committee met on item number 90-24 49-51 a Newberry Street map 87 Lot 4 Declaration of surplus property uh I submit that as a form of a motion there is a motion on the table can hear a second second properly second discussion councilors I hear known all those in favor to declare this property as plus please say I I item 9124 committee on my apologies council president housing committee met on item number 9124 regarding 55 Brownfield street map 171 lot 132 Declaration of surplus property I submit that as a form of a motion uh there is a motion on the table properly second to to declare this property as a surplus uh any discussion councilors I known so all please say hi hi guys have it um so we finished with the housing committee we have other items that are related to the housing committee motion to pass 11 a 11 discussion I want to make sure I get discussion on this okay take take the show go ahead show this is very serious council meeting in Frank Frank former president go ahead council president go ahead former president thank you look I'm just trying to make the point here that it's now 11:00 we did this at 10: we did this at 11: we've had a lot of healthy and fantastic debate and discussion and questions asked I think a lot of the discussion here was very helpful and fruitful however what we have here we have Airport Manager we have the cafo we have the City attorney we the land use planner we have members of the public we have the L attorney here a former city counselor here and other members of the public we're not doing either them or us any favors because we decided no I'm sorry council president you decided that you wanted to have one meeting in the first time since no no no I'm not recognizing you and and and here's the thing coun have earlier comment council president saying that I have two if you are a city council that that I called asking for to sign the paper please raise your hand and there's none because because because council president I didn't want to put them in a box on something council president you should have done thank you okay former president thank you so much now we continue uh motion to pass uh to pass 10 pass 11 all and Fa please say hi hi thank you so much uh all right now we move forward with um excuse me I just have one more item on the agenda and I would like to see if you guys would consider what is the item 475 um 2 three which is the approval of sale for pway councelors there is a motion to take item um what was the item number 47523 475 d23 call for this one it's the last item on table matters top of page six yeah we were motioned to be here for tonight for this item like to take this it out of the table matters can I hear a motion soov second there's a motion on the table say have it uh councelor asking for a roll call roll call please councelor Levy yes councelor llant yes councelor Luzon no council Del Rosario yes Council Santiago no council m is this a motion for discussion yes this is a motion to remove it from the table matter yes Council Ares yes Council vice president infon no council president Rodriguez well I'll vote Yes uh councelors what is your desire on this item council president I believe there's an underlying motion on this I think the motion was to approve that was an underlying motion uh Madame Madame Shar can you look into it to see the line motion on this motion to approve this matter and uh we open it for discussion uh discussion on this matter councelors council president um to representative for the city wasn't here when we actually discussed this issue so I'm assuming that she probably would like to say something to us and then we should listen by all means take the floor thank you I appreciate that um good evening City Council Members I know it's been a long night for everyone I appreciate your time and dedication to the community um I do want to detail that I did ask uh the city council president Mr Rodriguez and our Madame chair of the housing committee Vivian marble to untable the item and allow me to present last uh city council meeting on 2:20 um but was asked to address some questions on behalf of the council prior to to that meeting um which was 27 I was however ready to present then but I was asked by our city council president to hold until the next meeting I believe that there was a miscommunication and the items um the item was not on the agenda as uh councelor Rosario addressed that date thank you um but it was unted by one of our counselors which I understand is part of the process um glad to be here today along with our City attorney um to answer legalities and procurement process questions which is some of the questions that the council head I will ask that the council be respectful towards me in my presence and in my absence I did review the video and I was not too happy about what happened while I was away and um asked the presid president um through email and also the housing committee to be here and I was told not to um so I wasn't herec I wasn't here because I was not not here because I was being neglectful to my job duties I was not here because I was asked to wait till the next meeting so just as I do with you guys I asked to same for myself as a city employee so moving um forward furthermore I would like to um ask the council to vote on the item in question which is the underlying approval to um to approve the sale of for pway and I have the City attorney here to address some of the questions that you guys had so U it is important to recognize for the record that U you did spoke to to us uh however uh not every item that is on the table matters we have control to untable it uh since the questions that we have at that point when you ask uh if if that um if that matter could be on table that the reason that you stated in your email was because the the the applicants was requesting to be on table it and uh since see let me finish since the questions were not answered yet at that point and the questions that the the committee actually was asking before uh would not yet respond uh at that point uh we suggest you to instead of requesting to untable it uh perhaps what need to happen is to provide uh some clarity on the questions that we previously have right and uh since that since that happened I believe on the same day of the meeting uh and questions were not respond so we we ask you to um just provide the question the answers of the questions and come in front of us on on during the next meeting uh obviously uh when we tell you that and I take responsibility to send in that email because I have questions that were not answered at that point so um you can you definitely to to to avoid that issue when you can definitely be here any meeting that we have in case any counselor uh want to on table something but that's not the way usually work it is a a situation that it was not uh in in a regular way but you're welcome to come just try to save a a trip to you because we were question that were not answering right that's why and just to respond to that um in response to your email to not be here because I have three little children and these meetings go past 11:00 sometimes I decided that that wasn't the particular meeting for me to be at just to see if I was going to be on table that day or not exactly that's why we would tell you respectfully so we're just going to move forward with the discussion and I appreciate um tbling the item tonight yep sure uh councilors we have an underline motion to approve uh to approve the all of the property of fa bway uh tax map 70 lot 94 uh we have the addess officer um in front of us any questions that we previously have she's ready to answer um council president if I could just make one comment if the body decides tonight to vote to approve this item if the vote could please include the buyer full names the amount the contract timeline and any conditions it's vital that those get into the vote because we've had issues with the city attorney's office when those haven't been in the vote so if you can just work together and absolutely that thank you president so uh on the motion probably we should we should repeat the motion um or make a new motion with including that uh that will be that would be that would be great so if I'm understanding correctly uh the item number is 475 d23 approval to sale real property located at Fort pway two is that correct names yes Antonio Lopez and Lucy alinaa 316 Essex Street Apartment 406 Lawrence Mass 01840 in the amount of $180,000 108 180 180 z 80 1 180 all right uh are there any conditions on that um the conditions are to so the conditions were for them to live in the property from 3 to 5 years um and there's a couple other um these will be contained on the deed Susan beats me up if they're not in there so um you yes it does do you have all other the conditions you're good okay with the proper conditions that is going to be the transfer over it was previously discussed at the housing committee uh uh Madame Madame vice president Stephanie F thank you um Miss pasal and um attorney hoen last meeting we