##VIDEO ID:hGR4d-xTHe8## is being conducted both in person and via remote participation a reminder that persons who would like to listen or view this meeting while in progress May either attend in person here in the city council chamber or use any of our social media accounts for Access um at this point can you join me in a moment of silence for um a former Lawrence Public School Lawrence High teacher who passed away last week and now join me in the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right counselors we don't have any minutes to approve we don't have any new business items we do have where is this uh a tabled item can I have a motion to untable item 49-24 business district safety initiative brought To Us by Captain Maurice alila and Lieutenant Dan Fleming from the police department so move Mo motion has been made U by councilor Reyes properly seconded by councilor De Rosario uh no discussion Maria can you do a roll call please councelor Gregor Rosario yes councelor Anna Levy Selena re um councelor Lev is here oh c Le okay you don't see her celor Selena Rees yes and chair Stephanie Infante yes yes thank you counselors we have Captain agular and Lieutenant Fleming here with us tonight to go over um their the safety initiative that they are proposing gentlemen you guys have the floor and I and I want to I want to uh make note for for the record that they did bring this to us in a timely manner it just timing did not uh work in our favor when we scheduled the public safety meeting thank you Captain uh well good evening to all uh my name is Captain Maurice aglar of law Police Department uh 9 L Street uh I'm here with uh Lieutenant Dan Fleming and uh we have two separate U issues with regards to the initiative I think that um it'll make clear sense to you why that is we'll move right through it but I think that there's been um some confusion as to you know what what one particular issue is which is the business initiative that we're that we uh we would like to implement U or begin implementing and the secondary the secondary issue being conflated with the issue of homelessness um uh again which is a completely an utterly separate issue um there is a difference between homelessness which is not in and of itself a crime there's no such thing as a status crime and that of vagrancy what the business uh initiative uh looks to address is the issues of vagrancy uh in respons numerous complaints and noticeable rise in vagrancy panhandling loitering trespassing and a lot of related issues uh uh the mayor dep pay your call to special meeting to address the concerns um the mayor has pledged uh to provide the necessary economic material support to mitigate the impact of these public nuisances on our business quarters um thank let's see if that helps I hope can you still hear me okay all right um so the Lawrence Police Department in collaboration with Department of Community Development DPW and other City Partners um wish is to launch a multifaceted multi-tiered approach uh which we've dubed the business uh quor safety initiative um what the initiative includes is basically uh site focused law enforcement increased police activity by way of site specific bike patrols directed patrols Etc um public education uh and dedicated communication lines which we provided um also uh business support side evaluation uh related uh to deterrence security and the like and impact analysis as we go through uh evaluating what we have done and what obviously the impact of that is um and this is all again we've had many uh complaints from the business Community um we've had many uh vagrants many displaced individuals some local some external um and they really flooded the streets right now they're completely and utterly visible uh they've created nuisances for patrons of these businesses unsafe and unsanitary conditions uh throughout our businesses and some even as close to the Boys and Girls Club where our children uh you know spend most of their time so we we have to do something about that um so far we've uh entered what's called phase one which is basically just informational we've had constituent meetings with business owners stakeholders um and uh to this end we printed and distributed uh most if not all of the 300 Flyers to businesses surrounding the initial site that we're going to hit which is the epicenter that's essics and Broadway sections and also the businesses in South Union and South Broadway Street phase one includes uh the information dissemination and Gathering and site evaluations the evaluations of these sites incl includes environmental engineering strategies which is fencing lighting cameras uh we're educating our business owners as far as why they're required where they're required and some of the external resources that they can access to get perhaps some funding uh for this uh in order to help them out uh we're also educating them with regards to the trespass and loitering signs that are going to be required once we enter face still doing it yeah yes can you hear me I'll move a little closer okay councilor Reyes can you hear Captain aula okay Council Rees yes okay sorry that's okay um so uh again along with the business education uh we're also teamed up with uh several people in a partnership with a director of Community Development M director pimel uh DPW director Hy haime homeless coordinator um and others that um right now are helping us with the first phase one of the things that we want to do is we want to understand how we got here first and foremost so we're engaging in population demographics evaluation um we want to know who the locals versus non-local individuals are um um because at this stage the preliminary numbers indicate that approximately 30% of the individuals uh that we deal with and and we're looking at a a population of approximately 300 people that are displaced uh and we believe that 30 less than 30% are actual local people and by local I don't mean Lawrence individuals I mean marac Valley it could be from athor it could be from somewhere else but they're local individuals so we want to know what it is that prompted the other 70% to come to the community we've done parking walks we've done interviews we have a general idea of what it is that's working against us in these matters and we'll address that in phase two um but lot told us has to do with the fact that there quote unquote one young lady told us um that everyone knows that if you're homeless Lawrence is the best place to be and that's because uh they get a multitude of Services food clothing uh rehab centers uh you know um methodone clinics all all sorts of things all of this we're trying to address at another level and at a deeper level um but that's what we're understanding you know at at this time um we are also looking at some of the issues uh with the encampment sites um this is something that has attracted them too which is the ability to establish a homestead if you will somewhere and we're working very diligently with DPW Dan we'll get into all these aspects of it um um in order to reclaim some of the city property I want to be very clear because this's is miscommunication about whether the police are moving the homeless and they're doing XYZ against the homeless and that couldn't be further from the truth what we are attacking is vagrancy if you're homeless nobody does more for the homeless community in in in the City of Lawrence than we do and Dan will get into exactly what we do and how we do it um and which you just stated as part of the issue right well as some of some of no and and and and there's a lot of validity to that uh uh but um there's going to be some changes with regards to that because again we're making it uh a little bit too easy in that regard and although we empath empathize with a lot of the situations that these individuals see um one of the things we'd like to do is we'd like to find out what organizations are responsible for transporting them here um and uh we'd like to U how should I say uh sort of kind of uh invigorate their uh their desire to move back home so that we can deal with our issues um during phase two we will be coming back to you uh with regards to potential um city ordinances um as of late uh this this in June uh the Supreme Court United States uh in Grant Pass versus Johnson uh indicated that and found that uh homeless encampments and just you know uh doing away with homeless encampments or any or any uh city ordinances uh outlawing them are not a violation of their rights um so to that end LEL has already enacted Brockton has already enacted and this is a little bit of concern because once they get moved out if we don't enact they're going to come here they're going to come here and then we'll have a lot more than 300 so we have to be proactive we have to move ahead of this thing we have to think out of the box we have to take into consideration legal factors strategic factors uh we have to uh you know tighten up as far as what it is that's attracting the people here because there's a way to drive that well if you will we've discussed that with some of our business partners and so um we will get to that again at this stage here I just want to let you know kind of where we're going with this what PH one entails with the just information gathering and some uh education to our business uh community and uh and we're going to be moving down uh Once We Gather the right information you know down the right path as far as trying to mitigate this and eventually you know bring it down to a management level will it ever go away altogether not likely you've got the city of Los Angeles with a 12.6 billion billion dollar budget they haven't been able to do much with it I suspect that we can do a lot with it um if we attack it the right way and look at it holistically so that is is my presentation as far as the vagrancy aspect of it the impact on on our businesses and the reason why we started at the business uh epicenter and and we're going to move on out um so that we have no confusion as far as the homeless uh and humanitarian aspect of it um Lieutenant Fleming will tell you U as a handout so we just provided some of the activities that we've assisted DPW with as far as reclaiming some of the city property doing it in main way but getting it done nonetheless so I don't want to steal any Thunder and uh if if you don't have any questions for me well we'll hold the questions for the end Madam chair I just want to know the councelor Anna Lev's present oh yes uh councelor Levy has joined us and she's here with us [Laughter] tonight good even think you for having us um regardless how we got anyway here the homelessness is an issue in the city and and I was tked with taking a look at it and devising plan on how we got to deal with it I was originally asked to look at it in on the opes of the opioid epidemic and that's how I I originally started looking at you know how we deal with people that are deal with substit use of sorta and that quickly quickly led me into the the can you move the mic a little bit sure yeah sorry about that little more soft spoken um so when looking at this if someone's if we're talk about just the homeless it's it's hard to cover out one issue because if you're homeless in the City of Lawrence you're probably dealing with the substance use disorder you're probably dealing with the mental health dis disorder you may be dealing with both regardless of what they're dealing with it's it's obvious that they're responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime that they're committing in the city but they're also victims of a disproportionate amount of crime so that's one aspect of it the other aspect of it is the quality of life and the disturbance qual life for other people that are just trying to get along long life it's a difficult task to take on from Peace Department because they're asking us to deal with it and you know half the population thinks we're not doing enough enforcement and the other half the population thinks we should be more Humane in our enforcement that being said we've come up with a few different strategies that seem to be um paying some dividends before I go any further I just want to kind of lay out a few numbers to give you the the the real gravity of the situation we're dealing with in our city by our C we go out there uh on a weekly basis and we meet monthly with our local Partners to get a head counsil which pretty accurate although it's sometimes hard to get a hard number because some people become homeless then get housed and then become homeless again but our last counts is we have approximately 300 homeless individuals in the city that we know of um up year to date we've had 159 overdoses in our city we've had 131 non-fatal overdoses largely due to the efforts of our first respondents providing knocking those people I'm sorry what what was the time period of this this year this year today 131 non-fatal overdoses we had 28 fatal overdoses we section 