##VIDEO ID:RuElaCcdykc## e good evening welcome to the September 9th city council meeting please rise to salute the flag IED flag the United States of America the stand Nation God indivisible liy jusice for all roll call of the members councel agenzio here here councelor janino is absent councelor greos SAA here here councelor H here here councelor har here here councelor Kelly here here councelor mckena here here councel noeli is absent councelor sylvestri here here Council zambo here here and council president Cog Leandro here here qum is present approval of the Journal of the regular meeting of August 26th [Music] calendar item number three unfinished business motion motion presented by councelor Haro that the mayor direct the fire chief to conduct a cost and feasibility analysis to add a 247 Emergency Response Ambulance and that should read I'm sorry that was a typo EMS EMT responder to be housed under the police department councelor yo uh Mr chair Mr President thank you uh sorry I was missing last time I got a little bit of a uh the Corona virus and didn't want to get anyone else sick uh this should read EMS EMT and it should read re fire department not R police department so I apologize for that typo um you know I think we've heard a little bit about and I see the fire captains here so very excited to hear maybe he doesn't want this maybe they do but uh We've definitely heard from residents about the need for more emergency apparatus and infrastructure in our city um and I would like to hear from from the captain who's here to speak on this to see if this is something they need or want and if not then that's okay but um if it is something they need or want it'd be great uh I think for for our residents to have and for the mayor to help us out with this feasibility study thank you thank you counselor Captain O'Hara all right my name is Kevin O'Hara president rev fir Fighters local 926 um I'm here to rise speak against the motion and simply because we we got the reier fight Department that provides all emergency services in the city we're here always on scene within 48 minutes um we provide the same level of care as any catalo unit out there any ambulance that shows up and this is a now we we spoke on this issue back in November in 2023 when the chief and the catalo um company was here and you know this isn't just a problem in Riva Massachusetts this is a problem throughout the country you know counselor I don't know if you're aware how it works in New York City but you know because everybody calls 911 911 for everything you know in New York City what they do is they'll they'll they'll they'll break down the qualify they'll say hey what's wrong oh I got a back problem Oh back problem yeah I've been in bed for three days okay we'll be there in an hour and a half so you know I know that you know every time we have a call it takes you know sometimes 5 minutes sometimes it takes 30 minutes but the rever fight apartment is always on scene providing the same level of care that the Catal the unit show up and provide and we stay with the patient now if there's an emergency that we need a paramedic to get their onene we call right away and they we get a fly car by there on ambulance will be there with A1 unit would be there we have a contract with catalo now and right now we have a 24-hour B we have a 24-hour AOS and and then certain parts of the day I believe it's 16 hours we have another AOS unit you know there's there's no need to have an an ambulance created and another thing too is when you when you call for Medical Aid and if it's just the transport that unit gets held up sometimes up to an hour hour and a half so if you put you could put 15 of them over there you get 15 Medicals you're not going to have any resources we're pulling from Lynn we pull from Everett we pull from Chelsea we handle the job we're always on scene within 48 minutes it's just a ride to the hospital waiting for and if there's an emergency that needs to get them there we're going to prioritize it and we're going to get them there we've never had an issue so so before before I go I'm I'm asking that all the councilors rise to vote the motion down do not table it vote it down and you know with the free fight Department we handle all this stuff we talk about all this stuff you know that's why we have a chief that's why you have deputies and captains we bring up the issues this has all been done before we had an ambulance back in the 80s when um when they got into an accident we got cat in here we know we're we're in good shape we know we do the job and the city's growing we all know that but we're always there and we're always on time thank you Captain Council y you um Captain just a question so so what you're saying is you would not like more more potentially firefighters with an ambulance in your in your no I I didn't say that what I'm saying is we want more question thank you sorry within your unit including within your bargaining unit I think this is just a feasibility study to study the potential of bringing you you don't that's what you're telling me yeah we we we've done this work before okay cost millions and millions of dollars to bring in so is that a no it's a no yeah that's why I'm here uh Mr President motion to withdraw unless there's any objections I'd like to place this on file that's also a no vote essentially place on file thank you very much Captain uh I'd like to suspend the rules the firefighters are here they have one more order of business if we could suspend the rules all in favor all opposed calendar item number eight communication from the mayor's office relevant to the memorandum of agreement between the city of Rivier and Rivier firefighters local 926 mayor Keef thank you Mr President uh to you to you through through you to your body honorable honorable uh councel uh today I'm happy to announce that the city of Rivier and local 926 the Rivier firefighters were able to strike an agreement uh to sign a three-year contract uh MOA and uh we have signed it in the mayor's office just a few days [Applause] ago as you can see they're they they're good bunch to negotiate with and uh but but I will say uh in the room over the over the few months of contract negotiations we were able to uh reach many Milestone agreements but also uh making sure that we're preserving the safety for our R residents and our R visitors and making sure that our R firefighters are also well taken care of so I wanted to congratulate the uh local 926 and the Rev firefighters and I'd like to offer Captain O'Hara to come up here and speak [Applause] [Music] oh F first off um we like to thank uh mayor Keef and the city Riv for just simply doing what we ask just bargain in good faith that's all we ask seat at the table take the gloves off behind go closed doors bang it out and get the work done that's it you know if you have a mayor that's willing to listen to what you want you know he's got a budget he's got a run and everything know that but you know everybody's entitled you know to get a good contract especially if the money's there so again I thank mayor Kei and the city rier for simply just doing the right thing bargain in good faith thank you thank you Captain Madam clerk call the role shall the city council approve the memorandum of agreement between the city of Rivier and and firefighters local 9926 covering the period of July 1st 2024 through June 30th of 27 councilor agenzio yes yes councel janino is absent councel greo SAA yes yes councel H yes yes councelor hero yes yes councel Kelly yes yes councilor McKenna yes yes council noeli is absent councel sylvestri yes yes Council zambuto yes yes and council president Cog Leandro yes yes the agreement has been approved back to the normal own of business thank you very take care next up is the legislative affairs committee report councelor agenzio thank you Mr uh President we had four uh items before us the first one uh number 24 an ordinance providing interpretation and translation services for public meetings and public documents uh we look to place this on file I like a roll call uh to uh place this uh particular thing on on file shall the city council place an ordinance providing for interpretation and translation services for public meetings and public documents on file councel Areno yes yes councel Janina was absent councel greo SAA yes yes councelor H yes yes councel hero yes yes councel Kelly yes yes councel McKenna yes yes counc no sski is absent councilor councilor sylvestri yes yes Council zambuto yes yes and council president cogliandro yes yes this matter will be placed on file the next item uh an ordinance further regulating short-term rentals there was an amendment um added tonight and I would like and we voted on it in favor I would like a roll call uh to look on this favorably as amended ordered on a second reading as amended ordered on a third and final reading as amended roll call for engrossment and ordainment shall the city council approve an ordinance further amending short-term rental regulations as amended Council agenzio yes yes councelor janino is absent councelor greo SAA yes yes councelor H yes yes councelor hero yes yes Council Kelly yes yes Council McKenna yes yes councelor noveli is absent councelor sylvestri yes yes councelor zambo yes yes and council president Cog Leandro yes yes the ordinance is engrossed and ordained the third item Mr uh president was a communication that from the Dei director relative to an ordinance establishing rules and regulations for the display of flags and the use of City Hall uh the committee chose to amend this and we looked upon it favorably and we would like a roll call to look on this a favorably as amended uh excuse me to move to a public hearing do we need a roll call to do that then let's put this in a public hearing the fourth and final item was a communication from veteran services relative to an ordinance establishing regulations for Veterans Memorial polls we uh put an amendment on this and we would like to move this to a public hearing move to a public hearing thank you calendar item number nine presentation from the chief of planning and Community Development relative to River's Municipal aggregation plan Mr scosi good evening councilor Tom scosi chief of planning and Community Development and I am here for the moment everyone here has been waiting for to talk about the municipal aggregation plan for the city of ReRe so in October of 2022 um this Council put forward a um authorization for us to initiate the process to move towards Municipal aggregation am I doing something wrong getting some feedback okay and so over about an 18-month period since then we've been waiting out sort of the market dynamics the energy Market's been tricky but now we feel like we're in a good position to move forward with a formal application to the dpu uh the first step to doing that was selecting a consultant who would work with us through this pretty complicated process which we have folks from the mass Power Group here tonight with us to talk um further about exactly what this program entails and what it'll mean for Riv residents and I'm going to give the bulk of the time to them I know we have a lot of things to talk about tonight but just in short um we're really excited about the opportunity for this project to create costeffective energy supply for rever residents and if they choose to do so also have a very green energy component for folks that want to remove their carbon footprint um so I'm going to leave it to Marlana and Paul from the mass Power Group to talk through the whole process I'm going to pull up a quick PowerPoint here um in so doing if you could just be patient with me for one minute all right yeah is it how do we know if it's protecting the screen so it's not up yet it's not up yet do we know if this is working okay okay I'll take a seat we'll come back for questions it's all good thank you go underneath and see all right thank you uh name and address for the record please uh my name is Marina Patton I live up in Beverly um I'm not a Rivier resident I'm with mass power Choice my colleague Paul gromer is also here we're the Consultants hired by the city to help with this electricity program and I'm tonight going to take you through what I will try to keep as brief as possible as a presentation um about the program and I will just go to the next slide quickly to describe a little bit more about why I'm here so as you just heard there's a regulatory component to getting electricity programs like this launched one of the steps is we have to make a document called an aggregation plan available for public comment for 30 days so tonight we're kicking off a 30-day public comment period for this document the aggregation plan is the governing document for this electricity program for the city it's written for Regulators it's not written for the public but this presentation is for the public so it's taken really the core of how the program will work and put it in the shapee of some slides so uh and as it says public comments are accepted until October 9th so let's see all right so what is it rever power choice is the name of the program it's a municipal electricity aggregation program which is a mouthful if that leaves you as confused as the dog on this slide you can think about it as a form of group electricity buying which is what it is it's also a mun Municipal regulated alternative to the electricity offers we all get in the mail and over the phone and sometimes at our door why participate there are a few key benefits for consumers in R new choices for the electricity Supply part of your National Grid bill is one of the big benefits this program only impacts the electricity Supply part of your bill it doesn't impact any other part of it but it will give you three new choices for that part of the bill another big benefit is stable prices you all remember a couple years ago when National Grids prices swung very very high at the beginning of the Ukraine war that's because National Grids prices change every six months r r is going to sign a long-term fixed price contract so you will not have those types of seasonal Swings with that there is also the potential to get a price that is lower than National Grids price most communities that have program like this do see some savings and UMass Amhurst put out a report not too long ago that details this I'm obligated though to say we can't guarantee savings and that's because as I said National Grids prices are always changing and Riv is going to have a fixed price contract the third big benefit is consumer