had an individual who also bided for this property and she stated that she wasn't she certain documents weren't required of her um I'm sure you have an answer cuz I see you getting ready and I know you're always prepared uh but what I don't see but what I do also see is that she is not here as well and she's the second party involved in the discussion well she notified that this was going to be on table today so that she could be here for this meeting um second of all I I don't know why she would be notified because she has no rights here um let me give you a quick explanation uh first of all hello Council how are you sorry it's late at night hi um second thing I know it's a little tense tonight but just remember it could be worse you could be the parking guy because just to let you know none of you knew this but when he walked up here he was threatened by two people two people said to him we'll see you outside okay seriously tonight just go presid then he needs to stay so I just want you to know that there's a lot of tension yeah let's try to take a deep breath and let's move on but it's better off you don't have that job any clarification that you have on this uh appreci so this is this is the same as a bid when we put when we put it out if we want someone to do work in the city if you want to do tiring we have a blind bid you we tell you here's the work we want done okay we want you to tie these roads there's how much TI we want you to use tell us your price and we need you to be certified we need you to be ensured we have these qualifications then the bids come in you open up the bids until you open up the bids you have no idea and you look at the first one and the first one says doesn't have enough T we throw it out second one says they don't have any insurance we throw it out and you go until you've got people that qualify and then when you get everybody that qualifies you look at the price it's the same with this property so what happened is we had certain qualifications was that what how much money you going to pay how are you going to pay it cuz a lot of people like to say oh I'll pay this they have no ability to pay second of all what is your deposit third of all are you going to live there are you guarantee you're going to live there and you had to fill out all the documentation so we have a committee and it's a blind committee I'm on the committee which is why I'm here there's a few other members of the committee that were here but unfortunately unlike me they have small children and they they had to leave so we look through these we have no names just so you know sorry to interrupt you but this isn't the first time that we have stayed in a meeting past this isn't the first time that we've been in a meeting since after midnight so can we please stop referring and just get get no I have no problem being here I I'm happy to be here before the board but I'm just I'm justy that's not you but it's I'm trying to explain their I'm just trying to explain their no problem um so what happened is we don't look at any of any of the things we just look at do they have the qualifications and money so the woman that you're talking about she didn't submit all the documentation and then she comes to the city council meting so much like a bid if it's October 8th get your paperwork in October 9th is too late October 10th is too late so now some four months later she comes before the city council very nice woman and goes I've got my paperwork it doesn't matter she's too late she she she's not in consideration she didn't fulfill the requirements of the bid there was one person that was require that filled the requirements of the bid the committee voted on it we had no idea who these people were they had the ability to pay they met all criteria and then as our committee meets about seven people we present it to the mayor who approves it so that's the way it's done it's just to PR and this is a committee that I I believe was formed by this Council so you don't have to do it so that you don't have the pressure because be honest with you if the council did it they would say Wendy lazon knows that person Wendy lazon favors that person you know that's why the council does and that's why we do it I don't know anybody I I don't care who gets this property I just go by what did they do in the bid did they meet the bid if they met the bid that's what we offer it to um it is it is it is important to recognize the following on the discussion uh during when when the five different members were or applicants or the people that responds to the RP uh were discussed there was only two applicants and that was part of the uh the discussion originally actually they they sent me a capture when we when we said that uh in the podium that only two applicants were fully in compliance with with that uh with the process and uh and the person that was here previously she was one of them so it was it was not that she was not in compliance it was that um it was a a a choosing between two candidates so that was I believe that statement because she didn't have all her paperwork in but she was the one saying right and I I contest and I um I think I explained to the council that it's it was the first time that I came to the council so I misspoke and unfortunately you know those are the consequences that I have to face today um but there was one qualified candidate she was missing documents and regardless to whether we said it on the record or not the truth of the matter is that she was not qualified well that was not what was said and and that's important to recognize that it was a mistake but I mean uh it is a m it is a mistake now but I mean it was we I mean it is a mistake on the process and I don't want to go through that we already have an a motion in front of us to approve the sell of this property to an specific candidate uh and there was questions that were in regard to that specific uh to that specific candidate Council L wow um thank you council president um with um and I'm going to refer to the other candidate uh she did didn't came here uh she she came to the city council because she uh um she was watching the city council meeting and and I don't remember seeing any paperwork she just came here and talk to us about um the paperwork and according to her she presented all the paperwork that was requested from her also in that list CU yes attorney I forgot your last name Putin uh yeah I'm going to like like who English is my second language so attorney um I we know most of the people that apply uh for that uh to to purchase a house so maybe you don't live here but most of us know some of the candidates I just want to make that clear um and I have a question did uh we had a few question that night about uh first time home owners okay so we have an answer yes through you I do yes please okay first of all this property does not qualify for first-time home ownership because the requirement for firsttime ownership is move in condition um in due respect to the people right here this is not in moving maybe for squirrels and maybe for raccoons um but it's not in moving conditions um this is a property that needs some tender loving care so it would not it could not have but how can so according to that's one of the conditions we have many conditions for inance that was one of the conditions that we spoke about it that night so the criteria where you're saying to us that you guys made another mistake no we have the same I'm sorry we have the same seven criteria for every property we don't change it for the property you uh council president C that night we spent hours almost an hour I think going over the same issue trying to figure it out if the couple that was planning to buy that is planning to buy the purchases property uh no was a couple the lady the the wife was the first time home buyer and that was a back forward conversation so you're telling me that it was another mistake in the process I am not is that accurate or not it is not it's not let me let me let me intervene on that the publication of the RFP included uh the that the one of the conditions was for first time home buyers yep so it was not one of the conditions it was one so much like anything we have here are our seven criteria we give you a plus or a minus for instance if we have nobody that can live there 3 years then no one's completed with that we we we value each one for instance someone might meet all seven criteria and bid a dollar even though they've met all it it's not in the city's interest to sell it to them for a dollar so let me ask you a quick question then it's a balancing act okay let me ask you a good question then did you eliminate any candidates because it was not a first time home Buy did we eliminate anybody because they were not no no because we had we also had um what what what it um what's the company that builds homes some investor invol but what's the company that um Habitat Humanity for instance Is Not a firsttime Home buy we did not eliminate them from bitting understood Council Lon you have