35s which is a provisional law that if someone has that we're aware of that has a severe alcohol drug order we can we can literally take to a Civ warrant and bring them before the courts to get them Services whether they you know want to have those service not we've served this year alone 87 sex 35s and amongst that also we're dealing with mental health issues we've done 21 section 12s which is someone that someone a danger themselves or others we bring them um sometimes against their will to to a clinician to get those Services I'm referring to the exus County DA uh the ex County data system we've we've in 2023 we did followup um interviews with 546 individuals that were in need of service and so far to date in 2024 835 individuals we follow up with so we we're looking at this problem holistically and we know that it's not just a police issue that we have to rely on our Community Partners and I think um Captain AG referred to some of them we we've tapped into Community Development um they've been a huge asset to helping us address this problem uh the homeless coordinator Kelly bur been been asset as well groundwork Lawrence has helped us clean up many of our encampments along the rail trail I can't say enough about the DBW that actually does the uh ground workor of going in actually cleaning it up Casa esparanza has provided us clinicians go give the followup um um qualif Abus provid them services along with the star program gr Family Health Center methodo Clinic mergency house Daybreak shelter New Beginnings ad care Lal health and launch general just to add a few of the people of Our Community Partners and those Community Partners I just I just mentioned we meet on a weekly basis we identify people that are that need a service and we try to provide them the services with that backr we still have the issue of these homeless encampments I refer to you your packet it shows you city map of where these encampment that we knew these encampments were and we started addressing them in in February if you looked at the the part of your packet that shows the pictures you can look at Bay State Road that was before in February we started that was our first encampment we we took over the before and after pictures as you can see there's been a drastic change the boys club we again we have you know children playing right adjacent to where these home homeless camps were West Street Park the L Street bridge and Doyle Street so those have been the major encampments and uh one end that we uh behind refriger on Manchester Street was the other en camera that we took over so those those if you look those pictures you see what we were dealing with people dealing living in the uh encampments um the way we addressed it is we'd go there weeks before hand with clinicians with counselors with drug counselors off of them services off of them housing options off of them detox options but at the end of the day once we offer those Services some of them would have take those Services if they chose not to which many of them don't we understand that in a in a humane way we give them a timetable we say all right in a certain amount of days we're going to come back here and you have to be removed they for the most part they've been pretty Cooperative they voluntarily um relocate themselves and then we clean up that that encampment using the DBW and all our resources once we clean up those resources I we then reach out to all the area businesses and some of the area neighbors we give them literally phone numbers where they can call I UN in real time and we do Relentless followup not to allow allow them to come back to uh repopulate that area this has been very successful if you look at those pictures you can see that we made some great inroads to cleaning those areas up but it's also caused a uh you know unintended consequences of now these people are now kind of displaced and walking around in in our in our community causing some disturb is in our business district that's the next phase of this to try to figure out how we can U mitigate that but um that's what that's that what been our approach with a Humane kind of t tilt of get offing services and then going in there and giving them a h date when they have to be removed and then removing them and then cleaning up the area then doing a Relentless followup but feel any questions uh in regards to that if You' like aside from our business district uh I'm seeing an increase in South Lawrence as well um I've reported it many times to the city um I just I don't know what else we can do but it sounds like we we are trying to find something from what you guys presented um so it's it's my point is it's not just the the business communities um I recently I was in having conversations with Lieutenant sillo over a a constituent concern now we're seeing um many like an Min encampment it hasn't become an encampment yet yet but it it's it's becoming an issue a new a a nuisance I should say uh on roast stre so we cleaned up the side of the Boys and Girls Club but now they're coming into South Lawrence um I'm happy like these before and after photos are amazing I'm so grateful for the work that you guys are doing this is long time coming and um I hope I wish we we had this on display uh to show to the public what we're what we're looking at right now uh but I don't I don't want us to forget about the residents I understand it's a major issue like sorry to interrupt you lieutenant um when was it uh when the fire department had their boot uh fundraiser I that same day I saw needles in front of uh uh family pools and I immediately reported it and it was taken care of um by OPD and DPW uh right away so I definitely see uh the impact in our businesses and I see how it could be an annoyance uh I just don't want us to lose the focus on the residents either so what we doing drastically differently than in the passes before we look we didn't look at as like a police matter we'd go there we we' have them trespass and move them all the way needles was not concerned garbage was not concerned and the the wellness of the person we just trespass was not concerned and that really was a hotess way to look at it now with all these pnties we have we then call the gr law Family Health Center today's a perfect example um the person from the director of the boys club called me said hey there's a tent uh on on M court that was today we went we sent someone over there we took down the tent we immediately call gr on Family Health Center who sent someone there and clean up all the needles it's a real time effect we knew that when we start displacing these encampments that they're got they're not going away immediately they're going somewhere so we're going to have to do Relentless followup what we need to do is have open communication with all the community and when they call us we have to have real-time response we can provide that realtime response as long as we have support from the city and our Community Partners it's not a police matter we're just the tip of the Speare we're the people they call for us and once we get there we now have the ability to pull different levers to get certain things done whether that's call the DBW to clean up the garbage we're calling great long Health Centers to clean up the needles we're calling Kelly frasia to kind of try to get health the placement for the person so we're really looking at this this problem as not a police matter not a crime matter but as a community matter as a holistic way of looking at this we're just the we're just the bell ringer you know they call the police and we we evaluate what's going on we try to dapose whether it's a crime matter and most times it's not as to be a crime matter and then we kind of lean on a community Po and say hey this isn't a police matter what can you do and we've had huge success we' now with the relationship we've built with all these Community Partners we're on a a first name basis a phone call basis so when we make a phone call in real time it it gets addressed and today's a perfect example I got a phone call this morning at 8:30 from the boys club and by new time it was cleaned up all the needs were gone and clearly the person that was um you know contended there realizes that's not the place to go where that person goes next is a mystery but they're going to go somewhere and wherever they go we'll do the same thing we'll go there we'll support them with what whatever Community assets we have but at the end of the day we going to be concerned with the the abiding people that live at those those location they have the right to live there in a peaceful hary without uh dealing with some of the aftermath the homeless um and be before I pass it on to my colleagues there's one thing that we two things that is actually one that we don't discuss enough when it comes to to our homelessness issue here in the City of Lawrence aside from the free services that we offer um a a big factor of why we have this issue is because of the drugs that are available in on our streets and I sometimes I see the bus sometimes you know I and I know uh it's a lengthy process to to to come back that and and sometimes more often than not a dangerous process but we we have we have to we have to L A fire on this uh because if if we take away the services they're still going to come for that because of that without a doubt and and be sorry be be C the fact that we also work hand inand with a uh Street Cru unit and so when we have those issues we'll ask them to kind of ramp up there enforcement in that area too and we try to we try it's it's we do a pretty good job highlighting who's the homeless person who has an addiction problem and who's there trying to take advantage of them by selling the drugs and in one hand we offer those person person suffering with addiction we offer them all sort of services in a humane way we have side conversations we treat them with dignity and the person we know that selling the drugs we'll call the drug unit and say hey we've identified that person and you know use use the full extent of the law to get rid of them so we we are look at this holistically both with Community P but also internally without Police Department we have a very active drug unit probably the most active drug unit definitely in the marac valley maybe on the east coast and we utilize them very very well we communicate back and forth with them and we also we also communicate when they're arresting someone who has an addiction problem they'll reach out to us and we'll reach out to the court and say listen you don't necessarily have to send this person to jail many times they won't but we we'll disclose hey they have a direct problem let's try to get them treatment through the court so we're working hand in hand with our with our partners at the at the courthouse um probation officer T conception own has been a huge partner with us and we we we now communicate this this is real novel this say this this this didn't happen you know four years ago for now for the first time police SP spear had in conversations with uh you know uh detox we spearheading conversation with our hospitals we're spearheading conversations with uh with our courts and we're we're connecting call them to like hey this again we're just the we're the first person that call we're the open communication now is it's Monumental we meet every single week we have all 37 people that meet on a on the Hub meeting all bringing different skill sets to that whether that be a a um a deto center or the hospital or the great L Family Health Center or probation and we all kind of put our heads together saying all right with this one individual what's the best case scenario what can we do for them and then we do our best and move on to the next case scenario so we we are really taking on as a as a partnership in the community my last comment on this another thing that we don't shut as much light as we should and and this might be a little little too much to say but unfortunately the reality is and this is not just in the City of Lawrence this is any City that's that has the a poverty um issue how can I say this um poverty is a business it's a business business many many organizations and cities municipalities they get many grants for this type of stuff um so while we're here and this is just a comment it's not for you guys to respond or anything you don't have to we're here sitting on this side and you guys are out on the streets trying to trying to improve this but at the end of the day how much progress are we I mean we've been at this for years how much process progress are we actually doing as a whole as a community and it to me I've always I've always wondered does it come down to the business side of this because we we get a lot of money I I agree with you 100% And when I first got into this I said all right you know I'll I'll spare heard this and we sat down I started attending meetings and it quickly dawned me all these people were at