protections which is what makes these programs different from a lot of those private offers a chief consumer protection is that you can leave this program at any time with no fee or penalty I like to say out front that R power choice is not going to be a replacement for National Grid as your electric utility if you live in Riv you will have National Grid as your electric utility because they own the poles and the wires but what you can change is your electricity supplier which is the company that puts electricity on the grid for you there are actually three ways in Massachusetts to choose your electricity supplier the first is to have National Grid be your supplier so that means they're providing you with two Services they're delivering electricity like I said a minute ago and also they're going to buy it and make sure it gets put on the grid for you when you have that that's called basic service and when you have their basic service price for the supply part of your bill that's the price that changes all the time and that's swung really high a few years ago at the beginning of the Ukraine war your second option is you sign one of those private contracts with one of those companies that's always marketing to us when you do that National Grid is still your utility they're still sending you a bill and you're still calling them when the power goes out but when they calculate your bill they're going to use the price from that company to calculate the supply charge piece of your bill and the third option is if the city of Riv signs a contract with one of those companies instead of you but you get to benefit from it in that case National Grid is still your utility they're still sending the bill you're still calling them if the power goes out but when they calculate your bill they're going to use a rever price for the supply charge on your bill that is what aggregation is and that's what rever power choice is going to be this is a picture of what I was just describing this is basic service so on the left we have National Grid providing two Services Supply and delivery this is the same picture but when an aggregation like Riv power choice is up and running the right 2/3 of this picture are exactly the same as the previous one National Grid is still delivering your electricity There's No Interruption in the flow of electricity to your home there's no change in your billing it's just on the far left we put the supply in a different color because the city's going to sign a contract with a different company to put electricity onto the grid for everybody now I mentioned at the beginning that one of the big benefits of this program is new choices there will be three there's going to be a basic Choice which is the one you're going to get if you don't make any any other choice it's going to be the cheapest one in the program but as you heard earlier you're going to have two options that you can choose where if you want to buy more of your electricity from clean renewable sources you're going to be able to make that choice all three options are going to have long-term fixed prices which uh is different as I said before from National Grid where the prices change every six months your Bill's not going to look very different once this program's up and running you're going to see a change where they list your supplier name and then the price that's used to calculate your electricity Supply charge will change but otherwise you're not really going to see a lot of changes as a consumer this program will be very invisible and seamless National Grid is still going to deliver your electricity you're still going to call them if the power goes out they're going to send your bill you're going to pay them however you normally pay them and you won't get any additional bills as a result of this program and importantly if you're uh eligible for any discounts from National Grid like a lowincome discount or fuel assistance you'll continue to get that discount with no change now participating is going to be easy for most customers in R and that is because all programs like this in the state work with an automatic enrollment model all of them and there are about 20000 now specifically that means anybody with National Grids basic service meaning you didn't sign a private contract would be eligible for automatic enrollment when the program launches if your account's in that category you'll get a notice in the mail from the city bearing the city seal if you don't see the city seal it's marketing from somebody else so it's bearing the city seal before it happens with all the pricing information and information about how not to participate if you don't want to participate because as I said at the beginning one of the Consumer Protections in this program is that you don't have to participate and you can leave any time that includes preventing yourself from being enrolled if you don't want to be but you can also try the program and opt out later now some common questions what if you don't have National Grids basic service what if you did sign a private contract what then your account is not going to be automatically enrolled and it shouldn't be you have a private contract but you can choose to enroll you'll just have to take a step to do it it just won't happen automatically you can call or you can fill out a web form and more information will be available closer to launch if you have solar panels or you participate in community solar and you're getting credits on your bill or a payment of some kind there's also there's no change there there's no connection between participating in this program and how those credits or incentive payments are calculated they will not change and as I mentioned if you're eligible for a low-income discount or fuel assistance there's no change you continue to receive those benefits and if you have National Grids budget plan it continues to apply to your entire bill with no change the timeline is about a year we're still at the beginning in the development process the next step is submitting this document the aggregation plan to the Department of Public Utilities for review that'll take a few months at the end of that process is when the city can go out to bid and get prices and figure out how much extra renewable energy is going to be included what are the prices of these three options and when's the program going to launch but not until then we can't do any of that until the state Regulators approve the program once that happens though once that electricity Supply contract is signed then there will be a public education and Outreach effort which will include that mailing that I just talked about a minute ago so if you're a customer and you're wondering well when am I going to hear more about this it's going to be about 6 to8 weeks before the program launches after the city signs that Supply contract you'll get that notice in the mail if you're eligible for automatic enrollment there'll be a press release there will be a program website revow choice.com that actually is already up and running with lots of information about how these programs work you can go there now there will be public information sessions and customer support which is already available now from my company so this is just a screenshot of the top part of rever power Choice uh this is oh here I'm back there's there's a screenshot if you remember nothing from what I said because it's a blur of information remember rever power choice.com and remember that there are public comments accepted for the next 30 days if you want to see the aggregation plan you can see it on the city website or at rbow choice.com you can get a hard copy in City Hall and you can learn learn how to submit written comments on the city website or at rower choice.com thus conclude us my presentation thank you very much any counselors have any questions uh permission to speak from the chair thank you um do you have uh any additional Outreach plan for elderly people who don't necessarily know how to use a computer or people with disabilities who can't make these meetings so uh typically and for rev we will do this for sure there's always Outreach dedicated for seniors so a senior center Outreach is is a typical part of Outreach yes excellent and materials and hard copy assuming that people aren't always going online thank you very much uh councilor sylvestri thank you Mr President um how do you how do you guarantee someone do you work with National Grids so I just want to make sure that the people are that are in the um like budget programs that you said won't how do you guarantee that won't change the well so the budget plan is something that people get from National Grid so to back up National Grid continues to handle all the billing so they they control the bill this program only Chang that don't primarily speak English so uh the language access policy that you all um discussed today and the one we've been following within the city for a few months now that's the the same policy we'll use to guide our actions to make sure in Translation interpretation and just generally Outreach within marginalized populations we're going above and beyond to make sure that this pretty complicated stuff even in English to present is available multiple languages um and spoken to them by trusted Community Partners that can get through this message great thank you and just to be clear the bill will still be from National Grid National Grid will still serve as the deliver of the electricity yes yeah both of those things are true they own the poles and the wire so even if you didn't want to have National Grid utility you wouldn't be able to make that choice yep thank you yep thank you very much this will be placed on file just to give everybody in the audience a timeline we have two more motions to handle and then we'll be on to the good stuff onto motions calendar item number 10 motion presented by Council McKenna that the mayor request the director of Municipal inspections to enforce section 8.04 100 sustainable food wear and packing by July 1 of 25 this will give businesses ample time to comply with the ordinance for the purpose of protecting our residents from carcinogens litter micr Plastics and the use of non-renewable fossil fuels Additionally the lack of enforcement of this ordinance continues to cause harm to our wildlife and our Coastline the original ordinance was passed on November 15th of 21 and was to take effect on July 1st of 22 councelor McKenna thank you Mr President um so so this was passed in 2021 by the uh city council and it was stalled because of covid uh now Co is gone uh we give Le leniency to um the companies that are still using uh poly stying but um and I talked to um Mr Wells and Mr Wells said I said what if we come up with a plan that July 1st 2025 will be the start of um uh Banning polystyrene and he said okay I just want to read a little bit about polystyrene polystyrene is a non not biodegradable and it takes 500 years for it to decompose animals do not recognize polystyrene foam as an artificial material and mistakes it for food and it shows toxic effects after substantial exposure in 1986 the EPA released a report that listed the polystyrene manufacturing process as the fifth largest source in the in the world of hazardous waste as if the public health impact of sty of polystyrene isn't enough environmental the environmental effects are substantial so I'm asking the director to start um to look at uh Banning polystyrene in July 2025 there are a lot of ways that people can uh you can uh get take out bags they have um mix use plastic they have cardboard uh but it we really I'm trying to uh help the environment and I think this is one of the ways uh that we can do this thank you thank you councelor councelor zambuto thank you Mr Mr President I'm just a little confused here um I love my colleague and uh I love you too uh but I I'm I'm a little concerned with with the wording here it says uh I agree with the the litter and and so forth and it says the use of nonrenewable fossil fuels it is there some restriction on products are made oh so we're only talking about the products are are are made with non okay I thought for some reason we were putting a restriction on using non-renewable fossil fues and I I don't think we can survive that great okay thanks for the clarification thank you counselor director Wells uh good evening counselors thank you Michael Wells director Municipal inspection City Rev here um I haven't been in contact with uh Council McKenna I just wanted to clarify why the motion uh was not put into effect when it was passed uh when the motion was presented the small businesses were still feeling the effects from the covid-19 pandemic as we know the businesses suffered greatly during that time financially and then we did not want to put an additional um impact on them with additional expenses then shortly after the effects of covid uh we then faced inflation all of our businesses were faced with the increase in costs such as food and beverage supplies labor utility that we just learned a lot about and insurances uh we did not feel comfortable asking them at the time to again incur additional expenses during already tough times uh the cost in food wear and packaging has nearly doubled over the past couple of years uh so the same same case of takeout containers they bought pre pandemic is now they're paying double the amount um today so they are still facing you know challenges today as far as pricing um and we still haven't returned to normal if you would you know from the pandemic as well so um my department will enforce this at effect of July 1st 2025 uh we'll begin the communication process prior in the very near future um and let them know you know during the uh during routine inspections we will leave um correspondence uh for them to be able to make that change over as of July 1st thank you director Wells counselor sylvestri thank you Mr President um Mr Wells do you do you have a a price that that would that will impact these business like is it going to be is it a major impact that Financial as we know you know even from a residential point of view you know what our expenses have done at home right so the same thing has been done in the business world as well um whether you know some restaurants are just fully take out you know they don't have dinin service so all of their stuff is paper plastic to go um we have a you know City r does have a uh plastic bag ordinance in effect you know we follow up on that during all of our routine inspections um I can be driving down Broadway and I