any other question oh we no Cil press president I think that it's very confusing uh when she came here and this is not personal just to put it out there uh not personal even for the buy the couple that is planning to buy this property when she came here when um um she mentioned that over and over so what you presented to us was it it's it's very confusing I think you were confused to attorney pu Putin okay unfortunately that's what it sound it sounds like you were she was telling us something and now it's a totally different uh story um and just and just so be clear this is not my story we have a committee uh and some of members are here we're all going to tell the same story it's what we do again if if the city council wishes they can disb we we have we have uh we have a um Motion in front of us to approve the sell of these property so at this point councelor if it is no question I would like to uh know other questions in this regard I would like to I have a question y who who was it mad vice president Stephanie Fant thank you I see attorney Coran here I'm wondering if you're here for the city or you here on the behalf of the buyer I'm here on beh of of the proposed buyers okay so let's let's I have a comment though and you know I have a lot of respect for you and I I advocate and sorry attorney who as you know it's all public information think this is the i i advocated for you to be you know the City attorney um but I'm I'm noticing a pattern that when there are certain people that certain individuals want them to get certain things I'm seeing you coming up as as their as as their attorney nothing against you before this before this counil not before us but think but you know but the L and and I'm I'm I'm I'm hearing you a lot Liv and I understand that and and I know you're good at your job but it's it is concerning for me and I and I do want to say that and I and I know and I want to give you the opportunity through council president we just we're just going to we're just going to U uh I think that essentially uh we have enough information to this Council uh take a take a determination on the vote the vote is to approve the cell I don't think that you know adding anything will change the the the the decision of each counselor but for the fairness of the process I going to allow you to uh speak on behalf your of your client point of point of clarification point of before yep first if we're concerned about the time we should have never unted this item first of all so whoever wants to speak is going to have a fulltime to speak secondly if we didn't have two debates between the the council president and the former president we us councilors would have more time to say what they what they want to say so now we want to be rushing absolutely not attorney Corgan that's what I just said that I going to express the opportunity for the attorney I want I want to read something from uh the uh website of the uh Department of Housing and Urban Development the following criteria classifies firsttime home buyers individuals who have had no ownership in a principal residence during the three-year period ending on the date of purchase of the property this may also include a spouse so if either meets the above test they are considered firsttime home buyers my clients are firsttime home buyers in the eyes of Housing and Urban Development and in many other attorney but is not a criteria that you're going to consider because we just discussed but I want but I want to make sure because but I I think my clients have been yeah but we just dismissed that okay uh I want to make sure because these are these are good people and they should not be caught up in no but we dismissed that for everybody because we just said that it was not but but it was it was a criteria in the in the RFP yeah that's they what and they are in fact firsttime home buyers under the HUD definition so it was fair for this committee the real estate task force to consider them perhaps above the other applicants that's all I want to say um thank you so much thank you so attan at this point I ENT mad do you mind sell this property to Antonio Lopez and Luchia and I'm going to apologize Lucy and and Lucy what's the name Luca to those buyers for the amount of $180,000 with the conditions that were outlined at the housing committee including one term which will be that they has to be own occupied for at least three to five years and other condition that were discussed at the housing committee yeah um councelors we have a motion who was the one second the motion okay uh uh Rosario seconded uh R call please councelor Reyes yes councelor marmel no councelor Santiago no council Del Rosario yes Council Lon no no council plant yes Council Levy yes councelor infon no council president Rodriguez no motion fails so we move forward to if I if I may I so I I have been asked these are not my items so I just want to I was asked um to be ready on two items that were tabled both of them from the um from the mayor's office there is no one from the mayor's office here so I'm looking to leave because because they're not my items I mean I was asked to be here to speak on them but I'm not presenting them no I I was asked by the the the clerk to be ready to speak on item 2215 and 23 382 so in in the tabled items there are two items of the Year 1922 there is number 105 22 1922 1920 2022 I'm going way back number 105 I I was asked to be ready to speak on that that is not my item I'm not presenting it so if nobody's presenting it I don't need to speak on it and then item 23 382 of 23 38 I was asked to be hit ready to speak on that but there's no one presenting it and nobody asking to untable it so I'm okay I would like to then I put I have one of on the old bus on on the old business as well [Music] on the old business counselors we have 3916 which is the acceptance of the urban renal plant uh it was back then in 2016 and I believe that uh there was some type of discussion on that and we would like to clarify a few things on that councilors uh I I for the purpose of discussion I would like to um or I entertain a motion to um uh I entertain a motion for the purpose of discussion of uh take this item out of um out of the old business p a parliamentary inquiry 39016 where was it before this evening what was it was it was it where was it was it in a committee where was where was this so it wasn't before the council has it been before the council before yes it was to approve the item it was approved we approved this item so now we want to have a conversation about it yes okay thank you uh councilors for the purpose of uh discussion 3916 on the old business section to the top of page buiness yes no we move on no the the attorney Hilton it's very important for the L Issue no I would State again there's no one here from the L to no no I'm happy to speak on it but I'm not for you council president it makes no sense it's important wasn't here in 2016 I want to discuss all right so if we're going to discuss this if if we are going to discuss this what I don't want to hear is is little side comments I don't want I I don't want to see people rolling their eyes or whatever because we just again spend time on an unted item so let's proceed let's let's end strong please I 90 39060 willing to discuss or no okay that's it hello Council just checking in um Tim Williamson here for National Grid line for a number of public petition if they're still happening this evening just checking in goe reports thank you Council document number uh the ordinance committee met on document 1119 a traffic study speed in traffic controls and made and it's a favorable recommendation to withdraw this item that's form of a motion motion to withdraw properly second discussion are hear no El in favor please say I I it item 123 21 12321 is the Allon Street traffic study uh that was sent up to the full council with a full recommendation to withdraw make that in the form of a motion second there's a motion the properly second discussion I hear none all those in favor please say hi hi I have it item 12421 12 421 the ordinance committee sent this up to the full Council this is a stop sign on Salem Street corner of EV Street and the uh the ordance committee sent us up for recommendation to withdraw make that in the form of a motion there a motion to withdraw properly second discussion I hear none all Us in fav please say hi I item 12621 the ordinance committee met on 12621 which is a handicap parking at 132 Margin Street and is making a recommendation that we order a public hearing make that in the form of a motion so to our public hearing properly second discussion are here all please say guys have it item 3923 document 30923 handicap parking on farum street was sent up to the full council with a fable recommendation to order a public hearing second there's a motion on the table prop second discussion I hear none all Us in fav please say I I guys have it item 31123 uh this item is a handicap parking at 356 South Union Street uh this is a duplicate so we're looking to withdraw