the same meetings and they were all kind of re redefining the problem but no one's really come up with any solutions why I think we made some really good Headway as as a police department is because we're not funded by grants we're not funded by this it's our problem the matter what and at first a lot of these PS are very hesitant because they don't want to give up their information they don't want to give up their their their their numbers because that is is is reliant on them to move forward but because we're SP spearheading and we're the we're the Catalyst of the communication um sharing we're we're we're seeing some success and we can we now that we're tracking this we have some empirical data to see where are and where our gaps and services are and we can address them going forward but we we're making in the past 5 years made huge Headway so that you a spot on that is a problem and the fact that the city specifically the police department is spearheading it we've overcome those gaps and services I'm sorry so I I understand I understand what you say I'm just going to touch on a point there um you captured it we've been going on it uh at it for many many years but what we see is a pendulum swing it's a social pendulum swing it comes in goes um for a long time uh we addressed our our our drug issues by uh Zero Tolerance operations uh just in October 30th and 31st we had another Zero Tolerance operation um Zero Tolerance operations then were supplanted with more humanitarian uh you know Aid and approach um there were there there are in fact drug courts now and and things of that nature they try to decriminalize it um and um you know we see where that's leading and though now the pendulum swinging back again where we know that we have to take other types of action uh without mentioning anyone in particular we we have Peak the interest of certain board of directors that's a very powerful organizations um those that are capable to operate above our level and those are the ones that can dry the well if you will as some of these uh contributing factors contributing programs and uh and stuff like that uh without letting too much out of the bag at this time thank you once we start to make the atmosphere here less welcoming for those not people suffering from mental illness I want to make that very clear but for those that are uh you know on another level seeking drugs seeking to sell drugs seeking to use drugs seeing to come here for that um then that's a Law Enforcement issue and we do that better than anybody else and we're going to get back on that pendulum we're swinging the other way we're turning it the other way but we need the support of those that can at least if you could shut shut off the uh the flow of of you know these contributing factors we could do then our bet which is what we specialize in everything else we can set up a task force work with other people and you know we're attacking from different Avenues which we're doing now um but in the meantime um this is where we're going it's going to be a little bit slow but once we get going uh we're going to start cooking as far as any concerns about overflow into the residential areas um we will not tolerate that under any circumstance um uh we have our officers are very proactive and again we've DED we have dedicated lines where you can call directly Hey listen I see the same woman in South Broadway um you know and Walgreens sitting there uh you know Cruisers come and go what's the deal well we have dedicated lines for that you call us and we'll take care of it um but again uh it's it's we attack them all directions but we're not going to allow our residents to be bothered by this um we have our on them as well so I just wanted to make sure thank you thank you Council Rosario thank you through you and I'm going to pick it back right on what you said and the last time I walked with uh Lieutenant Flemin uh by the Fria I said it [Music] um we have so many negative grants negative grants and they are a lot of people Applause oh we made we got 350 ,000 for this half a million for that but it's for the opioids and and and and those are not I I wish we can not get those and we get ready of those programs and and if we don't get those and we get ready of the programs we get ready of the issue hopefully right but no we applaud us and and I serve one of the district that is more hurden for it and it's a district that gets more money for it but how much money actually is going into that right now probably we got a task for now but all the millions of dollars that we get on an every year basis it doesn't go directly to that and I want to thank you guys for it because uh couple of days ago I felt I felt sorry and I feel sorrow in my heart because one of you Partners one of you partners that work closely with you Bo said out on Facebook that the city is getting money for to help homeless and what we doing is kicking them out how are we supposed to help them if we don't take them out and it's one of your greatest partners and I have the screenshot all over my phone and I know a lot of people got it and if this is your job I know you're watching this is your job you should help you shouldn't trust if you know what's going on you should say the truth but that's my point and when it come to the business making money I have one business and I'm going to name me which I got a big issue with great allarm Family Hair Center they have they great help in the city but they have an issue giving syringes out on Water Street and I sit on that premises and I've been going years through year and they know me they give me the run schedule they never have a schedule set up where are they going to pick it up or how they going to pick it up or if they go by call that's great also they told me that everybody that comes in have to bring a bag of you syringes to give a new bag of syringes and I saw more than 20 people getting 10 bags of syringes without bringing a single dirty syringe that's an issue uh the last time two years ago I went there and I said can we do something said well they brought out all the buckets and say we got the buckets you get the people I said but you get the money how should I get my own people to go pick up syringes on my area which I got West three Park full of syringes now they going into well we kicked them out the neighborhood association that's getting ready on the allenon neighborhood kicked them out of there because there was a couple of them sleeping on the slide with the kids and they found syringes so I have an issue nobody wants to name those people but I do the greater Lawrence Family har sented as as much as they help they also hurt in our city with that program and they need to somehow somebody needs to sit there and see the operation on a daily basis also ask them for schedule and you see how old the schedule is and they tell you this is the schedule and when I went home with the schedule was two years old they fire a guy who was the guy that pull out the buckets and show me the buckets and told me to go pick them up myself if I get that much of money on grants believe me I will be picking up syringes everywhere in the city with my bare hands because they get millions of dollars for that so those are the those are those are the issues also Hing our city even though they help they do I mean they they help a lot but they also heading our city on that so we need to set somebody in there or have somebody in there watching that operation on a daily basis because that's where the syringes come from is that they don't buy syringes at Walgreens they don't buy syringes at CVS they don't buy syringes they go and pick them up who's giving them up you know Council der you you you you really you hit it on the nose here and that's part and Par of what I I was alluding to before some of these grants some of these programs amount to no more than taking candy from the devil um you know because the benefits of these grants far outweigh the burden the the the burdens on our community far outweighed by any benefits that they may uh you know uh provide to our community and if it was just providing it to our community that'd be one thing but what we have here and and this is why it's important to have you know uh these particular boards on board and to maybe get up on the legislative level what we have is and this is my opinion this is not the opinion of the mayor of anyone else this is my own personal opinion from my experience from what I've seen a lot of these programs appear to be engineered so that they are epicenter here so they attract people from the outside um so they draw them away from certain other communities and bring them to our communities because this is where the programs are held this is where these grants are geared to some of these grants and we scrutinize them heavily because we depend on them greatly um are not worth taking anymore are not worth dealing with anymore because again the burdens outweigh any benefits that we may have and I just want you know that we are scrutin scrutinizing those and we're looking at ways of that's one of the things I was saying about drying up The Well of just saying it's just not worth it to us anymore you know we have to take care of our people for us and if it was our people we'd be all set but we can't be attracting uh people from the outside and we think we're getting something because we're getting a certain amount in a grant um but we're losing more and resources our own resources our own Manpower um it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't balance out it doesn't equate for us one last thing that the people who going look at it methon clinics we have them in the city they not helping anybody anymore it's just a business and if you see the clients that go there also they're not even from the city they have what they call take homes those are people that come weekly and they give them the medicine and they take it home and they don't come back to the city so but they don't have it on their Hometown but they have it here so it's a business there's nobody it it's money involved it's all kinds of stuff involved and nobody look at them and I saw people walking through the clinic the other day legislators walking through the clinics applauding what the methadon clinic is doing which is killing our people it dirting our city and and legislators walking through it celebrating what the methadon clinic had done but as the methadon clinic how much have they even give to the city positive they don't they don't they don't give scholarship they don't care about scholarship they don't give anything for the schools they don't they don't teach the kids that that you shouldn't be coming here no they open they bring people they pay taxes now for this people they paid transportation for these people to come to the clinic that's how business this business has get in legal drugs it's drugs in a legal way so nobody's looking into those and we have I think it's two of them and they were talking about opening a third one but iend overa doesn't have one I think hail has one L has one but those towns in in New Hampshire and all those places they don't have none of those why do we have them why nobody have focus on them and say what positive impacts do you have in my community they have none cuz the same way we have 30% of the homeless is probably 30% of people locally go and get methadon it's the same thing so it those we need to go I know this is not going to end today it's work that we need to do collectively between all of us but those are the people that we need to call them here they should be here giving us start it's not you guys you guys are doing your job they should giveing start saying well we're working on the police and this is what we're doing this is our percentage this is what we're going to do the hom coordinator should be here too telling us how she she's helping you with you guys and it's it's it's a group of people that should be here family Great Law family her also should be here and saying I'm partnering with the police to do this and get it done and we in the next meeting we're going to be at this level this is the number like you guys are doing but by yourself I believe it by yourself it's it's a group of people that we need to get together but we need to give also H we if we forget a little bit about the homeless cuz they got no money and we hit those big Pockets actually profit for those homeless will make a little difference thank you councelor councelor love you thank you um no my my my question was was coming regarding also the the metalon clinic so right now we have two metalon clinics yes that is what we have right now I just remember on the 1990 when we opened the first one so there was a lot of meeting in the community opposed to have the metalon cleaning due to the the F of what the um Council the Rosario was saying so that's this is business and they looking more to the money that is this Clinic is