see people walking down the street with plastic bags and I my head goes right so um during Co you know prior to co we were about 95% effective on our plastic bag ordinance then Co hit and kind of the rules kind of all went away during that time um Co plastic bags came back and we're still struggling to get back to compliance um with plastic bag so it'll be a challenge but nothing that we can handle but yes um the the prices are definitely higher than you know a small styrofoam container that people take home typically put it in their fridge and throw it away on trash day thank you thank you counselor counselor McKenna thank you um Mr President so um I was the motion maker of the motion for plastic bags to be in plastic bags and it's made a significant um difference in rever you don't see them in the trees anymore you don't see them in the streets uh they're not in our uh oceans anymore and we have to be considerate of we we're living uh you know we're a Coastal Community in a marsh land community so we're surrounded by water and we're surrounded by wildlife and if we can help help this environment just to spec then we're doing our job and I understand poly styrene was passed in 2021 okay um and then we waited because of of covid and I'm giving them one year we we did fine with uh going from plastic bags to paper bags we did fine yeah people were moaning and groaning but we did fine and you know what we'll do fine with this too um you know people will come up with Alternatives so thank you thank you councelor any other counselors wishing to speak on the motion all in favor all opposed so ordered calendar item number 11 motion presented by Council zambo that the mayor request a representative from the United States Postal Service to appear before the city council to address widespread and ongoing delivery problems seemingly all male even local male to rever whether send certified or not is not delivered timely or is lost several City Hall departments are at the receiving end of complaints from residents who are not receiving their mail from City Hall which in turn causes inefficiencies in terms of lost time as an example mail with a postmark of August 15th of 24 was received by recipients with a local Rivier address on September 3rd councilor zambo thank you Mr President this motion really speaks for itself I think everybody knows that they're not getting their mail I mean it's been it's been quite a while now and I I I almost don't even look in my mailbox anymore except that I know these bills are overdue and and they should be there anyways uh maybe we can get a representative up from the federal government here to at least give us some hope that it might get back to maybe not normal but a little better than we're suffering right now because it's ridiculous thank you thank you counselor counselor H thank you Mr President I definitely support this motion and I've talked to several seniors um even when I worked at the senior center a number of seniors have reached out and said that they hadn't received their mail for days and days and um I think with the mailbox break-ins a lot of senior residents are nervous to even male checks to you know if it's a family relative if it's a relative for a birthday party or male National Grid check a lot of them a lot of the seniors are nervous to put their checks in the mail now thank you thank you counselor councelor McKenna um thank you than you Mr President I think this is a great motion councelor zimuto um I've gotten plenty of calls asking where the meal was could I do something and no we can't do anything but uh you know but this is a great motion thank you very much thank you counselor councelor arjia thank you Mr President this is an excellent motion councilor zambuto I know up in the hill where I live um I experience it myself right across from City Hall we've suffered with this for probably two years you'd go days and days without May and then maybe on a Sunday night you'd get some big delivery um it has improved over the last few weeks uh but I definitely am in favor of this motion thank you thank you counselor on the motion all in favor all opposed so ordered calendar item number 12 motion presented by council president C Leandro that the mayor chief of police and superintendent of schools begin exploring the feasibility of hiring a security company and or adding more student resource officers to rever high school to help combat the ongoing and worsening issue in and around rhs further that the mayor chief of police and superintendent report their findings to the city council within 30 to 60 days permission to speak from the chair uh a few things before we get started uh other counselors uh up here have uh wanted to be on these motions or file similar motions and at this time I'd like to invite anybody else to be on the Motions uh this one and the next one with me if you would like to uh if you would not like to just let me know otherwise we'll do the entire Council Madame clerk if we could make the mo uh the maker of the Motions the entire city council please uh Mr President Sor you could remove me from these almost the entire city council please thank you thank you madam clerk uh welcome teachers Educators thank you so much for being here um I stand with you most of you know my mother dorine derenzo she worked with a lot of you and I understand secondhand what you're going through so thank you for being here tonight with that said I do want to be very clear that on the agenda tonight are two motions one is regarding Safety and Security in our schools you will all be welcome to speak you have my word also about we have a metal detector motion if you want to speak on that I understand there are still contract negotiations going on and there is an issue with summer payments to people I understand that if anyone knows me you know that I like to follow the rules and we are not really allowed to speak off topic however since so many of you organized and showed up I will respect that if you would like to send somebody up to speak on that matter you you will be able to do so yes uh I also want to clear a couple of things up before we get started um we've been here hearing for the last couple of days since this came that the council should be staying in its Lane that these are School issues and I want to be very very very clear to the city and everybody else that this is a public safety issue and this is well within the purview of the city council I wanted to clear that up thank you and I also want to clear this up this is not these motions are not my idea I serve you and most of you know I have conversations with parents every day and I've spoken to quite a bit of them and these are the concerns of the people that I speak to students teachers and parents this is this motion was filed by me for them and now through the whole city council so with that said I'd like to open up the floor to City councilors anyone wishing to speak councelor sylvestri thank you m president um I solely support the feasibility in in the sech of of um more Public Safety in the school and and and we need to hear the calls from from the the staff and and the teachers inside the buildings um and at first I I I got to be honest I was having issues and and fighting back and forth with this and I I so I reached out to to school like resource officers and and um psychiatrists and therapists cuz I I was looking for an answer that that I I wasn't finding um and and the answer that I I thought they were going to support and and not looking at these they they were suggesting just the opposite um and and that we really have to do something and and it not only protects the students but it it protects the teachers as well thank you thank you counselor councelor McKenna thank you Mr President um as a r public school high school teacher working for 33 years at Rivier High School um I taught art and photography to Juniors and seniors in December of 2012 the Sandy Hook sh shooting took place we were called by the principal to go down to the library and we were told if any kids would like to talk about it to talk to them about it the students came into my class they asked me if we could talk about it I said yes one student said said to me Miss McKenna do you have a plan I said yes I do have a plan I says I have a do room and an adjoining closet and I said I'll put you in that dock room and closet and lock the doors behind you which were metal doors so one boy raised his hand and said to me and these are 16 17 and 18 year old kids okay they're not kids anymore they're young adults one boy raises his hand and says to me can we try it and I said absolutely so we formed a line and we went into my do room in my closet and I locked the door behind them and I asked them afterwards do you feel safe they said yes but they're scared no matter what's going on no matter what the kids are saying oh we feel prison we we feel prisoners if we have U metal detectors no matter what we're we they say kids are still scared we're talking about 12 years ago 12 years ago and we're in a different climate angry climate right now that is anything is possible so we need to protect our teachers we need to protect our schools we need to protect the kids we need to protect our city we need to protect everybody and we we we we need to do it now we we need to take notice now so I stand with you teachers whatever you need I am here for you thank you thank you counselor counselor H thank you Mr President I will say I've always been a a fan of the school resource officers they do great work um I wish we could have one at every school and maybe even two at the high school two or three at the high school but they do fantastic work but it doesn't make sense to have someone at the Beachmont school they get a call to go to the Hill School on the other side of the city they get stuck in traffic or I think every school should have a designated SRO and I will say I've talked to a lot of parents the last few weeks and um some teachers some former teachers and you know I have a son in kindergarten my daughter is now in preschool I have two nephews at the high school and I think the kids deserve to be safe the teachers deserve to be safe and um you know the city should work together we should work together with the school committee and the re police and come up with a plan a plan where everyone feels safe and you can go to bed at night not worrying about your kids um last week was the first time I actually thought about my two kids being at the same school and you know you just really think of think of things and everything going on in the world but um everyone deserves to be safe at school and hopefully we can come up to some kind of solution where people feel at ease and they're proud to to go to R schools and they're proud to call R home thank you thank you counselor councel Kelly thank you Mr President um I just want to Echo what councelor McKenna said I I fully support everything that she said and I agree with it we absolutely need change there is no doubt about it children as well as staff need to go to school and feel safe and we have a responsibility to make sure that happens and I'm going to go further to say if we can't provide for that basic level of security and feeling of safety for our students and our teachers we have no business building a $500 million high school and I know some people won't want to hear that but we need to start there we need to start there and I also heard an argument uh right after the incident saying you know this only involved 1% of the student population so you know and I and I got really upset when I heard that argument because that may be only 1% of the population but it affected not only the entire school it even it affected the city it affected the surrounding neighborhood um so we whatever the the and I'm not an expert by any means but whatever the solution is whether it be added security metal detectors more involvement of more parents subcons that may be created with with that have parents actually on the sub councils um there are a lot of things that we can be doing Robo calls to be sent out about meetings to alert parents to so that they can attend and make sure that they get the notification of meetings um I know that in the tragedy that occurred in Georgia um it was I heard that staff members actually had panic buttons um on their lapels and it alleviated and circumvented the pro the U process of dispatch and even calling 911 when the button was pressed um the local police knew that they were to respond directly to the school without question and they said that that they they instilled that policy just about a week before the tragedy and they like they believe that it did save lives um so these are things that we need to be thinking about in the day and age that we're in and I also want to um Echo what president cogliandro said this is well within the city council's purview um and you know we're not going outside of our lane here so we can help to to make things happen and I hope that we do thank you thank you councelor councelor yo thank you Mr President um really appreciate you putting these um motions together I have uh one of them I just straight up can't say I agree with I do have some concerns about the other uh which mentions a private company you know I really respect our our men and women in uniform person um and uh it concerns me as someone who deeply believes in the labor movement that we would be considering Outsourcing these jobs and so um and I know that the school committee has already uh lotted some money for hiring more SRO and so I question whether we can change this to reflect that we are only hiring the union members um in the police department um if we are doing more of these SRO as for the teachers in the room um can I say you know I'm a Public School product um and I understand um the vicarious trauma that you may all be experiencing as a result of the fights that happen at the high school and uh it saddens me that uh it is happening the way that it is happening I also have heard you over the last four years talking a lot about the well-being of our kids postco and uh the intricacies under which um they have come out of uh the co environment um and the difficult um home economic social and even mental health outcomes they've been struggling with um and I know there's a continued need around the Commonwealth not just here in massachus in River uh for additional uh supports around that area so would uh encourage the school committee who I actually do agree uh should have the purview of this conver conversation