we're going to order a public hearing on this one we're going to draw the other document so I make that in form of a motion to order a public hearing second there's a motion to public heing properly second pleas say item 3623 uh this is a a resident parking only on Coleman Street uh the committee sent this up to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing uh is a motion the table properly second discussion I hear none all Us in fav please say hi I have item 356 23 uh the ordinance committee met on 356 23 this is handicap parking at 17 Glenwood Drive and is looking to we're looking to withdraw this item make that in the form of a motion second motion on the table properly second discussion I hear know all please say hi guys have it item um uh 356 23 36123 yeah 36123 is handicapped parking on Elizabeth Street near low Street the city the ordinance committee sent us up to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing that's a motion second there's a there's a there's a motion to order public hearing properly second discussion I he none all please say have it item 38823 it's a parking sign at for 30 minutes at 39 Manchester Street and the ordinance committee sent this up with a recommendation to order a public hearing and that's a motion and there is a motion on the table properly second discussion I hear none all Us in fav please say I hi 38923 this is a handicap parking at 82 Bunker Hill Street that the ordinance committee sent up to be withdrawn make that as a motion there's a motion on the table properly second discussion I hear none all in FA please say hi hi have 3923 resident parking only on chelsford Street odd numbers between Arlington Street and Center Street this was sent up to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing and make that into a motion motion on the table prop second discussion I call the question please say guys having 39223 this is a stop sign Midland Street at Brookline uh that is sent up to the full Council of the recommendation to order a public hearing and that is a motion second there's a there's a motion and properly second discussion I he n say hi there I have it item 39523 uh this is one side parking on Bourke Street is it bour or Burke anybody know Bor Bor it's either Bor or Burke someone will correct me later uh that's sent up to the full Council to order a public hearing and make that in the form of a motion well there is a motion on the table properly second discussion counselors I have no discussions on this point I call the question pleas Say ni have itan 39523 I just did that one so I'll go to 41323 and that's the request an expansion of parking on East hav Street to include one8 havil Street and that was sent to the full Council to order a public hearing and make that to as a motion there's a motion on the table have it item 41423 uh this item is handicap parking at 34 Ducket Avenue uh this is sent up with a recommendation to withdraw there's a motion the prop second discussion all please say I ni have it item uh 4 1523 handicap parking 8 Ferguson Street sent up to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing I make that into a motion there a motion on the table can you hear a second properly second discussion all please say I hi the I haveit item 4163 this is resident parking on West Street um Florence to Alden Court both sides of Street ORD committee sent us up with the recommendation to order a public hearing and that's the motion second there's a motion on the table prop second discussion I Hear n all those in fav please say hi hi guys have it item 42023 42023 is handicap parking 59 Lexington Street uh that was sent to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing and that's a motion all right there's a motion on the table properly second uh discussion I hear none all Us in favor please say I guys have it item 42523 42223 is handicap parking at 234 High Street and that was sent to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing and make that into a form of a motion second there is a motion on the table properly second um discussion I hear none all in pleas say guys have it item 4 2423 this is handicap parking at 128 farum Street this was sent to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing and make that in the form of a motion motion on the table properly second discussion all please say I guys have it item 420 5 445 and 449 and 450 are handicap parking C council plan do you want to take that as as a as a block no because one of them is withdrawal item for 2523 so that's a handicap parking at 31 Exchange Street uh that is sent to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing there there is a motion do you make that as a form of motion it is a motion yes all right there is a motion properly second discussion I hear none all those in favor please say I I the I haveit item 44523 44523 is handicap parking at 375 harroll Street uh that is sent up to the full council with a recommendation to withraw I make that as a motion second there is a motion to withdraw properly second all those in favor please say I hi nice have it I 44933 it's handicap parking at 114 Bailey Street committee met scept to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing that's the motion all right there's a motion on say guys have it 46723 I'm going to do 45023 which is handicap parking in 191 Howard Street uh that was sent to the full council with a recommendation to withdraw I make that as a motion second motion to withdraw properly second discussion um I hear none all those in favor please say I I guys have it item 46723 a request of for handicap parking at 61 White Street uh that's was sent up to the full council with the recommendation to withdraw and that's a motion there's a motion on the table properly second discussion all discussion I hear please say hi the I habit item 47723 council president I'm looking to make a motion to table this matter motion to table uh properly second discussion all please say hi hi haveit item 478 23 this is the remove handicap parking sign at 45 bellw Street committee sent this up to recommendation order public hearing and that's a motion motion to the um to order public hearing properly second discussion I hear none all in favor please say I I have it item 47923 this resident parking only Basswood street from Arlington Street to Alder Street send up to the full Council of the recommendation to a public hearing and that's a motion there is a motion on the table properly second discussion I hear none all in fav please say guys have it 48023 is to remove handicap parking sign at 322 A Street sent up to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing and that's a motion second all right there is a motion on the table properly second discussion no discussion uh at this point I call the question all fav please say hi I the the I have it item 48123 this is resident parking only on Walnut Street send up to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing and that's a motion second there's a motion on the table properly second um discussion I hear none all those in favor please say I I the I have it item 48223 handicap parking 10 Morton Street send up to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing and that's a motion motion send to a full counil um what was the motioning properly second discussion I hear none all Us in favor please say I I ni have it uh next item 2224 is the 15th annual Olive in July celebration of the campign on common July 17th 2024 from 11:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. ordinance committee send this up with a favorable recommendation make that in the form of a motion second motion to uh to approve all those in discussion there is none all those in favor please say I I the I have it next item uh 2324 is a 52nd annual lebanes Maran Lawrence and amberry street from August 30th to September 1st 2024 this is not a license on any city park so the city we're making a recommendation to withdraw this item make that in the form of a motion there is a motion to withdraw proper second discussion I hear no discussions all and please say I I guys have it item 3524 um this is a to delete an ordinance and remove a handicap parking space at 233 Hampshire Street this was sent up to the full council with with a recommendation favorable recommendation to order a public hearing and that's a motion there is a motion on the table properly second discussion I here none all those in favor please say I I I have it item 3724 3724 is the approval of a 21y year 21 plus year land lease pursuant to naal laws chapter 90 section 51f it's a 30-year lease for Martin Allen uh AV Pro um that was sent up to the full council with a favorable recommendation and I make that in the form of a motion there is a motion on the table properly second discuss discussion we have and I want to thank thank the director for being here all this time thank you so you know you got another life too we do appreciate it so thank you very much is there anything you want since you're here I yes so uh city