going to bring to the city than whatever the treaming or whatever that's all of the homeless that we have and all of the drugs party that we have in in the city so that was very bad you know regarding having and a cleaning in here and now we have two and they are sing to open so many all another one uh but like I say what they looking more was for the amount of money that they can bring to the city and how much money you know and whatever that's uh they they were doing or they're going to do with those people that are on the street thank you really thank you for the word that you've been doing I'm so grateful to see all of this area because I'm been working most of the time sometime inclus with a officer aano I'm been working from um some of this area and not just looking not just looking for the onet for other things but we having see you know Camp the made it by then uh another the question that I have so what is attention followup 885 are all these people belong to Lawrence or these people are also belong to other cities do you hear follow-ups yes so we init the MS so you have 835 2025 attention followups are all the people belong to Lawrence or they are people that also belong to other cities so if if they go to another Community we contact that community that where we all the ASC Outreach and that computer system allows us to upload anyone that's um if someone overdoses in the city from new report we upload that information and newort PD will get that information and they'll do an Outreach on their own so we're able to track everyone in our St that we that we um do Outreach for so that eight that 800 number is just Lawrence residents but everyone else from all the other communities we we're in contact with them as well so that that 8 that 800 number may be U misleading a little bit because if someone overdoses twice we'll do two contact with them if there's if they have multiple um events we will will reach out to them multiple times when you get somebody that is belong to another city you also Char the the other city for whatever the the expenses that you have been incor no because usually there's not really an expense occur so we if if it's on the mental health side we uh we partner with Kasa esparanza they they're based out to Fury although the clinician that works for us is a is a Lawrence resident she's bilingual uh she'll she'll do off all for us so KAS asiran will take on that that burden of of paying her um if it's a if it's a drug Outreach we simply will contact first and offer them services and then direct them on where else to go but the city doesn't take on the cost of of of giving them the services so the city theying the cost we we do not take the cost we just we just D we we kind of we tell them where what their options are if they're willing to go whether it's to a detox center or to um some place will then connect that person with the detox CA but we don't we don't occur any cost by doing that besides the main power of of myself also mind to that out there doing it but other than that we don't Cur any cost so how does the work with with the uh home coordinator from the city of La so she she was she was been the homeat before I took on this role but um we have each other's cell phone numbers so if I see someone that um you know we'll do our Outreach I'll be talking with someone and they they say yes I want housing I'll call um I'll call the coordinator and she'll show up there and she'll she'll get them she'll speak with them and see what kind of service they have it depends on a is a a criteria which they can service someone if they have monthly income coming in if they don't have income coming in if they're addicted if they're not addicted so there's a there's a there's u a lot that goes into it but our job as a police department is we identify someone who's homeless and then I'll offer them Services if they in fact say yes I do want Services I'll then call in the homeless coordinator and she'll offer whatever Services they have she also will go out on her own and do her own Outreach um she's been reporting back to us and who she's been contacting and she tries to coordinate services with those people um if there's a time where she's doesn't feel comfortable going into a certain encampment she'll reach out to us and we'll we'll send her um something to go in with them for obviously safety reasons but it's really just cross communication so what happened when they said no I don't want any any hting I don't want it so unfortunately that happens more times than not and what we're doing is by offering the services being Humane and and respecting the dignity when we have to take enforce the measures we can we can take on the people that are criticizing us so we we've did a good job and I I agree with you whole heartly a lot of these agencies um are motivated by by you know not the most alteristic reasons but they were also very skeptical of the police department they thought all we want to do is enforcement in the last few years we able to cultivate a relationship where we we can do the balance we've we as behavior health unit has now Balan our technique saying hey we want office services we're Humane we want to give you the best chances possible but we're also an enforcement agency so when you don't take those Services We Now can do enforcement by saying hey you know I've offered you all these services you're now trespassing you have to leave I'll give you a great example that happened last Thursday we had a woman that was tented outside the dvw we went there for two and a half weeks you know um the homeless coor offer services we actually had um a place for her to go she just didn't take it she said she was going do she didn't take it I went back there to give her a final warning and she go oh I need housing and I I said do you remember me I said I was here last week I off your house she goes oh you're right and got up and walked away now unfortunately she's still homeless unfortunately she still needs services but no one can be critical of the police department or the city because we offer them we sincerely offer you Services we will try to provide you everything as human possible but at the end of the day we still have to hold you accountable for you know the the the quality life that you're disturbing other people around you so we as the police department have taken on you know this role of being you know you know conscious of people's you know you know downtrod in this we try to help you out but we also want to force wi of of the city so we've been balancing both those and we're able to kind of set everyone mind that hey we're not just enforcement we'll offer services but we are enforcement and there's there's two different populations we have to deal with the people that think we're not doing enough enforcement and the people that think we're doing too much enforcement and we're we're caught right in the very middle but I think we've done a very nice job balance the two you can see the success of cleanups we have some success stories of people that kind of got off the streets and got themselves um you know up and on their feet and the people that don't take the services well that's that's unfortunate reality of life that you know I put my head on the pillow every night thinking hey I've done the best I can I've offer the services but at the end of the day I also have to you know you know be concerned about the kids that play the boy club I have to be concerned with the people that live abing the rail trail next to the wer pot I have to be concerned about the daycare that sits right adjacent to Wester those are also my concern we have to take on the concerns of the homeless concern of the addicted Community the the the concerns of some of these clinicians that want to do you know save you know every single person we come in contact with but the reality of our job is we you know we have a very high you know um not a very high success rate many of the people won't take our services many of the people are so embroidered in in their their addiction that they're not taking our services and that's okay it's unfortunate but we then going to Pivot and be concerned about the community that they bu thank you you're wel and thank you for all the work that you've been doing thank you Council Rosario one question what is the difference between somebody intoxicated with alcohol in public and getting arrested and somebody that is highing drugs and public and not getting arrested Pro evidence um I think that uh alcohol and anding of alol toxication um is something that could be done even the courts of hell that a late person can determine if somebody's drunk or not a lay person cannot give testimony as to whether somebody's high or not even an officer can there could be something off with you it could be mental uh it could be actual drugs like as people we kind of know this guy's high or whatever but can you prove it so there is no difference and I don't think that we have any uh that to my knowledge any ordinance uh with the regards to kind of being high and then we have to distinguish as a marijuana as a pills like what is it how do we prove it how do we arrest how do we enforce so we have a little bit of an issue uh with regards to that that's why public intoxication is to alcohol easy peasy we can go in there lock them up all day we can uh you know basically artic ulate Court to say red glassy eyes on steady his feet uh you know slurred speech strong smell of alcohol and beverage eminating blah blah blah but when somebody's off on something a pill or something like what is wrong I don't know do we know if it's mental health issue do we know if it's this can't arrest it his mental health so that's our dilemma time that's our problem time thank you thank you um officers what what is the goal for this item are you looking to send this up to the full council do you want to report it to the full I think it's great at least I mean what what would you like what would you like this committee to to do well what we would like to do uh respectfully is uh try to bring some sort of awareness on what right now is a self-initiated initiative um and I I I think that for the sake of transparency um for the sake of you know just informing our city council me stakeholders within the community but what we're doing what we're trying to do um you know for now there will be once we're done with this particular phase and and I want to address something uh Council Levy before I forget as well um in just a second with regards to the uh the homeless coordinator um but you know once we get to the second um we we are going to be asking for your cooperation um in soliciting a uh uh no tent law uh you know or no encampment law or ordinance I mean uh whichever way uh that that's going to we're going to come before you on that particular We Will We Will kindly draft it for your review for the city attorney's review I don't think we're Reinventing the wheel over here like I said the Supreme Court um has already in Grant's Pass case has already given us the green light on that and other communities are jumping on it I think sooner rather than later we're going to get to that but for right now and to uh Council Levy's uh question with regards to the um the homeless coordinator at this point the mayor's office has um reassigned the homeless coord Ator uh to our office and the reason for that is because at this point um I have uh I have directed that uh we get down to the demograph demographics of what we generally call the homeless um I want to know the exact numbers of who who who the local people are I want to know uh who's coming where they're coming from if it's LEL sending us a bunch of people is it Boston sending us a bunch of people I want to know why I want to know who's giving uh giving them the ticket to come here somebody's facilitating uh this Transportation because we're going to address those issues in in other ways um but we've got to stop it and and um you know right now she's composing all the information for us she's working hand inand uh with our uh uh with Alysa Coco director uh uh coko of police department uh we're drafting Maps site Maps where they go and where they congregating we're using data in order to follow it around and try to attack it that way as opposed to I think I saw them over here we know where they're going what's attracting them and and why and uh and we're going to attack it that way but for now right now this is what uh the homeless coordinator is is uh is is focusing on so she's Gathering all that data for us um like I said in the F first phase when we go to the second phase now we're looking for more uh support with regards to ordinances we're going to be looking for more legislative support as well um we are meeting with certain people that are going to be addressing uh some of the issues that you're talking about with regards to these methodone clinics um does the need of our own Community uh really support