but I understand why they might not um um I encourage the school committee to consider additional funding for mental health resources and other sort of economic um and Workforce Development resources for the young people in their buildings I think that it's very easy to think about children as um this this uh agent that does not exist within context of their own homes or their own communities and we can easily be reactive uh and inadvertently uh treat them as criminals um if and or uh or just think of them as other than human uh when they themselves may be struggling with things that go beyond the job of the teacher that the teacher unfortunately is being forced to do with strapped resources um and so I do want to uplift our our teachers uh from that perspective um and of course they know I stand in solidarity with them I also like I mentioned just like I just mentioned stand in solidarity with the men and women in Blue uh who I don't believe we should be Outsourcing their jobs from uh and we should be hiring direct SRO who have the training I know that we have a lot of great programs run out of by some of our local police officers I see Joe singer in the room uh among others uh I know that that stuff is working uh creating community building a school a community around the school is what's going to work to address our violence concerns as well as addressing some of the socio economic issues that folks are facing um and and I'll end by saying of course yeah that I stand in solidarity with the teachers I know they're negotiating a contract uh and uh they can count an ally from with me to be at an action a picket whatever it is uh [Music] and this is entirely Off Script but uh of course uh we know that the work that the teachers are doing is building the whole student and that uh that the work that the teachers are doing is building a whole student and that testing does not measure neither the ability of the teacher or the student so if you're following the election this year vote Yes on three two two sorry sorry also yes on three for me but if you're following the election this year vote Yes on two to uh to all the news stations in the room if you could edit that last 10 seconds out for Council Jero appreciate it thank you um just to touch on a couple things really quickly if I may have the leeway from the council uh yes there is a fourth SRO budgeted in the school in the school Department's budget however I think it was said in the safety and sub uh Safety and Security subcommittee by school committee man John Kingston if the SRO is in the gymnasium at the high school and there's a fight on the third floor very difficult for them to get there in a timely fashion that's why I want a security company trained security company if we do that within great we could even petition to hire Riv residents but I have been doing security for 24 years I understand the import of having a good security Personnel in in the building so we need more eyes more ears more hands if in in training if these people need to intervene that's why I want security companies inside the buildings these are people that can also talk to these children we're not looking for people to walk around with their chest puffed out we want people that are going to engage with the students they're going to keep an eye on things they're going to be able to observe and report and like I said intervene if necessary thank you uh councelor zambuto thank you Mr President and I want to thank you for your three motions and and and I support them all uh this was very this latest incident was very disturbing and uh you were correct Public Safety is our uh our purview here I built my career on uh Public Safety I came here 25 years ago and uh with the goal to build a police station because we had one next door here that the prisoners used to break out by banging on the door and and walk away uh not to mention that the uh the rain would fall on the evidence room and destroy all the evidence for and anyways the bottom line is that this is about security it's about consequences though somebody said something about you know 1% or whatever it is the bottom line is there's got to be consequences I had a little that might be that might be the first time in my career I got Applause up here but that's okay especially for teachers so uh but the bo yeah especially for teachers because I I I fought against the uh uh taking a billion dollars off the tax Rose but we we'll leave that alone the bottom the bottom line is here that uh I do support of course I support the police officers I I I built my career on that I still do however I also agree with you that we probably need to supplement uh these uh these offices with private security you're not going to we we don't have a budget we won't have a budget that could put enough of these offices in the schools to make it safe so I I think that's a great idea that you have and uh I did I did speak with the mayor and and I I do hear that there are consequences is being dealt out here and and I'm I'm very pleased with that uh again I support you 100% on these motions and and it's not about trying to uh trying to uh circumvent our Police Department that's the last thing I would ever do and and I know that's the last thing you would ever do so uh we're going to move forward from here and we're going to have safe schools here and and we're going to do the right thing and and the people that uh step out of line are going to pay for that thank you thank you counselor and and if and if I may just one moment council is my apologies uh we don't have the police presence we don't have enough police officers to fulfill what we would need to to protect the schools properly and we all know the conversation there's not many people that want to be police officers right now we're struggling we're struggling to have good uh technical equipment in the room we're struggling to uh our police officers are working overtime some of them barely see their families uh they are amazing we have an amazing Police Department doing everything they can if we had more police officers we could absolutely staff these schools better but the reality is that right now we don't and we can't be taking people off the street to do that we we need we need police officers everywhere this is why a security train security would be uh a great alternative to the Sr councelor sylvestri thank you Mr President thank you for the leeway um I I just I just want to be clear as as you just stated this is in no way shape of farm looking to take jobs away from police officers if we would like whoever we hire let's unionize them however we keep this group people in this room safe that's what we need to do um two years ago I filed a motion to to for the city to to put money towards two SRO officers two additional um I think school committee John Kingston member did 140,000 this year I also um last year the home for little Wanderers who who does the reach home uh Outreach for our students was actually not able to um fulfill their duties anymore because they needed to to get a contract signed and uh I put the motion forward to get that $440,000 contract signed so we are doing the things that we need to do in and to get this stuff done and and some still broke so if we got to think outside the box and that's all we're asking to do is to to look into feasibilities at this and and and that's the way we're going to get this done is thinking outside the box looking at ideas to keep our teachers and our students safe and that's what we have to do thank you Mr President thank you councelor councelor agenia thank you Mr President I'll be brief because I'm looking forward to hearing what everybody in the audience has to say uh I councelor sylvestri and I a couple of weeks ago invited invited to a meeting in Beverly a regional meeting of all the uh teachers and we listened for about an hour and a half and and this is a regional problem we listened about safety in the schools we heard we listened about problems with their contracts and it's a serious issue and it's a serious issue regionally so I they have my full support and I'm hoping we can come up with some answers and I'm certainly looking forward to what everyone has to say here tonight thank you thank you councelor councelor Gino SAA thank you council president I agree with council president Cog Leandro as we do not have enough police officers um perhaps instead of looking at security companies we could think of rehiring the auxiliary police that we no longer have in the city of Riv or also look into hiring retired police officers who are looking for work again um I have to say that the public safety is within our purview and I was actually insulted when I was spoken to yesterday about it saying that it wasn't part of the city council it is part of the city council it should not stay within the school committee because this involves every single person who lives in the city of Rivier every student that goes to school every teacher that is in rever so I was insulted by hearing something like that and then the other thing is every one of my constituents that has called me has had the same issue they're worried about their kids in the school and we will do whatever it takes to make sure that these kids and the teachers are safe in R thank you thank you counselor and I also just want to say that it I know I can probably speak for some of the other counselors but my goal and our goal and I Know M councelor Kelly and I showed up to that subcommittee the other day we want to work together with the school committee this isn't us telling them what to do or vice versa this is all of us coming together for the greater good of this community so I want to be clear on that and to the school committee members in the room thank you for being here today um with that said I don't know I would like to get just a raise of hands of the amount of people that would like to speak tonight oh that's not that bad [Music] okay so what I'd like to do I know we have school committee members here that that would like to speak Vice chair monteroso I'd invite you to come on up and and speak and then anybody who would like to speak or say something if you could please kind of filter to the center so that I can get my eyes on you okay okay yes please thank you can you hear me yes um thank you counselor so much for having me my name is j monter Roo I live at 43 Haden Street and I'm the vice chair of the revier school committee and before you all as your constituent and as a former teacher speaking on behalf of myself only on these two motions not on the negotiations respectfully I urge you to vote no on the two motions regarding the private security and exploration of metal detectors instead I urge you like you said to be a partner with us and consider more constructive ways in providing support for example help us find fun thing to increase Transportation so students aren't idle on Beach Street because they have to walk two miles home fund the city sponsored after school program to provide more opportunities become a mentor to a group of high school seniors and freshmen through our Big Brother Big Sister Program help create more Partnerships with organizations like MGH or Roa so that we bring in more resources or even create a Citywide campaign on parent engagement to help us to have even more parents involved in their child's education the district is already exploring many ways to expand our parnership with the police department and I won't repeat all that you've said because we agree we have funding we want more sro's but we can't find them but we are working on other ways to expand them like the Accel unit making sure that the behavioral unit can be housed permanently in the high school so that we can provide resources we all agree that violence is unacceptable and I truly do thank you for thinking of every aspect of the community in your role however I think that there are other ways that we can start this conversation before we start talking about private security firms installing metal detectors because that also won't make students feel safe I know I won't feel safe if I have to go into a high school and walk through a metal detector so thank you for all you do and please consider other alternative ways to support us in the district thank you I just want to be clear on a couple of things the first thing is that this motion asks for a feasibility study to be done this is in no way us telling anyone that we need to put Security in these schools This Is Us asking to find out how feasible that would be so there is nothing official coming from the council saying that that's going to happen I uh and also as far as funding the school department tells us what they need every year they really do so if you guys want to budget for something even if we disagree with it we can't say no because if we cut from the budget one year we have to make up for the shortfall the next year by law so just a clarification to reconfirm I'm speaking for myself and my own constituents and as an elected official not on the whole committee thank you Vice chair monteroso anyone else from the school committee wishing to speak School committeeman Kingston John Kingston 140 winter bav I speak as a private citizen and not a member of the school committee the only thing I'm really here to talk about I I don't I don't disagree um that it's not in your purview um there was a fight on Beach Street the middle of the street it was videoed that's not on school Browns um and whatever help I can get to help me do my job from you folks I'm more than happy to take it so I don't I don't I don't have any problem with what's being done here and that's why I'm here the only thing I did want to say in all due respect to um um City councilor um Mark sylvestri we were told by the superintendent that the home for little wanders project and when I first saw it I said what are we doing with that um they they offer a counseling service and and this is my take this is what we were told so if I'm am an error I apologize we were told somehow it fell out of the city budget and and would we pick it up and we did immediately I I think you need to realize a couple of things one this is shortage V teaches across the country it's not just in Riv it's not just in Massachusetts that's number one number two there's a shortage of police officers my son is one my son is a a for as a sworn police officer in the city of Rivier I know how many double shifts he work sometimes because they don't have enough people we did put a a fourth SRO in the budget unfortunately