council president uh councilors I I am here with Martin Anin Jr of Av Pro worldwide uh his family uh business is looking to do a development on the Airfield uh again it's not something normal that we we come before you the only reason why this is before you is because of Mass General Law chapter 90 section 51 F requires that any lease beyond the 21 year in this case they're requesting that the airport commission entertain a 30-year lease due to their financing and therefore uh is in line and is is is in support uh the commission supports it and is in line with uh prior practices at the airport any questions counselors this is a 21 plus list what is the amount of the total amount of 30 years 30 years right so uh did uh quick question um did you uh get an approval from um from the board yes so they approved the 20 years and they're not allowed to approve more than 21 correct so okay and we also uh just another point we also got an approval from the mayor's office which is a second part of the law uh for the mayor's office and this body to approve okay so this is a 30-year lease uh this is different than what we approved before yes this is a a separate Development Council president okay and what was the intent of the development I'm sorry the intent development is on the air side to builds hangers much needed hangers so that Pilots could store their airplanes inside um under covered areas as opposed to keeping them in in under the elements all right previously you have a a an increasement um on your rent how much this is going to bring to the uh to the a so it depends on the actual size of of the development um but you know as of right now as of what the the two developments uh that they are presenting it could be anywhere from uh 30 to uh $60,000 a year and again there two phases of of uh developments that they're doing under one lease uh so that's where we are are at uh there's also a requirement for them to pipe in water there is no water in that part of the uh airport so depending if if the size of the buildings require fire suppression they're going to have to pipe in water from the closest hydrant which is several hundred feet uh in the uh direction of the uh the public Street councilors any questions in regard to this this is a 30-year lease all right I guess that uh I entertain the motion a motion to approve uh properly second second properly second it was prly second please say hi hi guys have it uh thank you uh director ARA thank you council president uh thank you so much next item uh Mr chair just remember you could be a cab or not a cab a taxi no a meter the meter guy right um 4124 is to install underground conduit at two applon Street this will set up to the full council with a recommendation to order a public hearing and that's a motion all right there is a motion on the table uh properly second um all those in favor discussion I hear none all those in favor please say hi hi I have it do 4324 is to install one so poll at number 588 intersection of F Street Mr chair from the committee um those are those items that are coming up are all from National GD and there are s o and J polls do you want to take item 43 44 45 46 47 48 and 49 uh and also 93 94 95 96 9 7 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 and 107 as a block since they are all National Grade items I have no objections for putting them all as a block I I do think though for Council council president and Council Appo uh Tim Williamson here from National Grid I just want to say if you want to take them all as a block I can speak to them all at once and if if you have any specific questions about any specific item um myself or Vaz um thank you we we got we got you thank you so much you thank you all right uh councelor do you want to take it as a block so we're I'm making a we're going to do it as a block only did caveat being council president just for pure transparency we should read them all because they're weing a public hearing but yes we'll take them all over the block let's let's read them all uh all the items and then we take it as a block here we go uh 4324 install one I did this already uh 4424 install two Jo poles on Green Street 4524 install two Jo polls on heril Street um 4624 install I'm trying to determine if I need to read that number uh install one J poll on Park Street 4724 install one J pole on Marson Street 4824 install one Jo pole on Railroad Street 4924 install one Jo poll on Broadway I'm going to skip over 7 7 come back so 93 is the next one 9324 is install one Jo poll on Marson Street 9424 construct underground conduit on Common Street near Asbury Street 9524 install two Jo pools on lawren street and remove one Jo pole and relocate one Jo pole 9624 install two Jo polls on Salem Street near South Union 9724 is install one J pole on South Union near Abbott Street Number Nine 9824 installed two Jo poles on Springfield Street near Parker Street I 9924 installed two Jo polls on Newton Street near Kingston Street 124 is a install 1j pole on Newton Street near row Street 10124 is to install one Jo pole on Durham Street near row street 10224 is to install one Jo pole on Crosby Street near South Broadway 10324 is to install one Jo pole on Everett Street near sanbor B Street 10724 is to construct Underground conduits on marac Street and South Union Street 10524 to install One S so pole on South Unis Street near Springfield Street 10624 is to install one so pole on Springfield Street near South Union Street and 10724 to install twoo polls on South Union Street near marac Street the ordinance committee met on all those items and made a favorable recommendation to order a public hearing and I make that in the form of a motion there is a motion on the table uh properly second discussion councelors I hear none uh all those in favor please say I hi there I it I will be asking the clerk for just a we to this is to council Del Rosario's credit on this we've been pushing hard to try to save money on some of these and I just want to make sure we have the proper motion that we can consolidate the advertising clerk can you help me crack that that motion yeah we'll we'll take care of it have it I would just like to yeah we all said thank you so much thank you for being there we took it as a block and we already voted thank you of course and I just wanted to reply and mention that um I brought the comment back to National Grid management about the increased fees um to help offset the costs of these particular ition hearings and the mailings and everything that um is associated with the cost for the clerk and um we're uh we're very appreciative of your concerns and we will respond with any increased fees as needed thank you so much sir so I think it's important if council president if it's all right this does it is relevant to the public hearings that were ordering what happened at the ordinance committee meeting was that due to Council of Rosario my my good colleague from District C uh he's been fighting and fighting and fighting to make sure that we don't lose money on all these advertisements uh what struck us at during the committee meeting was that perhaps voluntarily this this National Grid if there was any money that that the city was offsetting that perhaps they would go ahead and voluntarily pay that amount of money and what you just heard this evening was that National Grid um will I guess if we show them that there's over cost that they will pay pay back so that that is good news thank you yeah correct and I just want to clarify just and that was a going forward if you guys raise your fees we'll uh we'll reciprocate with whatever pay payments you require thank you on um I on 7824 uh sorry 7724 thank you Council good evening thank [Music] you ordering public hearing uh 7724 is handicap parking at 155 Sarah toer Street the the ordinance committee met and sent us up to the full council with recommendation to order a public hearing and make that in the form of a motion there is a motion on the table properly second discussion all please say I I have it I 9224 92 784 I'm going to take that as a block if there no objection so 7824 mayac trans these are all cab license renewals miramac Transportation Corporation renewal of Taxi delivery license 7924 is a popular taxi company LLC renewal of a taxi delivery license 8024 is Liberty Taxi renewal of a taxi delivery Li 81 not tell yet 8124 is a festar Express transport Poli renewal of of a taxi delivery license 8224 L&M Transportation renewal of a taxi delivery license 8324 Rio Hondo Transportation renewal of a taxi and liy license 8424 reliable LLC um looking to renew that one 8524 grroup Transportation 8624 is Town Livery transportation and e724 is American Taxi and renewal of their taxi and liy license I'd like to put them all as a block um um put them all as a block there is a motion to accept this as a block and uh with the intent of approval you want to make a mo and the motion will also be to adopt and provide for a license for each one of those items all right that is a motion to those items properly second