two separate methodone clinics when the city of L is is bigger and they only have one um you know there's a lot of telling signs here of some of the stuff that we have to evaluate whether we need it or not and uh when you you are correct I well I agree with with you when that you say that a lot of this is business a lot of people confuse nonprofit for no profit and they're not the same one is a tax designation and the other is no profit so but either way I G too far with the theoretical aspect of it does it make sense to to split this item into an A and B like five 4 59- 24a phase one and then and you you mentioned that you're going to come back for phase two that way oh I guess it doesn't matter we can just yeah well y yep um I'm going to recommend for the committee to send this up as a committee report what I would like and I don't know if my colleagues agree but if you could put a presentation together I even if it's just photos so we can show the amazing work that you guys are doing and and where this is heading um and also whomever you need to accompany you next week that is working with you uh to to the point of councelor devario your your Community Partners should be um supporting you on this so everyone can see that this is truly a community effort that you guys are um initiating I will say before we come up at director fromel text me she was on the way here she was unable to make it here so we we are being supported by Community Development definitely awesome okay uh councilors can I have a motion to send this up as a committee report motion oh Council Reyes did you have any questions or comments before we move on are you uh thank you Madame chair I don't have question thank you for everything uh you guys do for us okay thank you motion has been made by councelor Levy seconded by councelor Reyes discussion seeing none all those in roll call Greg Rosario yes councelor Anna Levy yes celor Selena Reyes yes madame chair Stephanie Fant yes and the eyes have it thank you so much we will see you next week than I know officer Cano are you [Laughter] ready can I you have 2 minutes make it quick can I can I have a motion to untable item 4 43923 30 second delay at the traffic lightall in directions second I'm motion has been made by councelor Levy seconded by councelor Reyes roll call councelor GRE Del Rosario yes councelor Anna Levy yes celor Selena Reyes yes and Madame chair Infante yes and the eyes have it remind me councilor I believe we sent this item to the to the the city engineer for a a review or study I I haven't heard back from from him good evening councilors hi for the record um 94 Maple Street Apartment 2 uh I'm here in regards to the uh signal um signal lights to try and have a delay on them to try and help with the traffic uh accidents in the city so I just wanted to add to the document that we have current I think I added from December of 2023 up until this month of October which we completed um so on file I just want to add that I have the month of October it's a 9-page report and there the number of accidents go up to 198 so we've been very consistent with almost 200 accidents every month since 2023 and um how important it is to try and figure a way that we can get uh some kind of information from the city engineer and uh see how we can get this moving of a traffic delay even if it's for 15 seconds something is something and unless we start doing something to mitigate it it's it's not going to get any better and any life any one person that we can we can save makes a difference so thank you my one minute thank you yeah had to had another minute but um Maria can you make a note I'm pretty sure we sent this item to be reviewed by the city engineer yes there was information sent to the city engineer and as well as to the fire department I believe okay can we make a note to both the clerk and um the City Council secretary to to send correspondence to them um yep so we can get an update on that I I think we should can I make a can I have a motion to sign to resign correspondence uh to the parties just mentioned motion has been made by coun councelor Levy second and by councelor the lario discussion seeing none roll call please roll call counselor Selena Reyes yes councelor Anna Levy yes councelor Gregor Del Rosario yes madame chair Stephanie fante yes and the eyes have it all right can I have a motion now to table item 43923 motion has been made by councelor Lavi second by councelor De Rosario uh roll call please roll call councelor Selena Reyes yes councelor Gregory the Rosario yes councelor Anna Levy yes Stephanie Infante yes and the eyes have it can I now have a motion to adjourn motion to ADN second I think that's happiest my C me second my C the Rosario roll call please consor Selena Reyes yes celor Gregory Del Rosario yes celor Anna Levy yes and Madame Chan fante yes and the eyes have it thank you so much e e e spe spe [Music] for e good evening and welcome to the committee of the whole meeting today is Monday November 18th it is now 7:14 p.m. voting members present with me today I have councelor at large Anna Levy councelor Wendy lzone councelor Gregory dezario counc felita Santiago we have councelor Reyes on zoom and now we have councelor Mark llant uh joining us at this moment can you please join me in a moment of s silence for the Lawrence High teacher that of the city the community lost uh last week thank you and join me in the flag in the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America the rep for IT stand indivisible and Justice pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2022 this meeting of the committee of the whole is being conducted both in person in via remote participation reminder that persons who would like to listen or view this meeting while in progress May either attend in person here in the city council chamber or use any of our social media accounts for access councils we don't have any minutes to approve we don't have new agenda items um can I have a motion to untable item 23624 home R petition establishing credible service for police and fire um sponsored by me so motion has been made councel Levy is there a second seconded by councel councel De Rosario um roll call councelor Levy yes to on table no to on table table mhm councelor the plant councelor lzone yes uh councelor De Rosario yes councelor uh Santiago yes Council Rees yes and the chair votes in the affirmative do we have the cfle here can we have uh our CLE here okay so we do have um there were some questions pertaining about actual uh budget like hard numbers on how how this would affect the city financially uh counselors have some questions we do have we have a letter uh that was sent to the council president from the Lawrence Retirement Board um and I know we have our C here with us now I know that the council president sent it to you for further um analysis do you have anything that you would like to can you please uh summarize the letter and then add uh this the year findings on the city Side sure uh yeah I received this uh memo and I took a look at it today uh and uh this memo contains uh uh three uh least the Retirement Board memo contains three uh proposed home rule uh home rule legislation allowing three different uh facts fact patterns uh for people to get a additional pension the first one was for uh a couple of uh police and fire employees that work for the MBTA uh but evidently the MBTA isn't part of the Massachusetts retirement system so they weren't able to get creditable service for the time worked at the mvta because what normally happens is if uh you work in another community that Community our Retirement Board communicates to the Retirement Board for the other community and the other community would accept uh responsibility for the creditable for the years's work worked in that uh in that uh community and uh and we would build that uh that Community each year uh for the the effect of the pension effect of that employee so the City of Lawrence is held harmless for those years of service so the MBTA evidently I'm sure uh will not uh uh give them creditable service of the time work there could be because either MBTA is not part of the state system which I think is what they're inferring or could be that the uh um many State uh many state agencies have uh hired Grant employees and uh and they uh uh as Grant employees they are not eligible for the state pension system so the state uh customarily uh refuses creditable service for uh time worked as a grant employee not as a a state employee so I suspect that's an item number one is so uh and I used is an example it's only going to cost uh the Retirement Board anyway the actuary estimated would cost about $3,000 a year uh additional to allow these two people to get four years of additional service um and that would only be funded uh would only have to be paid uh till 2036 or um or when the person retires uh but I just did a quick calculation it's roughly uh you know four to 5 ,000 using the state retirements uh um pension estimator uh putting in 30 years and then 34 years at an estimated uh the same salary and so forth It's about it's about 45,000 per year so it's 80 to 100,000 more to the taxpayers of Lawrence who would pay uh for additional compensation for uh some some employees of which they don't have to contribute towards that pension so so uh item number number two is uh again I think there's seven members eligible for this provision where uh where they were uh on a call list of some sort and they want to get time even though they didn't work for the City of Lawrence they want to get creditable time because they were on a list uh and weren't able to work uh I'm not quite sure the logic of it but apparently there's some unfairness uh that someone uh feels but uh but again um and I mention this all the time to my staff I mean the Lawrence residents have to pay for this uh it's not it's not free money uh this is additional money um you know you know anybody who wants to uh work uh certainly uh in creditable service uh we we have a guaranteed uh system in our pension plan to give them those years of service but when people are when the city or the Retirement Board grants them creditable service for notw working well that goes directly to the taxpayers because the employees aren't contributing towards those pension years and the third uh but the item one is limited to two people item two is limited to I believe seven people uh but item number three is unlimited and that is uh it applies for um people who got bypassed off a civil service exam uh in the past and in the future so we don't know what that one's going to cost but but it's not in uh it's not incon uh an inconsequential sum um I think the Retirement Board mentioned item number number two is roughly 12,800 that would be added to the city's appropriation uh we have to pay that appropriation until 2036 which is uh includes past service cost but going forward we still have to pay a pension contribution every year uh to pay for uh the pensions of of our city employees so it will be it's not going to be 12,800 could be substantially higher than that uh so these are you know by approving this home rule legislation uh it would impact the uh this is several hundred, not just a few thousand uh impact of the taxpayers of the City of Lawrence thank you Council has any questions for our Caple councelor llat yes so I just want to make sure I got the right numbers so for the for the first recommendation I'm working off the Lawrence Retirement Board letter that for the two indiv idual that are there that will cost how much for for for that just is there a total or is that just per year uh they have uh the retirement actuary uh came up with uh they indicate $3,000 per year okay until either fully funded or when the employee retires uh and and they quote the cost is approximate but minimal as written by uh as written by limiting the members affected this limits the cost impact for the city as well right so the two employees right so that's limited the second one and and and I'm going to be asking if we have an opportunity Madam chair the the proponents um on number two uh if we go ahead and we do this we understand that that is going to be a an appropriation of $122,800 Ann annually or just a one time shot I believe it's annually I think that's what their quote is but again um I don't think that's the full cost of of this item I get it so but the point here is that only for those seven individuals is for $122,800 annually and I think you're going to make the point here in a little bit that this is more open-ended than the seven and therefore that is just a small portion of it well this is limited to the seven and the item number one is limited to the two which is a good thing however it's not just $3,000 or 12,800 for item two that cost is much higher than that it's 12,800 I believe per year that's not doesn't does it it says the rough estimate done by our actuary showing a cost increases City on its