we can't fill it I don't blame the chief for that it's just the way things are right now the state police Boston everyone shot offices so no one has any extra offices to give us what I suggested at the safety meeting was for us to pay either on detail or overtime pay an extra officer to have at the high school and just to be in the community if there's an officer at the high school think about it logistically someone can run to the Lincoln literally run you could run to the hill you could run to the rumney so I think having an extra officer and I don't really care about the bill I figured it out it's 52,000 if I sleep a little better better the school department can afford the 52,000 again I'm speaking only it this was brought up at a meeting so it was public knowledge I'm not saying anything that wasn't brought up previously um that's my un that's what I would like to see whatever the council decides and whatever the feasibility decides fine um but I want to clear up that we are trying to do with the counselors we've hired a ton of social workers at the high school that's a fact you can look it up it's in the budget I'm the chair of the subcommittee of ways and means there's a ton of positions for social workers do we want to hire more yeah we can't find them they're very difficult to find so I don't think that we're not I I some I got a little upset because I thought people felt we weren't doing our job I insisted on keeping that fourth SRO in the budget it was important to me and I think we're doing our best if the public and the chief tells me that we need metal detectors we'll figure out a way to pay for them I'm not a security expert I don't know my only problem with the security company for me as a parent maybe or you're always a parent but my kids are older I just worry about who the security company hires I'd rather hire police officers on detailer overtime and add the extra expense they work for the chief they work for us they work for the city of rier and I know what I'm getting my concern is we hire a security company and we maybe don't get the you know get a Bad Apple so to speak and we have you know we have an additional problem that's all I really want to say I actually appreciate that you've brought this up um I don't have a problem with it I understand people's concerns about perview but if someone wants to help me with a problem I'll take the help from anyway thank you thank you John I did have a couple of questions I don't know if there's anybody here from this Administration that might be able to answer them it doesn't look like it um maybe I'll just ask them out loud and they can get back to me [Applause] [Music] um so I was curious about the social workers and what type of results we're seeing from that I was curious about that so um I also know that we hire a lot of people as security SL translators and I really believe that we need to start separating those two because we absolutely it may be a little biased but we have excellent security at the Garfield just saying we do need translators 1,000% 1,000% so I was wondering if there was a plan to separate those two jobs I also want to know what type of training they go through what type of specifically security training because I'm just going to say this I have walked in through the front door of every single School in this city and I've been buzzed in whether I get stopped or not is a whole different story if they ask me but I have been able to enter every single building that can't happen that can't happen that is UNS safe we need to find out why they're there before they come into that building and have access to seeing people um and then I was I wanted to know about what if if maybe there's security Personnel at the schools that I don't know about um so hopefully one of the administrators can get back to me via email or however they'll call me or whatever they want to do but if it unless there's any other comments from the council I'd like to open it up to the public and when you come to the microphone if you would not mind just please state your name and address for the record good evening good evening thank you for the opportunity my name is Chris Kingston I live in tukre Massachusetts I've been a river educator for 28 starting my 28th year um I taught one of your counselors I refereed one of your basketball's counselor's games I taught another counselor's son another counselor's granddaughter and I worked colleagues with Joan for a number of years my concern is this I teach AP government politics at reev High School I teach what you folks practice my biggest concern from that Thursday was the video of the kids fighting in the streets their lack of concern and want and disregard for what they were doing in the community has been brought into the schools I firmly agree with the metal detectors I'm a teacher I am not a shrinking violet I I am not a small person I will step in and break up a fight I've done it before I will no longer weapons have been found in our building on numerous occasions over the last few years I am not stepping into a melee to get a blade in my ribs if I do you'll never see me again and you'll be paying me a vast amount of money because over the years I have presented myself whether it be in negotiations as a union person or just casual to a relative that might be in the room that the place is a mess we have someone that worked there I am here I was at that safety meeting and I heard a member of the school committee talk about the militarization of the building if those two SRO in Georgia were not in the building there would have been a greater Calamity to though to that Community there is I am a firm believer in building relationships if our SRO or whoever we could bring in can build relationships with the kids I think about what officer singer has done with the boxing Community with officer brenis has done with Charlie I'm leaving today and officer brenis is in the hallway outside the gym throwing a a tennis ball down the hallway and giving Charlie treats that to me is about SRO as well not just stepping in and breaking up fights so yes there are other ways to think outside the box there are other ways to motivate people but the bottom line is I want my kids to feel safe if they can't feel safe I can't do my job I'll finish with this one of the basic tenants of government is to provide safety and public order the Massachusetts state constitution illuminates the idea that if students are not do not feel safe and are not protected they struggle to learn never mind all of the other issues that were brought up and they are real but I want to feel safe I want my kids to feel safe and that's what I call them my kids and if you're not sure ask Juan you are my student you gave me a bear hug this this evening when I got here thank you for your time and I appreciate it good evening my name is Siobhan kepin I am an elementary school teacher at Garfield Elementary I want to take a moment to thank you for paying attention and for caring I have been in a situation in the past school year where a lockdown drill was called in the Garfield complex because of a call one of my fifth grade students was huddled next to me and he apologized for everything he had done wrong and asked me to please not let him die that day I need you to know that what you're doing right now is protecting your most vulnerable and your most precious citizens and giving us the resources to protect them and for us to feel safe we will pass every ounce of that on to our children because they're ours they're yours but they're ours I have taught in rever for 17 years I have two small children in the north adbor school systems I do what you said about sending your children to the same building it that hit me square in the chest I know what kind of trust is being placed in me when I sit with my S 00 Elementary School students Sergeant Joe stepped in last year to help with a difficult situation and he protected me I have never felt more safe than to have him look at me and say I got you we need that and if you give us that we will give the future of Riv everything we can thank you name and address please got it there we are city councilors thank you my name is Jane shapen and I live at 15 Guild Street Boston Mass I'm a seventh grade math teacher at the Romney Marsh Academy but I'm also the co-president of the Rivera Teachers Association and we are here the Rivera teachers in my position in my position I hear about incidents related to school safety happening all across our district this wide lens allows me to see the patterns and the CR and the critical health and safety crisis that we find ourselves in now we are at a Breaking Point last year we saw more incidents of emotional distress student disregulation and Mental Health crisis among students but we've been sounding the alarm for years unfortunately the administration's response has been and continues to be Band-Aid approaches that treat each incident as isolated specific to that particular school or that particular building rather than addressing the systemic issues this is not sustainable educators are doing their best every day to provide the support but they are overwhelmed and underresourced as an educator I can tell you that there is nothing more heartbreaking than going home at night and knowing you were not able to provide and meet the needs and support your students because you're spread too thin and you don't have the resources to do so experiencing this repeatedly day after day becomes deeply demoralizing and it can take the joy out of doing what we absolutely love doing teaching our students now is our chance to implement Common Sense proposals proactive Solutions as opposed to reactive Solutions the RTA Educators across a district we have worked to craft proposals that address the health and safety crisis happening in our schools these proposals we see as preventative measures that will ultimately lead to learning conditions and the working conditions that our students deserve back in March we presented our concerns and related proposals on health and safety to the school committee we circulated a petition which I believe was just passed out um um to Educators and community members with received over 750 signatures the following outline is what we see as common sense solutions to address the health and safety issues in our schools first we're asking to develop a clear protocol for reporting safety issues whether it be emotional distress physical abuse whether it's towards staff or toward student without a fundamental system in place where we were able who record and we are not able to see the full scope of the problem we do not have an incident Reporting System districtwide next we need to hire more social workers and provide wraparound services to address the Mental Health crisis that our students are facing [Applause] the when a student in your classroom is having a crisis or something is happening and you pick up that phone and you go to call for support and everyone's busy and that's a really difficult very heartbreaking situation to be in and not only does it affect you and that student who's not receiving what they need but all the students in the class this is happening in our classrooms every single day we need class size caps so the Educators can provide the individual support that every student deserves additionally we must set reasonable case loads for psychologists for nurses for board certified Behavior analysts for speech language pathologist for social workers if we don't we will not be able to retain them there these are a practical start to addressing the safety crisis in our school and I just wanted to speak briefly on the Motions the resolutions that were mentioned here tonight um as for more security we haven't discussed a proposal internally at our elected board but there are models within districts around us like Cambridge where employed unionized school safety Specialists work closely with Ros and school Community to develop the kinds of restorative practices and systems that keep students and staff safe while not inadvertently creating the schooled prison pipeline we hope that moving forward RTA is included in these conversations and that we can collaborate on Solutions members of the council we are here today because we have a shared responsibility in the health and safety of our students and staff and it requires all of us to take action thank you [Applause] my name is Karen sutle Medford massachus and I'm a social worker at the whan elementary this year marks my 16th year in the district I'm here to discuss our safe and healthy working and learning environment proposal which advocates for ongoing training and beham management since 2015 I've been a Crisis Prevention intervention CPI certified instructor Rivier public schools has adopted this platform emphasizing care welfare Safety and Security philosophy this philosophy is just not a set of principles it is the foundation of creating a safe and supportive environment for everyone involved despite renewing my CPI certifications 11 months ago no CPI courses were scheduled until recently several sessions are planned for later this month and October but training should be a regular part of our programming the pandemic has significantly exaggerated mental health issues and Trauma around our students underscoring the need for Urgent and effective intervention and support at the whalan 16 of the 22 trained staff members will have expired certifications by the end of October by the beginning of October and seven key staff members including an administrator and two ignite SLS small learning group teachers have yet to receive any training it would be ideal for a whin staff to train alongside the individuals that they work with every day in March another social worker and I responded to a classroom where a student was displaying unsafe and aggressive behaviors towards staff kicking hitting punching throwing items to complicate matters we were scheduled to have a fire drill when the alarm sounded the student refused to exit the building and was on the floor kicking screaming and crying we had to carry him out of the building once outside students and staff watched as the student continue to hit kick staff it was a pretty chaotic situation there was so much happening around us it was really hard to focus the student tried to run away and became more aggressive trying to bite and spit on me he eventually hit me in my ear because of the nature of the fire drill no other trained staff members were available to assist the dist 's recent announcement