discussion uh just for the clarification this is all that U the majority of the U taxi cops taxis and in a gener transportation in the City of Lawrence uh that are holding a license for that uh to to do this type of work um any discussion at this point I call the question all Us in favor please say I I guys have it uh item 9224 this is the ordinance committee met and send this document which is an amendments to the non-unit classification plan to the full council with a favorable recommendation and that's a motion second discuss there is a motion on the table um properly second discussion discussion counc plan the CAO was here uh there is as background there is a he's here he's still here the CAO is here um he's here so anyway I have at least one question that I want to ask since the ordinance committee meeting Mr inello which is that one that deals with the planning department it says it's going from a plan B to a contract and the contract is part of what's inside the ordinance and in your cheat sheet you actually have the ordinance that's in there what I what I want to know through you Mr President what I want to know is is can can the mayor I know negotiate a contract for any compensation for that is there is there a limit as to what the compensation is it it would be uh no would be in the Compensation Plan uh it would be added to the uh again there's the police chief the fire chief the City attorney and the cafo would be added to another position in that group grouping because it's required to have a contract for the ordinance I'll I'll ask the question again because I didn't get the answer yeah I don't think there's a dollar limit of is what so so if if if if if if a mayor any mayor wants to they wanted to pay this individual at this position $250,000 they could it's with all these positions they could yes they could there is no there is no limit it's there's no there's no recommended limitation on this it's a a negotiation between the uh the uh mayor and the and the positions are you referring to that contract police fire C Administration Finance so what's happening Mr President is the following is that what is driving this item is that they are making either adop they're either putting new positions in there changing things that have either been forgotten or what didn't get put in in the earlier classifications some are going up some are going down and this is one that is I'm not sure if it's going up or down but there's a change to it and so my question to the cafo is and he answered it which is is there a limit as to how much money that somebody can pay for this the answer is no that's what I'm hearing you can spend whatever you want for the contract well these are the recommendations of the C Center to have have these positions discussion thank you very much morning well thank you Council for from District C good morning to you sir um listen I don't want to beat I beat this horse dead I want to take one more whack at this horse council president which is this the council vice president said earlier if we didn't start talking we'd be done this or not done with this meeting we would be further along than we are but what this is is a self-inflicted room we're now talking about ordinances that are going to deal we've we've got uh that need to be adopted and that are going to change the ordinances for a variety of City positions it's midnight this is a really important conversation and what we're yes we have stay I've been here I've been here till 1:00 but I can tell you this counselor council president I've never been here till 1:00 because we didn't have a meeting that month before before what's interesting what's what what is fascinating not fascinating sad about this is this was a self-inflicted wound this evening that didn't need to happen that's it so thank you I'll take the vote now any other councelors good morning roll call councelor rosar okay so for for my I for um it sounds like there there is more to discuss on this um and I would no this is the motion pass P 12 oh sorry good morning no let's uh please say hi guys have it uh now we're going back to that um so that's the so you calling the Roo I call the Roo I think I was answering this question a moment ago it it was the uh these four positions and now this fifth position or these four position was the recommended recommendation of the of the cin Center to leave those under a contract uh to be negotiated to not try and try and grade those positions Callin Center I'm sorry I'm sorry to interrupt you the Callin Center suggest that this should be a contract position yeah there the the police chief the fire chief the uh the City attorney and the CFO was recommended to put that in the classification outside outside the recommendation of coming up with amount and what was the basis for that because the customarily in all the communities these are contract positions and they're negotiated because there's a lot of a lot of variables uh a CFO for example like myself uh you know I have quite a bit of experience maybe the next CFO won't so you may may want to have a a lower salary whereas if we had a a recommended range you'd be stuck within that that that range it just gives more more flexibility I do have some concerns about this I'm not going to ask anymore questions regarding it this evening thank you council president I have a question yeah there there's uh 15 changes that we're requesting uh again uh just an exhibit B yeah and it's one motion it's just the motion is to correct the non-union classification plan for a few ministerial ER so there there's a there's a cover letter and then there's a exhibit a b c and d exhibit B shows the shows the changes that we're attempting to make fixing a typographical error and and one uh you know and so on so while we do that can I can I make my question thank you all right so if I I'm hearing you correctly C you use an example but you use an example of when when you decide to retire if someone the next CLE comes in that's not as experienced as you they can negotiate down and and Etc correct right okay so in Prior discussions when it comes to salaries that we've had um given the Collins report and all of that the the argument from the administration is always you know cost of living and comparison to other uh municipalities etc etc I'm going to be transparent um I think it's there are certain things coming up and I find this timing to be very uncanny and it's not towards towards you and I hope you know that I'm just expressing but I I don't so I um long story short I don't feel comfortable voting for this because I I don't trust there's certain areas that I've lost trust in the city and this is an area that I that even though I do want to point out um I don't I don't think this is going to be used to negotiate down in the future although the council does have the ability to make budget cuts but now all Council will vote in favor of budget cuts um depending on whom they are so I when it comes to the budget cut you cut the own account not necessarily on a specific salaries so there we go I have a clarification that even makes me even more uncomfortable to vote for this so um and that is that is all I'm going to say and thank you for waiting for so long for your item well counselors we have a motion in front of us which is to call no no no wait wait wait wait no no the discussion haven't finished we just want toy Mo no wait I mean there's a motion to T motion to table R second no discussion all those in favor please say hi hi guys have it thank you council president I'm down with the 72 items uh it is important it is important to recognize counselors that uh the housing Comm the the ordinance committee has 72 items and the and the one of the reasons was because during the time that he the the uh ordinance committee was supposed to have the city of Lis was uh actually declares on a and they didn't meet on that time so most of didn't make to the meeting so the record mad we going to person personal committee that is reports um safy bus bus we have I am we have a few it from 612 63 64 65 67 68 69 7 712 73 and 74 we have those uh of the housing committee we need tote and with that like to a okay um the housing committee met on item numbers 6024 approval of a taking one South Broadway imminent domain of a temporary easement 6124 approval of a taking to South Broadway imminent domain of a ter of of a temporary easement 62-24 approval of a taking 8 South Broadway eminent domain of a temporary easement 6324 approval of a taking 5-7 marry ma Street eminent domain of a temporary easement 6424 approval of a taking 10 South Broadway eminent domain of two permanent easements E3 and E4 one public utility easement pu-1 and a temporary easement t-4 for a period of 5 years item 6524 approval of a taking 13 South Broadway eminent domain of one public utility easement pu-2 and a temporary easement te -6 for a period of 5 years uh item number 6624 approval of a taking 24 South Broadway eminent domain of a permanent easement E-2 uh 6624 approve of a taking 24 South Broadway