appropriation of 12,800 so I I assume they meant per year because we pay approximately uh uh you know $20 million what what our pension assessments approximately $20 million it would increase that 20 million to 20,000 12 uh 20, 12,800 this is not C million that you're just you just give a big picture how much is costing everybody everything all together people like about you're about to do shortly with the retirement and others yeah increase our annual appropriation according to the Retirement Board by 12,800 but it's going to be for forever a bit or till the these seven employees got but but there's a but there's a li there is a a sort of a limit there it's not open-ended but the place where so I'm I get that and that's going to be a policy decision that I'm going to be making for my vote right but the other one is the last one here is the open-endedness um that others can go ahead and and Beyond the seven is there is are you suggesting that there is language there that says that that there's more than just those seven that others can be right the way this is written I'm going again going by the retirement uh board's memo item number number three um it says members who are entitled to be hired by a police officer or firefighter but were skipped or bypassed for another person with a lower rank on a Civil Service hiring list uh eligible service is described uh limited to the members Grant a relief from an order or agreement approved by the Civil Service Commission um blah blah after a bypass appeal eligible members shall be credited with active full-time service from the bypass date to the date of the member's permanent appointment o m as long as the bypassed member accepts the first available permanent appointed offer to the member and the retirement board's note is uh if the time is being granted is small the impact that the city be minimal as shown above however not naming members are not having specifically members may leave this open for future members so in other words because it doesn't say it's for these seven individuals or three or four it's that's a uh um we're agreeing to accept people who fall into this category now and in the future the nice thing about the return and new language written it's go paragraph one we actually see it so time is right I might offer motion exle the have not okay let me do we have any other questions or comments specifically for the cfle counil loone oh thank you madam chair so this is going to open a door to other excuse me kind of confusing and this is the second time that I get to see this in but it still it looks like this question be answer you mention it's going to open a door uh to other employees well let me now that you mentioned that let me just mention the other problem with this home rule petition is we're you know say item number one we have two people well maybe there's three people next year they're not part of it we'd have to do another home rule petition but but why just these two people not somebody else in the future so once you go down this path you're opening the door to other employees claiming hey uh these seven individuals got this a couple years ago uh I think I fit that category now let me see if I can get a home rule petition so you know we have retirement laws they're well written uh and and they're written specifically for your your work a number of years of service will give you a certain percentage of a pension and it's a pretty good deal uh this is this is this is uh um I think think uh asking the taxpayers again to pay for uh for time not worked uh I I think that's a stretch thank you okay any other questions or comments see a none at this point I I'm going to ask the two proponents Madame chair Council lozon I think uh based on the information that we are uh that we have there's still questions to be answered uh and I also I don't understand why something like this is not open to public for public hearing uh cuz he mentioned a couple mentioned that because it's still in committee yeah well thank you and we have questions that we that we asked during our first meeting that I'm assuming has some type of answers uh you guys we we were all provided um a sheet and we're going to get further into the questions um what I'm getting Madame chair is that the couple keeps repeating that this is this could be an issue and the future for the SE yes and it's the same message that he that he that he um said during our first meeting when we had less num when we didn't have any numbers I should say now we have an idea from the Retirement Board and like I stated the during our first meeting when we um when we discuss this item every us as counselors every counselor individually has the right to vote Yes or no if if whoever thinks this is good you have the right to vote Yes whoever thinks that this may not be good for the community you have the right to vote no than you for reminding us our responsibility as counselors but also I think that uh people that are watching this via Facebook or YouTube whatever it is they need also the right to to hear our concern uh we are not against it uh we haven't mentioned anything in that regard but do I think there's questions that are not completely answered and I also what I hear from the couple is is concerns uh and I just uh want to be clear that he mentioned several times that he has concern about this home R petition doesn't mean that we are against it I I think that there's questions that need more specific answers and also I want to know if if this is going to be sustainable if I may uh through you Madame chair if I can ask a CLE is this is going to be if this is going to be sustainable uh well we're we're we're un un underfunded now uh this just puts us a little more underfunded but it's uh uh we're approximately uh I don't have the uh last pension report but I think we're 66 or 67% funded uh but we're nowhere near the 100% where we need to be which we're required to be by the year 2036 so it is you know every year the pension appropriation which is approximately 20 million goes up a little bit uh uh to uh um to pay for our past service costs which uh pensions uh uh people who uh who retired and uh uh paid a very small contribution towards the pension City had to make up the whole thing and we never set money aside each year until uh sometime in the late 80s early 90s we started funding our pension plan and we've been working at it for you know over 25 years and we're still not 100% funded so we're getting there we're on a schedule to get there in 20 36 uh but this just puts another just puts us a little deeper on the hole thank you C Council the Rosario no no I just want to add I mean there tons of questions but this is what we here for right this is not a time limit so we can ask all the questions that we need to and get to the bottom of where we're going to vote that's that's what we hear that's what this meeting was conducted for wasn't it thank you councelor at this point I will uh call up we have two proponents for for this item uh Mr Mike armano and Mr aoco you well please introduce yourselves for the record before I continue I'm so Sor good evening councils Mike Amano U I'm F figh here in the city not here on behalf of the fight Department uh or the union necessarily just a proponent of this and uh able go ahead AEL Kano I am also U police officer but I'm not here on behalf of the department on behalf of myself and um representing on in regards to the item talking about address is 94 Maple Street Lawrence Massachusetts apartment number two thank you counc and thank you for taking this off the table for further discussion I I think what we see here is laws are not always well written and there was some mistakes made and some injustices done and in some communities we need a little bit different of a lens to get to a place where we have equity and I think you see a lot of pieces here in in some of these changes so we Abel and I had looked over some of uh looked over this document and considered some of the comments and we provided you with a document I I think John may have a copy of this to show on on the screen but we also have copies to the council copies okay we always we also have copies that we passed around to you councils and I'll just Briefly summarize what's happening again you heard there's four main items certain government employees have were looking to get credible service when they were working for a government entity that did not have a pension system wasn't one of the 104 pension systems in Massachusetts the other group is for employees who had Reserve time another group was for laid off employees and the last group was for bypass employees emplo es some of the concerns that we heard was the scope was too wide on this ordinance and it needed to be narrowed a little bit so concern number one was uh it was brought up that is it possible for someone to work for a year or two get credible service and retire early and get some type of pension and the answer the language in this document as it stands today would be an employee needs to be vested they have to have 10 years another concern was the agencies it was clear we we only found one agency that did not have a pension plan and that was MBTA uh we couldn't find others but based on concerns that it might be a wide scope the scope was narrowed to just the MBTA and it was taken further to name specifically the two affected employees in the city so we have very specific people who were affected and again these employees were working for MBTA they didn't have a Mass state pension system and this would allow them to get credible service for that pension the other concern was Reserve list members before the changes that were made it was wide open for today Reserve members of today and Reserve members for tomorrow again we narrowed that scope uh there are probably a couple dozen members of police and fire that were on a reserve list this got very very specific and it was changed to seven members six of which I think are actually really affected who were cut off uh they were basically given Reserve time I think it was a total of two and a half years about uh working thinking that they had two and a half years and years later there was a court case that sliced their Reserve time in half just because of a date that was set again this was done 5 years after they were already working and it only affected seven out of maybe the three dozen Reserve list employees that the city already has so these seven individuals did not have the opportunity to get their full two and a half years um with that being said the future members we had a clause in a perfect world we would love to see all Reserve list members although we don't have any now if the city chose to put Reserve list members we would love to see them have the same benefits that was struck from here because we determined after hearing your concerns that it was too wide of a scope so again it's only the seven members uh the bypass members I I'm sorry which what number concern I'm trying to follow number for the for the sake of time I probably should have warned you I'm going down right now forth and I apologize just in the interest of time um the I'm now going down to the seventh issue which is the bypass members the bypass members if you look at it this way we have a civil service system and it's supposed to be Equitable and fair and when people take a civil service test they're typically residents of the city they residents have preference to take this test they pay money to take this test they have to take the test year after year to get a chance to get hired In fairness if you score number one on the test you should be the first one to get hired and that's what the law states but of course the city administrations can bypass the number one or the number two person take someone that's lower down the road uh maybe they know them maybe it's a patronage move uh so they hire that person and then the bypassed employees are stuck with nothing they took the test they played by the rules um they paid money to take the test their residents of the city again usually residents get the top preference and they get bypassed for no reason what this does If Civil Service deems that that didn't in fact happened just as I described it to you they took the test bypassed for no reason this would allow them to get that time back this would also allow the city to realize that if you bypass someone unlawfully they're going to get the job eventually and they deserve that time back so which sorry to interrupt you from my understanding uh which is another reason why I I jumped on sponsoring this it I haven't 100% confirmed but from my understanding it has happened uh recently within the fire department at least continue Mr there's been two two occasions in the fire department I don't know of any in the police and hopefully if something like this were to pass it won't happen again we we'll at least think a little harder before we bypass someone for