of hiring 100 new staff members raises questions about the root causes of why we needed that many staff and why they're not trained in deescalation techniques this training critical training should be part of every new hires orientation the lack of it leaves Educators vulnerable and students at risk emphasizing the need for protective measures recent in incidences in of violence at Rivier high school and across the district under score the pressing urgency of the situation the RTA Solutions are not just common sense they're necessary our proposals would allow us to transition from reactive to proactive measures and develop protocols documentation and reports for safety issues such as verbal emotional and phys physical abuse towards staff and other students providing and creating a safe and supportive environment for everyone involved finally I would sincerely thank C City councilor member Juan Pablo jeromeo for supporting our recent legislative Forum we greatly appreciate his advocacy for paid parental leave Advocate school funding a living ways and safe school safety he stated I urge all stakeholders including policy makers Community leaders and citizens to recognize and support these Improvement let us work together collaboratively to discuss and address these issues with the urgency and the seriousness that they deserve thank [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you hi thanks for um taking the time to hear all of us tonight my name is Gina G I live in Somerville Massachusetts um and I am a kindergarten and first grade special education inclusion teacher and you're probably wondering what am I doing here so we have to and I think you're going to hear that a lot tonight that we have to think of this issue of health and safety and security as much broader than just what's going on at the high school and what we do for our youngest students has everything to do with what happens later on in that life and that's how we have to think about it so I've been I've been a um this is my 25th year doing this job at the Garfield ele school and I'm here to speak about the lack of safety for our youngest and most vulnerable students most of our kindergarten students come to school and have never been to school before have never been to daycare have never been to preschool and speak very little English and I just want you to understand if you don't know kindergarten classes have one teacher one teacher um so they these students enter a building in a class on average that's 20 students and one teacher so when students run from a classroom which they often do where am I so when they run from a classroom or when they run out of a building which they often do and when they try to put their hands on other students or teachers and throw items that are dangerous which they often do I think you can see how this is a very serious safety concern and this isn't just an issue that happens at the beginning of the year it continues to occur throughout the year while we try to figure out the needs of particular students staff and teachers are seeing a spike in students who due to trauma and other factors are very disregulated they enter school and we know little about them in kindergarten at least but there is a dangerous lack of support while social workers and teachers scramble to maintain a caring and safe environment whoops um for all of our students the teacher has to choose do I chase after that student who's running away or do I stay with the rest of the class and that happens on a multiple times a day because there is not another adult in that classroom and not only is it unsafe for that student it's unsafe for the rest of the class it's unsafe for the teacher so the RTA has been asking for kindergarten Paris for years to address this safety concern and it has fallen on deaf ears in fact just before Co we were told that we would receive kindergarten Paris in all the classes with money from the student Opportunity Act funds money that R was a huge beneficiary of rier teachers went in large numbers to marches and rallies at the State House to earn this money and at Community forums kindergarten Paris came up a lot as a priority but then Co came and that money for kindergarten Paris disappeared but the need certainly didn't disappear it has only grown we don't want a tragedy to happen because we don't have the staff to prevent it I am speaking now because many teachers who I work with are afraid to step forward and speak because what happens to students in these dangerous situations falls on the teacher teachers take the fall and are fired lack of safety is a systemic problem in this district from the youngest to the oldest students and it needs to be addressed seriously and seen as the priority that it is [Applause] thanks good evening name and address please um sure my name is shanon lindlau um and I live in Somerville um again uh thank you for allowing us all to speak today I teach um seventh grade science at the rumney and I would like to speak on a specific incident that happened to me uh last year my first year teaching that I believe could have been prevented had um the rta's health and safety proposals already been in place that year um so this was at the very beginning the first five minutes of one of my classes um I had asked a specific student to please take a seat so we could begin um and he got in my face and yelled at me to um shut the f up CW I immediately called Administration for support um because I had been previously told not to call his guidance counselor directly should he be in a crisis like this as this was happening multiple times a week otherwise that would have been My First Choice um having known this student I knew what he needed was not discipline but a safe space to calm down and regulate his emotions as he did have a specific disability um that made it very difficult for him to regulate his emotions um regardless I called Administration and I was told they were all in a meeting and unless it was an emergency I wasn't able to be helped right now um I decided it wasn't an emergency as similar things had happen happened before and uh nobody was in any physical danger I tried to gather myself and continued to teach my class um while this student continued to yell uh profanities and use very disruptive and vulgar language I don't remember what it was um but something profane he had said prompted me to call a second time and I was told again they were still on all in a meeting and I wasn't able to be helped right now um this continued until the end of class when this student approached my desk and placed his hand underneath my stapler about to staple his own hand where I called a third time and said please it is an emergency and um Administration did come and remove that student not only did that one class lose an entire class period of learning so an entire day of science um this class was already several days behind my other classes due to similar instances um but it also was difficult for me to face that class again every day knowing that every student had just seen me um holding back tears after being demeaned in such a way it was hard to feel in control and uh like I demanded respect from my students um so I do believe that had we had um one of our proposals is uh therapy rooms or like another space for the student to calm down then it never would have escalated to the point where I lost an entire class period And I was afraid that this student was going to harm himself um I'd also like to point out while I do have time that while I don't teach um the way school is set up I don't teach any um L's I don't teach any English language learners but at the rney this is the first year in several years that we've had a guidance counselor that speaks Spanish um so the students that I have in front of me every day have the most access to those services but a large part of our student population prior to this year didn't have any meaningful access to those Support Services um so even with my students having better access arguably I was still experiencing things like this um at least weekly um so I am asking the council to please consider our health and safety proposals specifically those um around case loads for support staff such as guidance counselors social workers School psychologists um and bcbas and thank you very much for your [Applause] time hello city council I'm sure you've already seen me before my name is ery I live at 62 shamas Street in W five and I'm also this year's student Senate chair um I'm also speaking to you while I am the student Senate chair of the Rivier High School I do want to reiterate that I'm not necessarily speaking from their perspective because as one of only two students in this room we just heard about this and I think that that's a glaring issue while I do support the solidarity with the teachers I love that you're all here this is what a conducive democracy looks like I want us to understand the implications of what leaving students out of the conversation can have I want us to understand what it felt like from our perspective thank you I wanted you to understand what it feels like from our perspective when when the fight happened as gossip spreads you know people were taking videos sharing them it was spread like wildfire and we didn't know what was fact and we didn't know what what was myth and that wasn't only a problem within our school that we have to work on but it was also a problem in the community when I went to you know online as one does to see the news or to see what you know adults were saying in the community rather than adults being concerned for health or our mental health or how we were feeling I saw people calling us animals I saw people saying that we need to be sent to military school I saw people saying these very drastic measures and to see that lack of solidarity with us as students as largely the victims of these of these um violent acts as well as the teachers we are at the Forefront of this violence to have that conversation being spread in the community when we weren't being actively represented and understood that felt like a stab in the [Applause] back it sounds like what the the message here today is that there is change that needs to happen and I definitely agree I definitely think that there needs to be more safety measur we need to be more careful with how we go about things and we need to make sure that we're listening to the teachers and to the staff and we're putting money where it counts but it also want us to be cognizant of how this process works because if you don't include students who are the very subject of schools if we don't include them in the conversation then it's just going to constantly feel like if there are someday metal detectors at the high school that every time I go into that building I'm not seen as a student I'm not seen as a human I'm seen as someone that needs to be stopped or someone that needs to be frisked or something that needs to be you know analyzed almost as they said an animal it doesn't feel humanizing to go into a school or to go into a a public environment and to be seen as the enemy or as a criminal and that and I don't represent the majority of Riv high school as as yes I am elected but that doesn't mean that I represent the demographic backgrounds you know and I think that we need to understand the complexity and yes you might not be you know meaning to have that that influence but there are impacts and you have to understand um I think that at the end of the day you need to understand the differences across the the teachers across the students and what we believe and if you do pass these two um an initiatives I want you to include students in the process because we deserve to be there thank you UHA congratulations on your chair I would also like to invite you as I did last year the student Senate was working together with the council coming up once a month to give a presentation and be part of our process so you are welcome to continue that at any time thank you hello my name is Jennifer Jones I'm from The Garfield School I've been teaching for 28 years there and I want to change gears just a little bit and talk about the wellness of the building there um we've had some real bad sewage problems there and I'm sure you've heard about it um and I want to discuss that we always have had water coming into our garage that's not something we're not used to we've had it for many years it's it's below sea level we know it's more like a catch Basin and it catches water but this is different I don't know if it's because of the buildings that have been built around the area I don't I'm not sure about that but I know that what we are seeing now since then is actual sewage coming from our bathrooms from the bathrooms from the drains and anywhere you see there and it's seage and we all know what that is right um and we've so that's one problem and we really need to have that really really addressed and I know that people are saying that it's been fixed but as of when we came in in August there was still remnants of sewage near some of the drains so it obviously happened again over this over the time so that's one thing I don't mean to cut you off and I gave you leeway on that the the poop coming out of the floor there but uh if we could stay on security and safety well I mean it is about Wellness of the building it's Heth it's Health strong okay another thing I wanted to talk about is the fence that align that abots the gothfield school to the MBTA um I have pictures of it it is really unsafe I I know that we have sent pictures over to I don't know if it's the MBTA or who has to follow up on that um but I can show you pictures and I'm sure that you wouldn't want your children playing near this fence and with the third reel 100 ft away from our school so that's the second thing we'd like to um talk about um we're going to switch back is back to safety but we also wanted to talk about the buildings and the safety of those twoo thank you [Applause] hi good evening my name is Chris amets I live at 34 TR Street here in Rivier right by the high school um and I teach fourth grade at the Beachmont school as a REV resident active voter and educator um I want to thank you for your time tonight but I also want to talk about our health and safety crisis in our schools now when we as Educators say health and safety crisis we're talking about violence in many forms we're not just talking about physical violence I know that's the stuff that we see on the news and that's what's more obvious and obviously more scary when we see it but