eminent domain of a permanent easement E-2 6724 approval of a taking 26-28 South Broadway eminent domain of a permanent easan e- run 6824 approval of a taking 27 South Broadway eminent domain of a temporary easement t-3 for a period of 5 years 6924 approv of a taking 33 South Broadway eminent domain of a temporary easement te-2 for a period of 5 years 7024 approval of a taking at South Broadway and Mar ma street map 142 Lot 4 eminent domain of a permanent easement e-6 a p a public utility easement p-3 and a temporary easement te-8 for a period of 5 years 7124 approval of a taking 25625 58 East havil Street eminent domain of a temporary easement t-9 for a period of 5 years item number 7224 prove of a taking 260 East hav Street eminent domain of a permanent easement E-3 a public utility easement p-5 and two temporary easements te-10 and te-2 for a period of 5 years item number 7324 Pro of a taking 309 East haval Street eminent domain of a a permanent easement E-2 and a temporary easement te-7 for period of 5 years um and lastly item number 74- 24 approv approval of a taken of a taking 315 East haval Street eminent domain of a temporary easement t-9 for a period of 5 years um I submit this uh to you as a form of a motion so there is a we taken it as a block to pull it off committee uh and um and that is a motion um what is pull up we're going make two motions to approve it all right uh all right councilors U all those in favor please say I I I have it um all right uh now at this point uh as per recommendation of U uh the lamp use planner then McCarthy he would like to take two different uh two different uh blocks or groups uh item 60 to 70 and item 71 to 74 soors at this point I will entertain motion the motion specific councelors at this point I a motion uh and the motion will be within a specific language that is been provided so any Council would like to uh make a motion motion to approve yeah motion to approve document number 60- 70 60 oh I'm 60 through 70 of -224 propos vote for an order of taking for construction easements both permanent and temporary by the City of Lawrence for the mer Max Street SL SLS South Broadway intersection Improvement project second discussion on uh 602 24 6124 62 24 632 24 642 24 6524 66 24 67 24 68 24 69 24 and 7 24 councilors uh if it is no discussion on on the reading uh there was a motion on the table and probably second discussion councelor up thank you very much um so a couple things this is 60 through 70 correct now does the is the dot Department through you Mr President is the do involved at all in this process for any of these items between 60 and 70 yeah this is a Mass DOT construction project they'll do they'll be doing the construction it's on the behalf of the city it's for the Mass uh Transportation Improvement uh program and uh this it's the city's responsibility for the acquisition of these uh at this point uh Madame Madam's vice sh Madame vice president since I'm an employee of M I going to U uh retract myself from this uh discussion president Rodriguez has accused himself for the record continue Mr thank you so I'll rain the floor madam Madam chair so my my second my is it really a comment it's a brief one earlier this evening we talked about meters and when the it's like three hours ago when that person came here and talked to us about meters he said we have a we have a lot of people and a lot of cars right and so if anybody knows and been following my voting record for the past who knows how many years I'm always concerned about a more Vehicles because we have more people living in places that are either illegal or jamming in small Lots or whatever so my my concern here and I just want to get clarification through you madam Madam chair through you is if we support and adopt these is this going to go ahead and create the kind of infrastructure that will support more housing at these at these locations it is not the uh the specific ones that we're discussing right now Mar Max Street and uh South Broadway is an entirely commercial district is just before the O Bridge Bri The Falls bridge is uh referred to and the all the abutters that are in relation to these easements are businesses and thank you very much um through Madam chair thank you very much Mr McCarthy I I plan to be voting for it and extra bonus Bo for calling at the old ly Bridge thank you I do want to add um Mr McCarthy this does also I don't I don't know Council of Planet if you've received complaints but I know I certainly have since that's part of District and then goes into District F that this also covers that section of Marx Street that's horrible that street the bumpy Street um yeah is yeah yeah very bumpy and I've received a lot of complaints I have one one um constituent that now in the my first term it's been over two years now has been fighting to get that so I want to make that clear that that also covers this and it does not cover it does not go part of any housing I want to repeat that for a triple that's why everyone's clear well this is the this is the first project on the state list so every already dead that's all I had to say I I messed up I will not now that I I I misspoke I can it again yes thanks all right it's late it's late any other questions or comments from the counselors at this time um I call the motion second oh it's already been the motion has been made it's been second to discuss all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it so the second block counselors they do need a motion for the second block and it's the same process um if I can have a volunteer to to do the motion motion to approve the item 71 you have to counc Sano you have to be specific motion to approve the item 71 to 74 2024 um it is the same is it what's [Music] involed yeah propose vote for another another order of taking for construction assessment both permanent and temporary by City of Florence of the marstone and East H Street intersection Improvement project motion has been made by Council Santiago is there seconded by Council Rees discussion discussion thank you to you madam chair through you to Mr McCarthy same question on these items right here if this passes what's the impact at all All U regarding this this is primarily a Safety project we're putting new lights at the intersection of East hav and mson street right in front of the patham school uh that major intention is to make Maron Street safer slow the speeding down and make the crossings e uh safer and easier for the children the parents through you thank you councelor m thank you for the presentation thank you I think some of the counselors miss the presentation just to put it out there you miss a presentation they put a very nice presentation at Community Development no that was another presentation thank you thank you for waiting any other um questions or comments at this time I see none I'll call all those in favor say I and the eyes have it thank you thank you Mr McCarthy and have a and have a good morning uh please go have breakfast uh Grand chimies is open 3:00 in the morning yeah we're just going back to the office you still got [Music] work councelors U any other committee report I believe there is none this is a item 1118 on the business but I want to keep a table okay first item on the or bus yes uh C what do you prefer to do what do you want to do on this I would like to keep a table so uh okay we're going to keep it table Yeah for the next agenda no all right we're going to keep a table uh yeah table for the all right do you want to a motion to table yes there is a motion to table motion to table for the next meeting motion to table okay until whenever uh all right motion to table prop second pleas say hi I have it uh counselors there is any other uh item from the committee I haven't missed anything I I think but I mean if you guys catch it uh we going to the table matters counselors any uh table matters that would like to take them off all right uh we going [Music] to I that's the last one we going to the new business and um so I um um 11124 parking area 20 ft on bner street west side newor uh near ordinance committee Ian 2 1224 no parking on 4ly street north side South Broadway uh this is going to the ordinance committee 11324 no parking on friendly Street Southside of South Broadway this is going to the ordinance committee one item 11524 the status review of the board of Heth uh we just review that councelors and we also uh we also withdraw it and and um at this point there is no need for the uh this item we already withdraw it item 11624 which is the senior tax uh write off resolution it was it was uh it was going to be it's going to go to the ordinance committee uh Council plant quick question on that I I believe that you need to adopt um a specific section of the law and not necessarily creating an ordinance because that's an ordinance that's it a law that we adopt I remember when we Chang it back then uh 200 16 that we increase from $500 to $750 so if you wanted to do that I think that you need need to adapt section 40D and 17c if I remember