the wrong reasons again with this with the language the person would have to go before the commission get some sort of judgment or agreement and if they were deemed to be byass unlawfully they would uh get that opportunity to get their time um all in all we talked about this before as an opportunity to have flexibility in the retirement for police and firefighters to maintain their health and wellness in a time where they're doing a very tough job on their body not just physically but with the the exposure to chemicals and other hazards and this would allow them some flexibility in their retirement program as far as the civil service system goes of course that last Clause would give uh really us the opportunity to strengthen the civil service system as it pertains to the city of Lance and really instill integrity and fairness in that system uh I just want to remind you also there was a lot of question of cost the intention was to really narrow this down U with the exception of the bypass uh clause which could easily be narrowed by just not bypassing people in the future and it would be zero cost the other items were narrowed tremendously um there's no other we did some research we uh and found the full list of employees that this affects you have it you have the cost and I just want to suggest if it's a question of cost what we started off saying in the beginning is of course you counselors have the right to shift any bearing of the cost to the employee if you deem that that's appropriate um all that the most important thing here is have that flexibility to have the time and if you feel like the cost is a significant factor then we ask that you still consider passing this and if you need to amend it in a way that you feel comfortable that the appropriate cost shifts over to the employee so they have that choice to make I'd be happy to give you any other opinions or answer any questions if you have any thank you I'm going to go um I'm sure we have more counselors but councelor plant early on you have mentioned that you have questions for the two sure so the CFO made arguably a very good point which was why are we paying people who aren't working right and how do we justify that to the people we represent that we are going to be paying people who who are not working and I think you started to go down that road with an answer uh it's about equity and fairness that these people were passed over um and they should not have been passed passed over um so I just want to make sure that is the the right answer to that question that it's a question of fairness and then if that's in fact the case I do have a follow-up question regarding remedies by law by the courts of the administrative judges with respect to Civil Service laws and when these wrongs take place are there damages that can be awarded to individuals who are who are done wrong by the city so there's a lot there so if through you madam chair let's start with the first question which is the question of whether or not how do we respond to the fact that that we have individuals who are who who are not who did not work for the city that are going to be getting paid by the city so yes it is about fairness in this particular case again there's seven employees only out of the few dozen that were on a reserve list that just got snipped uh meaning they got some of their Reserve time cut off now when employees hire and put on a reserve list when they're first taking these tests again they take tests year after year after year sometimes it takes 5 years to get hired they may get lucky enough to go on a reserve list and that stops the clock in a sense that they don't have to keep taking tests but they know that they'll get hired when they get on these Reserve lists they may change their career path completely they may go get a degree at a college in in fire science or law enforcement they may uh not pursue other serious uh career opportunities in life because they finally got their ticket and it's just a matter of time before they get hired so before the changes the rule was across Massachusetts if you were on a reserved list you were given the benefit of up to 5 years of of reserved time at no cost to you and the way I see it it was sort of a benefit to say you're going to get hired we want you to take this serious you can start your career path and do what it takes stay in shape um get educated however you want to and you will be hired eventually so it was a benefit but I'd like to see that benefit last forever and every person on reserve list get that benefit yes but in Li of what we heard from you counselors this would narrow that it would actually stop the future reserves just as the law says today but it would make whole the seven on the reserve list that did get cut off and by the way through you by the way I do like the fact that you have made a good faith and serious effort to trying to bring some sort of caps to this which I I think you've heard at least from one counselor and probably several that that was important so I I want to applaud you for trying to to make them move in that direction so I think that's that's a positive um so so the court case so let me back to that for a second so just so I'm clear clear the seven are going to be getting it I I could support that it's it's number three the open-endedness of this for others that we didn't when people now apply for a job or go through the Civil Service and they know they're going to be police officers they know when they're doing this they're not going to get paid for the time the seven however were a different situation they started it with potentially the understanding they relied upon use the legal framework they relied upon the fact that they might if they didn't get selected that they once they did that time would be accredited to them so now the situation is different between the seven and the future and so I have while I like the first two changes I'm very uncomfortable with with with the third option the third thing which deals with the future and the open-endedness of that because now we're not talking about Equity we're not talking about fairness you could talk about it before but you can't on this one and that's the thing that unless I'm misunderstanding yeah I'm sorry just a point of information I think you just went down a a little bit off the wrong the wrong way so I item one again was the government government employees working for the MBTA item two was the reserve employees only the seven period the second half of item two not item three was the open-ended Reserve which was cut out of this so that's completely gone item two is only the seven this document that we have today to make it clear for the public and for our committee and I know you have the floor counselor but um the councilor's concerned about the open ending is not included in the draft petition that we have in front of us today for item two reserved that is correct and I'm just going to touch upon item three again I item three is open-ended and it's purposeful and the intention is I think we want it open-ended as a community to stop people from getting bypassed when they pay for an exam they take it and the residents of our city and they're number one on their list if they earn that right they should be hired like Civil Service law says they should so if we leave it open-ended hopefully anybody who's hiring in the city will recognize that we can't bypass people there's a law that has to be followed the the flaw as I see it in this law is an Administration could bypass someone they could take the number two person the number three person and then the only remedy is for the resident who might not be educated who might not understand civil service to figure out that they can even appeal and have a bypass and then once they do that they get to civil service and civil service's only remedy is we'll get you next time so now everything they did the years they took this test test after test waited for it paid for it several times we'll get you next time in my opinion doesn't cut it it should be we bypassed you the city was wrong and you're going to get hired and get your time back so I'll reclaim the floor so thank you for the explanation now I have a I I I get the first too it's the third one that you brought Crystal and if we go ahead with this home rule petition I'm not looking at one and two I'm not looking for the two I'm not looking at the seven I'm looking at that last the last provision is one that concerns me that last provision we be the tell me are there any other communities in the Commonwealth that have adopted the third provision I think I know the answer yeah I don't know of any but but hope I hope we can lead the charge right I think the I think the answer is I think I can't say this with certain but I think the answer was no um and I think that we need to work on the first two and then on that third one there is a remedy and I get it but people are going in with their eyes wide open and and I guess shame on whichever municipality is that decides they're going to do what they're doing and I I guess I don't know the other side of the equation you painted in a very nasty way it's patronage it's favoritism it's all this stuff and that very moment may be the case uh because they didn't their scores did not match up and they got over they got leaped over but most I going to go with I'm going to say most communities because I want to say all but I'm not 100% most if not all communities have not adopted this um probably for good reason and I don't think that the City of Lawrence should be the one Community that's going to be standing out on this particular matter it should be a fix made by the state legislature so that we have it throughout the Commonwealth not municipality by municipality so if we're really looking to make a fix bring in the delegation bring in a resolution if you want to sponsor a resolution that says the sense of the City of Lawrence and the sense of the city council that we approve that they tight that up I would sign on to that I would sign on to that but just to have us be an outlier like this that doesn't make me feel very all that comfortable for the cost and other things thank you madam chair thank you any other questions or com comments I'm sorry Council I I apologize we did forget one item um sorry the we did take out the late off employees which was originally part of the language and if you remember the reason we took that out is there was already language in the state law from The Acts of 1994 chapter 235 I believe that they gave us the ground rules and it's open for this Council to approve as it's written by the Commonwealth so I wanted to point that out because this was a large part of this also these were the laid-off employees and it is that um it was taken out so I would just uh propose to you if you would consider uh adopting the acts of 1994 chapter 235 which would also include the laid off employees and you do this was also part of the numbers that you received u in uh in your packet I that was uh page 21 of the packet page 21 of the packet that was sent by email and this is again already a state law to just emphasize on that it looks something like this if you this is the actual acts of 1994 the bottom of the page has a number 9925 at the bottom so it's just the first paragraph the top paragraph not the bottom paragraph section one section one correct y this was approved 1994 so just quickly uh let me let me read this real quick chapter 235 in act further regulating the rights of certain fighter fighters and police officers B be it enacted as follows section one in a city town or fire district which accepts the provision of this of this set I think that's sorry this is a little blurry a fighter fighter or police officer whose employment was terminated due to a reduction in force and sub Subs was reinstated to his former position within 3 years of termination shall be credited with active service for such period of unemployment such creditor service shall be included as part of his/ her length of service and shall be applied to his/ her seniority promotional exam examinations and retirement provided however that said officer fighter fighter or police officer shall be required to pay into the inunity savings fund of the retirement system in one sum in one sum or in installments upon conditions as the Retirement Board shall prescribe an amount equal to the accumulated regular deductions otherwise payable by him/ her had he/ she remained an active member in service in service during said period of employment at the rate of compensation when compensation he was receiving at the time of the something termination sorry this is blurry uh uh termination of employment together with regular interest thereon to his/ her date of reinstatement and provided further that said fighter fighter or police officer shall be required to pay into the inunity savings funds of the retirement system in one I mean they already