there's a lot more happening that we're not seeing publicly that's just as important we're talking about our children our children in schools feeling unsafe and sometimes truly being unsafe physically mentally and emotionally we're talking about our children witnessing other kids being unsafe our children witnessing other kids in distress and taking that upon themselves and I know that we're sometimes talking about children or young adults they kids even if they're 18 I know you mentioned that earlier that they're young adults yes they're older than my 9-year-old students of course and they have more responsibility and more wherewithal but they're still kids and there are kids kids and they are being hurt in our schools now we're talking also about their feelings their feelings of anxiety they feeling depressed their feeling of emotional suffering and fear I cannot tell you how many of my students have talked to me about being afraid in school now as a fourth grade teacher in my experience in fourth grade I've seen the effects of trauma on kids in my personal classroom in the last few years I've only been in the riv for about 7 years now I have personally been hit screamed at had kids swear at me and throw things I've had to evacuate my classroom I've had to body block students from hurting other kids they're nine they're nine we can do things to stop that before it happens we can do things it's not a big secret how we do that it's not a big mystery we need more school psychologists nurses bcbas social workers wraparound service providers special Educators teachers full-time pair of professionals and we have to make this place this city our city a place that those people want to work and stay and we have to make schools we have to make our schools places that people want to work we do that in a variety of ways and we have a number of proposals that will help people want to stay there and stay working here in R um but I also just want to focus back on our students in all those instances that I mentioned for me myself as a teacher with my kids in my classroom not a single one of those instances was about me every sing single one of them was about a child suffering a child in need and those needs not being met and we can change that we can change that before it gets to the point of needing security and metal detectors and being afraid for our lives we can change it we can fix this whenever those instances happened it happened in front of all of my other students which I know other teachers here have talked about as well and then those students then feel upset and worried and afraid I am one of their trusted adults as we all are as one of their trusted adults I feel grief whenever these kinds of events happen I'm mourning the inadequacy of our District's approach to taking care of our kids now how can we take care of our kids like I mentioned hire more people with training make this place a place that people want to work and people want to stay working at and give those services that attention that our kids need and deserve give it to our kids I want to end by saying that our students our children are good people they have so much potential and we believe all kids can learn what we're talking about are behaviors that are cries for help on behalf of our children I implore you to take those cries for help and our concerns seriously how can we afford not to thank [Music] you could I just get a quick raise of hands about the number of people we have left that want to speak okay so we're going to we're going to cap it there 1 two 3 4 we're going to cap it right there okay then we're going to move on to the next motion ma'am go go right ahead thank you very much my name is Andrea ashelman I live in on Shirley Street in winp and I have been a science teacher in Rivier for 17 years um I'm also a mom of two little girls uh I've worked in all three middle schools I'm one of those lucky ones that's gotten to move around a little bit and seen different administrations different teachers different teams and and I will say that over my 17 years I have been hit I have been sexually harassed I have been tripped I have been verbally assaulted um just like you've heard before and on a day-to-day basis I've broken up weekly fights yeah just about every week for years but since Co it's been harder and with lockdowns it's harder this last lockdown that you've already heard about I was in a closet on the floor with 15 students who don't speak English and I kept saying what I didn't know is that the student who made the call was in my room with me and my kids some of them knew and we had to figure that out when teachers see a potential problem things often get brushed off but that student who had been in the room with me we'd been working with their parents we'd been working with Administration we'd been working with guidance for months that student had been on our radar for months and then it escalated to more when teachers see a problem we are the first line of defense for our students we're the ones who work with them we're the ones who know our classrooms we're the ones who know our hallways we're the ones who know our schools we're the ones who know each other yes you could bring in security I love our SRO I work with Sergeant Nia singer officer brenis and Charlie they do an amazing job building Community but we're the ones who know the kids when something goes wrong we are often treated like we are overreacting like we're saber rattling but over and over again you will see that every time we say something's going to happen sadly it often does this kind of work that we do with students when we are being verbally assaulted when we are being physically assaulted when we are being sexually harassed in front of other students and when we're watching other students deal with this too that takes time away from our classroom that takes time away from our teaching that takes time away from all of those other kids those 99% who weren't part of the fight they lost out and they always lose out and we are the ones who are always working for them and our kids who are making the bad decisions too our kids deserve better without clear policies when something goes wrong when I get hit it's on me right maybe I I wasn't teaching well enough maybe I wasn't taking care of the students well enough maybe I didn't have my eyes on them maybe that kiddo who decided to choke himself to the point of falling out of his chair maybe I should have been standing right next to him rather than teaching the other 23 students in the room it's always on us and so why don't you listen not just you but especially the school committee listen to us a year ago we came to them and said hi we have a safety issue we've been saying this for years we have safety issues we need something done you need to listen to us we have a proposal in our negotiations right now which is actually just asking for a committee for our school committee to listen to us officially because when something is going to go wrong we're the ones who know it what I am here to say is I am am proud to work in Rivier I love working in Rivier I love my colleagues in Rivier I even have wonderful relationships with administrators in this District but we need to be listened to and I appreciate it so much that you have us here today because we are being listened to by all of you so thank you very much hello my name is lyanna Greco Salsbury Massachusetts um members of the city council thank you for hearing us this evening and showing your support for rever teachers it is sincerely appreciated um I am a sixth grade social studies teacher at Garfield Middle School I'm also a former RPS student myself go Patriots um so tonight I'm going to be highlighting the specific concerns about the dire conditions of the Garfield Middle School um at Garfield our kids always come first and are at the Forefront of every decision we make at GMS everything we do is for them and tonight is no different GMS on average has about 600 students and 65 staff members on a floor and a half of a four-story building it's crowded we are Beyond capacity and out of space at present we have about 10 teachers traveling classroom to classroom some are even traveling from one end of our school to the other this leaves our students in classrooms or in hallways unattended and unsafe I have personally experienced the effects of our overcrowded and understaffed school my classroom is at the end of a hallway and next to a stairwell that is used at every transition during the day I am often standing outside my classroom welcoming my students into my room however I am also often one of only two teachers regularly outside our doors at the end of the hall and it's not because teachers aren't doing their jobs it's because so many of them are traveling classroom to classroom or they can't get to my end of the hall quick enough because the hallways are so congested last year alone I broke up at least five fights in my end of the hallway more fights than I have ever had in my 10 years working at Rivier public schools during a fire drill last year I was leading my sixth graders down the staircase next to my room along with the seventh and eighth graders who were in neighboring classrooms as we slowly walked down the very clouded stairwell another teacher and I noticed the only Garfield Elementary School teacher on our side of the building was trying to manage her kindergarten class down the same stair well excuse me um sorry I lost my place um she was trying to manage her kindergarten class down the stairs amongst toing middle schoolers alone there were too many people trying to get down this one stairwell and our smallest students were getting swallowed by the crowd and yet believe it or not we are still under staffed we are still seeking four teachers for our honors classes as well as still waiting to fill elll and math positions that have been vacant since last year we want nothing more than to fill these positions and provide our students with every opportunity to succeed in our school but what happens if we do fill these positions where do these teach go where do those classes go our administrative team has worked tirelessly to configure teacher schedules in classrooms locations to best fit our students needs making them move the least amount and the teachers more however even in their best efforts we are still constrained by the ever shrinking space we have I implore the members of the city council and members of the school committee that are here tonight to please take these concerns seriously and address the issues properly we are coming to you now with these issues at Garfield Middle School because we know that these issues could cause serious harm in the future but these issues are avoidable please do not let these concerns fall on deaf ears like they have at rhs and please take action to make sure that all teachers staff and students have a safe and healthy working and learning conditions at Garfield Middle School thank you hi good evening um thank you for hearing from us tonight uh my name is Michelle Irvin I live in Lynn but I am an elll educator at the high school and I'm also one of the co-presidents of the Rivier Teachers Association we wanted to end tonight by reading a statement our executive board wrote and endorsed earlier today and response to a very disturbing letter from the superintendent we think it is relevant for the city council to be made aware of the union busting and unlawful tactics by the current School leadership her letter to the RTA co-residents we believe is emblematic of the lack of dignity and respect for educators the school administration often exhibits we will forward our response to all of you with links to the original Communications in it the superintendent essentially directs both me and the other RTA co-president from talking with the Press about the current crisis facing our schools despite being unlawful of the superintendent it should also be self-evident as to why silencing the voices of Educators is not a productive response to the crisis at hand this is this is the response that we wrote Dr Kelly we are in receipt of your letter dated September 8th titled statements regarding rever Public Schools after reviewing it the RTA finds it troubling offensive and unlawful we find the claims that the RTA has been knowingly spreading misinformation or false statements baseless and tonf more concerning are the clear implications of discipline and retaliation for our co-presidents simply for engaging in protected activity speech and advocacy for our staff and our students this is illegal and will not tolerated by the RTA the RTA wholeheartedly stands by its statements and those our Representatives have made over the past few weeks you claimed our co-president was spreading false information to the media when she stated I can't say whether they were knocked onc conscious I can say that I also saw the video and anybody else who saw the video saw that the staff member that our administrator was hit in the face head knocked out against a locker and fell on the floor our co-president stated nothing other than the observable facts she witnessed if you contend that she did not witness someone getting knocked unconscious well this statement confirms precisely what she saw everyone is free to view the video and reach their own conclusions I do not think it is productive to continue what has become a semantic argument we are facing we are facing a broad systemic crisis in our schools and splinting hairs will not solve it we will not apologize for speaking the truth we will not apologize for finally shining a public Spotlight on the ongoing crisis on our schools we will not be intimidated or deterred from advocating for our members or the students we serve your letter is the antithesis of the democratic principles rever Public Schools is intended to Foster and grow it represents clear interference with our ability to advocate for our working and learning conditions the effects of which would have an obvious chilling effect on the RTA engaging in further protected activity speech and advocacy as such we demand you resend your letter by 5:00 p.m. Tuesday September 10th or the RTA will be forced to file an unfair labor and prohibited practice charge with the labor board and demand any and all other additional appropriate relief it is important to note that the RTA has already had to file two unfair Labor practice charges against the district one for interference with protected concerted activity which the DLR only last week issued this complaint in favor