correctly back from 2016 um but we'll send it over to the ordinance committee and you'll do your research when it comes to that uh Ian um um 11724 accept New Street layout to merma street at South uh South Broadway uh this is going to the housing committee this is going to the housing committee item 11824 accept the new Street layout of Maran Street this is going to the housing committee uh item 11 1924 approved uh donation on in voluntary Grant eastment necessary to redevelop uh Redevelopment of a public roadway at the intersection of Maron and uh e T Street uh this is going to housing committee approve uh donation and volteer and Grant eement necessary to for the Redevelopment of Thea Broadway inter section at Manon Street and East hav Street this is going to housing committee item 12124 appropriation transfer of $750,000 uh among arpa free cash allocation this is going to The Bu and finance committee uh item 12224 the removal of handicap parking signs on five plot Street uh this is going to ordinance committee item 12324 authorization to spend Grant of the for the amount of 33,2 180 Emergency Management performance Grant this is going to the budget and finance committee item 124 uh 12424 the authorization to spend Grant of $35,000 fire safety equipment Grant this is going to The Bu and finance committee item 12524 the removal of handicap parking uh signs on F 15 uh Ferman Street uh this is going to ordinance committee item 12624 um modification Administration code section 4 sub session uh 12.1 this is going to the ordinance committee item 12420 12724 uh Lawrence Police Superior officer office officer contract this is going to the budget and finance committee uh item 128 12824 the handicap parking uh 48 E Street this is going to ordinance committee item 12924 parking signs 15 minutes 1301 uh 395 law Street uh this is going to ordinance committee item 13024 handicap parking uh on 356 South Union Street this is going to ordinance committee item 13124 handicap parking 279 L Street Apartment one uh handicap parking on that the address this is going to the ordinance committee item 13224 adopt Chari act resolution support effort uh for public college education this is going to ordinance committee this is a resolution going to ordinance uh item 12324 proposal of allowing retail Souls of cannabis within the lawence city limit this is going to ordinance committee um on this item counselors we need to also retract a vot not to um retract a v that we took back in 2016 also uh to allow the City of Lawrence to have a commercial cannabies so this is uh the proposal and the way that it was that is a little um a little different than what it's supposed to be but I mean the ordinance committee can figure it out and and propose a specific law to be changed uh item want to 424 which is the authorization to fill assistant assessor position uh this is going to ordinance committee item 13524 authorization to F uh supervisor position on the inspection or service department this is going to ordinance committee item 13624 authorization to follow assistant Commissioner of Health code and services this is going to ordinance committee item 13724 approval of $4 million Bond purchase of the real estate property uh on Andover Street this is specifically for the Elks club going uh to be purchased by the uh glts this is going to the budget and finance committee and we are going to be discussing the portion of the city of lawence responsibility now the $4 million itself item item 13824 which is the authorization to fill license coordination position uh uh need we need to vot to uh I make a motion to add to the agenda item 138-144 convenience of the public um there is a motion to declare item 13824 as an emergency to be able to adopt it to the agenda properly second discussion uh ccil plan what what is 13824 the authorization to fill a licensed coordinator position was put together by Peter by Peter Blanchett the acting director Inspection Services discussion file so it's typically not given to to the rest celor any discussion item 128 to declare this as an emergency so is this is this a late file or is this getting within the 48 Hours it was neither um Mr Blanchett sent me a memo that said I have two items for the agenda and then sent me three so I missed one of them because I didn't line up with what I was expecting so he got it to us in plenty of time it wasn't posted for public meeting purposes um so it did not meet the 48 hour requirement so it's technically not a late file um but for purposes that wasn't on the agenda for the full 48 Hours it only went on Monday morning you need to do the six votes for an emergency I understand so we're going to S is it is it the C pres have we have a motion to declare this as an as an emergency and then s to the committee okay uh there is a motion to to declare this as an emergency second uh properly second discussion I he non all in favor please say hi hi councilors what do you want to do with this item discuss it now or we send it to committee send if the intent is to send it to committee we're going to be sending it to the ordinance committee item 13924 Easter egg hunt uh at the O'Neal uh basketball area on Saturday March sty um this also counselors we need to clar this is an emergency for the convenience of the public I make a motion to to adopt this to the agenda as an emergency for the convenience of the public and to also wave rule number six of the city council which require us to send two committee emergency first and then we deal with it here well I was just told I can do it in one motion by the CL oh there parliamentary procedures going to be questioning all right councilors uh there is a motion to declare this is an emergency discussion discussion uh properly second right discussion Cel plan I'm this is an organization who I actually like an awful lot who have been doing a lot of things fantastic things in the city I I don't I don't understand why they didn't send this to us earlier unless I hate to bring this up again it was supposed to come before maybe the previous meeting or was this before I have no idea when this was sent up presid minutes yep yep let's finish so that's my question I'm not sure when it was sent up so I I don't know but I would think that they would know but maybe there's an explanation so I'm willing to listen uh uh the intent of the clearance and emergency I think that through you cons president it's the need of the six vote for the convenient of the of the public but if anybody have President thank you through you it it's been brought to our attention or some of us that some type of changes have been happening at the Park and Recreation the way now that they provided the the permit so they actually went there on time and they citizen search somehow it's being changed was not working so they did all the diligent to get it on time but due to the fact they didn't they couldn't somehow put it in through citizen search to Citizen sear so that's why it's here late um and and it's and it's an activity that's going to be done by the 30th if we hold on to it we won't be able to approve it to be done on time but it's there some changes has happen in the parking Recreation it's not just is them there's people having the same issue and and and some of the people are not as as close to the date so they waiting for that issue to be all right ccors we have a motion to declare this is an emergency we need six SP for this um any other discussion at this point I call the questions all Us in favor please say I I the I Have It Roll Call vote roll call please counc yes coun yes coun yes delario yes counc Santiago yes counc yes counc yes vice president yesod yes so councilors now we need to deal with this issue either we send it to committee or we should spend rule six to be able to discuss it at this level what is your assign I motion I make a motion to to suspend rule six of the city council so we can um avoid committee and discuss that here right now the full there is a motion on the table uh properly second discussion discussion no discussion so I call the questions all those in favor please say I I the I have it now we have this item here councilors what you motion to approve second there is a motion to approve properly second discussion all right I call I call the the items item 129 is the Easter egg hunt at the O'Neal park at the basketball area properly second all Us in fav pleas uh please say I I the I have it uh now councelors we going to the uh committees committees committees um uh ordinance that's the 26 7 o' on finance committee the 27th at 7 o'cl Wednesday the 27th at 7 so Tuesday the 26 is ORD and Wednesday the 27th is uh is BU on finance housing committee you what Wednesday at 6 Wednesday at 6 1 six all right uh there is no there is any item for personel well let's let's arrange the meeting anyway uh Safety Committee uh Economic Development Committee we have no business at this point all right um I believe that's it right motion to adjourn there is a motion to ajour properly uh properly second e e e e for