said this in one or some in one some or installations upon conditions as the Retirement Board shall prescribe in an amount equal to the accumulated regular deductions withdrawn by him/ her if any with regular interest to date of his reinstate M section two nothing contained in this act shall be continued to require as condition for such credit the payment of any additional sums other than sums require pursuance to chapter 3 124 of the act and then the rest I can't really read it but this was approved um by the state on December 27 1994 and now some councelors would like to hear from the CLE I think I can explain that that basically uh if someone was was uh laid off and buyback their time in the legislation it states that the employee has to pay into the annuity savings fund is the uh retirement withholdings out of our paycheck each week uh we currently uh withhold roughly 11% from your pay and pay it into the retirement system which goes towards your payment of your pension so in that uh statute if you accept it would uh would at least require them to pay in uh on the I don't have any of the information you have councils I just have the Retirement Board memo but the Retirement Board memo specifically is asking to credit their service but not pay in anything not pay anything to the UN saves account for for example also item number two in the Retirement Board memo it also qualif the state passed a law and uh perak memo came out in 2020 uh stating that uh people who did have a a reserve time and it was less than 5,000 per year you don't get any credit for that many of them were given credit and many of the retirement boards had to go through their records and take that uh that increase in their pension away and make them repay everything per the for this the uh the new ruling or the new court case uh so anybody if you are were on a reserve list and you made $2,000 a year uh according to the law you can't get credit for that this home rule petition negates what the court case says or the Supreme Court whatever it may be uh and um and gives them credit and they don't have to pay um so that's that's the other thing I think that that at least they should pay so does four those years is that relatable to what to to the to the ACT is it's exactly the same in other words these things here are getting time uh that for example the law is for getting laid off this one's for uh uh working at the MBTA but we're giving people time and they're we're not asking them to at least pay the 11% uh wages uh so and that's the common denominator in one two and three there's no provision to at least at least pay the the cost as that legislation was written hey we'll give you credit if you got laid off but you least got to pay what you would have paid in had you been employed which we did hear from the proponents if the C I mean we are the policy makers if the council chooses to make any changes on on this on this uh proposal and if we choose to to have the employee um pay in or or you know Etc we we are the body to do that um and we did hear that from the proponents uh if if it's if it's an Avenue that the Council chooses to go on um any other counselor do you have you still have the floor do you have any at time I'd like to offer a couple of amendments but once once the debate is exhausted I'd like to offer that okay are you guys all set just want to reiterate knowing where this may go uh from what I'm hearing now if there's an opportunity es even with the third item which was the Buy pass if there was an opportunity to add anything instead of taking away that Clause give that person the opportunity to purchase at full cost so the zero cost to the city but let them at least get their time back uh that would be my only ask if there's any amendments uh other than that I appreciate your support and you're hearing all of this and your consideration thank you councelor is any final questions or comments CN n councelor llant sure so a couple things one is I I'd like to uh to I'm I'm sorry counselor actually no no councelor Reyes did not she's on zoom and Council Reyes are you are you are you okay thank you Madame chair I'll be good thank you so much coun the plan so with the cfo's help um I I'd like to um CFO with your help that's my CU um I'd like to offer an amendment that talks about the buyback pers not the the payment of by the I'm not even sure the Civil bypass individuals correct thank you um and make that as an amendment and I'm not sure how to artfully word that and that would only be would it be in both of those in one and two or that would just be in number two well I think it should be in all of them I mean we're going to give credit for a time not worked at least uh we'll give you the service which is what they're looking for but at least please pay kind of follow the legislation that's in the layoff provision uh that language should be followed for these other two Provisions at least pay pay your fair share so my question to the Parliamentary question who is the who is the author of this who has the motion right now so I can ask for a friendly amendment has there been a motion made so no so no there hasn't been a motion I like to make a motion there I'll I'll take this I like to make a motion that um that we approve this document with the following caveat with the following amendment that on one and two that the that's okay that's all right um I guess I'm going to back up for one second so that's my motion my motion is to approve I want to amend my own motion a second my motion is to approve this document start off with that motion has been made is z a second second I'm going to amend it now discussion discussion I'm going to amend it so what I need right now CFO is I what I want to do is honor the spirit of what you're saying which makes a lot of sense to me that if you're going to be getting some money from the city should at least buy back some of your time and I want to know is that applicable in one I know it's applicable in three is it applicable in one and two or just three should be an all three because if and one for example they worked uh and earned x amount of dollars at the MBTA uh what was their salary because they would have contributed 11% if they could have the Retirement Board can calc Cal it as to what the what the amount owed would be the Artful way of saying that is for one and two the L so in accordance with the calculations from the Retirement Board to determine the bip buyback uh amount would that be The Artful way of saying that I I would base it on that legislation because the language was was actually spelled out in that uh layoff uh provision I would copy the language from that or again Ask the Law Department to trft something that would be appropriate so we we so so that's the intent so I'll let the legal Scholars upstairs figure out the proper uh way to to word that so that will be for one and for two um since my motion so that's part of my motion now the the second part of it is removing the so can we can we vote can we do one Amendment at a time but this is this since this is my my motion I get to amend it without the need for a second oh and then chair Council the has the floor I know what you're going to do let me do my last one and then you can do that so the last one is to remove um a parentheses three on page two of the home rule petition that's the one that has the the language about we not sure where this how many people in the future it deals with that issue so removing that and um that's gon to be that's G to be part of this motion as well so one and two deal with a buyback provision by the potential employees and removing number paragraph number three or paragraph three there discussion can I okay I'm done Madame chair Council l i and I understand that we are I think we in favor but we still have uh what we have in front of us is not clear I think uh and your suggestions uh counselor La plan suggestions are are great it brings more light to this item but also there's nothing uh clear in front of us to approve so if hopefully if we can get the right uh sounds this is going to be a legal something legal uh but we don't want to leave an Open Door um so if if we table this item and we can get something more concrete Concrete in front of us to approve because the way it looks like right now is going to leave an open door and I I believe that we we have concern about approving something that can leave an Open Door also taking in consideration the cou of uh concern I I think we should have something more Concrete in front of us to approve if we're going to go that way but right now it it it doesn't look like it just an open end item thank you councelor did you any other any other okay so the motion is to approve to craft the language one two for one and two and to remove do and remove number three and remove number three which takes what council who on is concerned about the ambiguity about the unsureness of what's going on if we take that out we know one and two with what the cost are we know what the dollar amounts are and three we don't know so that I think addresses some of my colleagues concerns thank you yeah it's going to be so Maria make sure that we have a note for the city attorney to have an updated draft for for the full Council next week um okay any other questions or comments Council Levy thank you so we going to extend it to the full councel or we going to table because I know that uh C ask for table we have a motion right now to approve either whether we table it or send it up it still needs to go to the City attorney so it's it's still the same process yes I know that we should send it to for the right language of what we been discussing here thank you thank you do you have something to add yes I just want to remind um Council about the acts of 1994 and to abop the Act of 1994 I mean yeah so the the the the interesting thing about that is that the acts of 1994 it doesn't need to be part of a home rule petition we are granted the Authority by ourselves to go ahead and do that this is a home we are about to vote home rule petition so it's like a gapples and oranges so if if there is an opportunity to insert this as a standalone that's one thing but to include it in something that shouldn't be going to the legislature which is what this document is it it doesn't jive thank you councelor for the clarification that that's correct thank you okay seeing none we're going to do roll call I'm sorry uh GRE uh councelor the Rosario all right councelor Levy yes councelor llant yes councelor Lon with the amendment with the Amendments councelor dezario yes councelor Santiago yes uh councelor Rees yes and the chair votes in the affirmative thank you so thank you so much we will see everyone next next Tuesday oh I'm saying to the now can I have a motion motion was oh I'm sorry it was sent up for the full Council as a favorable recommendation that was the motion with with the am with the Amendments um uh that Council the pl suggested the city attorne and to the City attorney yep chair can I just ask one point to clarification were you suggesting through your men Council of plant that the acts of 1994 be brought up as a separate item or was that going to be a separate motion it's it's my opinion that it should be a separate item because now you're clouding two different things and so to make it streamlined I think it should be its own separate item my opinion agend that's my opinion yeah I I'm not a parliament I can't make the Parliamentary rules but that's my opinion I'd like to make a motion as well Council just because we rarely meet there's items on here that we can get out for example if there's no objection I like to take document 21321 eliminate this is in 20 this isn't three years ago eliminate mcast assessments that use money to teach life skills K through tell vocational creative Hands-On activities the voters just voted on mcast motion to withdraw item 213 probably seconded by councelor uh Santiago I was want to say f counselor Santiago uh no discussion roll call councelor Levy yes councelor the plant yes councelor lzone yes councel De Rosario yes councelor Santiago yes councelor Rees yes and the chair votes in the affirmative one more thing Madam chair just for housekeeping I I don't see the need why we would keep 6322 here I would make a motion to to uh untable that and to withdraw that motion has been M seconded by councelor Levy uh no discussion roll call uh councelor Levy yes Council plant yes councel Lon yes councelor De Rosario yes counselor Santiago yes and the chair votes in the affirmative any other are you good okay can I have a motion to adjourn motion to adj motion has a probably second all those in favor say I oh there's a roll call councelor Levy yeah you you forgot me too yes I'm sorry for the yes okay Council plant yes Council uh lzone yes councelor Del Rosario yes councelor uh Santiago yes councelor Reyes yes and the chair votes in the affirmative thank you so much everyone thank you e