of our charge and another for retaliation against one of our officers the administration needs to stop its unlawful Behavior now we should be focusing on Common Sense solutions to reduce the instances of violence in our schools and how we should best protect our students and staff and we hoped that your communication to us would have been on the substantive issues we welcome wel this discussion at our upcoming negotiations thank [Applause] you you sure you want to follow that got to follow that now this is going to be the last speaker then we're going to move to the next motion everybody okay my name is Ralph Theo 49 Washington Street uh I'm here as a parent um my daughter just graduated R High and all I can say is thank God uh unfortunately I feel bad my son is a freshman um but at least he has the right head he has the parents behind him uh and he knows how to do the right thing um I wanted to say one thing I feel bad for the teachers especially up Riv high school they have no backing they are when they signed up to be a teacher it did not say in their requirements that they had to be a social worker a referee a parent a caregiver they were going there to educate our children we want to drop our children off the school to get an education they have to do over and above what they're supposed to do our students it's I know Co has brought a lot more problems this has been going on a lot longer than Co this starts with these kids in kindergarten I can see speak for this firsthand I was the PTO president at an elementary school for over 10 years I saw kids as little as kindergarten this is where the kids needed to start getting the help unfortunately these kids were just getting pushed on pushed on so what do you think is going to happen when they come to the high school it's going to escalate it's going to get worse it's going to get worse it's going to get worse and why do you think we cannot retain teachers in this city this is the main reason why we can't retain teachers another thing we need to be Pro active and not reactive this this has been an outcry for many years I am I am upset that the administration whoever it has been has been worried about dealing with cell phones for the past two years and not safety and health of our children I I don't care what side you are on cell phone usage but safety health is more important for our students and that has been forgotten I would love to see our administrators stay in the High School classrooms for a week not come in for an hour and just evaluate the teachers come in there for a week stay there for a week's period of time unannounced come in there and see what these teachers have to deal with take a look at it it it's and and how many things are not reported and go Untold that we don't know about you know yeah you know what I'm glad that kids some of these kids had cell phones we got to see how bad that one was if these kids did not have those cell phones we wouldn't have seen the extent of that so I commend I commend the students that did that yeah if they want to go on Tik Tok but that's not the thing this was proof that what was going on in the schools we need to stop this whatever needs to be done needs to be done we need to think outside the box we need to think outside the box we do not want this to escalate any further we need to stop this move forward and make our children safe in all grades in our in our Public Schools here in the city of Rivier we are not in a foreign country we are in Rivier Massachusetts in the United States of [Applause] [Applause] America councilors what is uh what is the will for this motion do we want to vote do we want to send it to subcommittee do we want to place it on file [Music] I think thank you Mr President um on the on the motion itself I I think we need to hear more uh uh where the teacher stand on it um I think we're getting a little bit of a not a mixed message I hear the message sounding clear but the message between outsid resources metal detectors these are decisions that we can't vote on without your support and and I think we need to put more teeth into it before we make a decision like that councelor I couldn't agree more um I am so thankful that you all showed up because nobody knows about what's going on with teachers better than teachers do nobody knows what's going on in school better than you guys I would like to put this motion into the committee of the whole subcommittee and that way we can craft it and amend it because I know I can tell you right off the bat I want to remove Rivier high school and put all Riv public schools in the motion uh Council McKennon thank you Mr President um and maybe when we do have uh committee as a whole maybe we should invite the administration to come up with along with the teachers and maybe you can ask your questions why they're sweeping all the problems under the rug would a me is there is there a point of someone that I can contact directly to communicate to you about meetings because this this is exactly what we need to continue to do and that's why I put 30 to 60 days let's revisit this because it's really time that we do something about it I'm going to quote one of the sro's that spoke in the safety and and security subcommittee he said when's the last time we had a fire because we have fire prevention so let's start preventing fights let's start preventing drugs let's start preventing vaping let's start preventing all of that Mr President so thank you for the leeway um I would like to suggest that um we're we all have um teachers in different schools maybe we could have someone uh in quietly because we don't want you to get in trouble but maybe we should take down all the incidences that happened in the schools and come up with a list of you know a fight or you a teacher getting hit or spit on or whatever it is we should have all the incidents on paper instead of just come up and telling us because I've gone through the same thing maybe we should have a list of some you know all the incidences counselor if I may I actually did that last year I reached out and I got a lot of anonymous information from teachers from parents from students and I made a list and it was disgusting to say the least about what's going on inside the schools that was last year okay so now we're here A year later discussing the same things well Mr President excuse me um but I maybe we should have it publicly um submitted I will not release the names of the people who gave it to me in Fe retaliation don't have you don't have to but I mean maybe we should have it publicly so people can see the incidences at gothfield school the incident that happen in Riv High School you don't have to put names on it but this is what happened on September 25 you know this is what happened on January 3rd whatever it is but I I think I if we com compile a list maybe we'll see you know people will see the the uh Devastation of these uh problems that are going on in every school so thank you I just I just um I'm sorry I've been getting teex messages and and Facebook messages from Educators the entire time and I just want to share one thing I'm not going to say who sent it to me that's not my style but one of the uh big issues and this isn't the only person that's I've heard this from is is the loss of the SE Coast school um there was a lot of kids that were in that program they're now mixed in with general population so to speak so you know I maybe we start working on coming back with some sort of program program like that um does any other counselor wish to speak on the issue if not I would like to put this into the committee of the whole subcommittee oh counselor Kelly I I would just like to recognize um the co-president because I believe that the log that councelor McKenna was speaking about is something that you've already proposed in your plan yes that's what we I wanted to pop and you've been asking for that correct yes it's one of our main proposals is to have a log exactly like that and it has not been it's Fallen to De ears no it has not even been discussed Mr President sorry for the thank you for the leeway uh maybe we should just have you know uh if you want to call me and we can doal with this anonymously and you can send uh whatever you want to myself or one of the counselors that you feel uh you feel trusted with um that you trust then I mean we would be glad to receiv received that so um but let's compile it I'll do it you know I'll I'll be the one if you want to just bring it on so thank you counselor we're going to put this into the committee of the whole subcommittee csar item number 13 motion presented by council president cogliandro that the mayor and superintendent of public schools be requested to begin exploring the cost to install metal detectors at Rivier high school and that the findings be reported to the city council within 30 to 60 days permission to speak from the chair thank you um again this is a request to begin exploring what this is this is not in any way the city council saying do this immediately we want to explore these things because we know we don't know everything we want to have a conversation with everyone what I do want to say is that when you think about Metal Detectors the first thing we all think about is guns let's be honest that's the first thing we think about okay guns knives those are the first things but I also want to state that I feel that if you a kid with a lighter walks through then we eliminate might eliminate a smoking problem and I know that a lot of the issues we're having right now revolve around Vapes okay so a lot of the Vapes would be detected by that so again this is just all ideas that were given to me I'm advocating for the public that that asked me to Advocate on their behalf and I think that it would make a safer environment uh for for any school that would require one we can get portable ones um this would go hand inand with getting more security staff security not security translators security staff so with that I'd like to open it up to any counselors wishing to speak let's put this into the uh let's put this into the public SE uh excuse me the the committee of the whole as well so we can put these both in there okay Committee of the whole calendar item number 14 motion presented by council president KAG Leandro that the following proposed ordinance Amendment be ordered to a public hearing an ordinance further amending section 2.03 point5 open meetings of the revised ordinances of the city of Rivier Section 1 Section 2.0 3.05 e open meetings is hereby amended by inserting the words subcommittees of the before the word School 2minute recess please e e e e e e Madame clerk on the next motion please calendar item number 14 this was an ordinance further amending section 2.0 3.05 open meetings permission to speak from the chair thank you uh I did speak with multiple school committee members um and what I want to do before I get into this is explain for the the public and for everybody uh what subcommittees are subcommittees are an opportunity for us to meet with a a group smaller than a quorum so that we can discuss issues before they come to this very meeting so we there was a lot of talk about people upset about the recent safety and in security subcommittee for schools what many people didn't know is that it was scheduled at noon so that the SRO would be able to attend that meeting uh and I think that where the school committee already has subcommittees you know during the day sometimes uh where they always start no earlier than 5:00 P p.m for their regular meetings this is essentially just us getting this that what they already practice on the books now with that said I would also like to add city council subcommittees to this list uh that way we could handle more business so let's say we have some business in Elder Affairs and chairman Gino SAA uh would like to make it accessible for the seniors at the senior center to be busted here we could do it uh 11:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m. in the morning the good news is that if anybody in the public wants to speak on that issue they can do so at the next city council meeting so there is no way that we're going to be hiding these motions no way way that we're not handling business with public input and I do think that it's a better way for us to handle uh business quicker uh but we do have a lot of subcommittees that we need to hold and we are confined to this 5:00 pm time uh we had a legislative Affair uh subcommittee today with chairman Areno that took us an hour you know that's that's one of the reasons we have a lot of business before us so I would like to amend this we can vote on the amendment to uh not only add so what we're doing is school committee is already exempt so is the License Commission so is the elder Council what I would like to do is add subcommittees of the before the word school committee that way subcommittees are exempt not the school committee uh as a whole meeting I would also like to add and amend this to say uh uh to the exemptions subcommittees of the city council uh and I will obviously I'm looking forward to a discussion on that how you all feel about that and like I said this is to help us handle business and it will not stop any public participation as you could see tonight the room was completely packed to capacity we had to have a fire detail here so we're definitely not shy about having public participation but any any councilors wishing to speak on this counselor Kelly um my only concern with the except ception being maybe the Elder Affairs or the seniors you gave the example of that meeting subcommittee meeting being held at 11:00 a.m. which I'm totally fine with but I think maybe the other subcommittees of the city council really all the nuts and bolts are discussed in these subcommittee meetings it's really where we most of the discussion um gets kind of sorted out and I don't want to um alienate the public from those meetings and I think maybe if we have them before 5 we might be doing that I understand they could still come to the public hearing but if they come to the public hearing without hearing or being at the subcommittee meeting they might be missing a lot of what was discussed in the subcommittee meeting so that's my only concern but I do agree that we could get a lot more business handled if we were able to do it after to five so I guess I'm kind of I kind of have mixed feelings about it so um just how I feel about it thank you thank you counselor any other counselors wishing to speak uh I would like to take a roll call on the amendment oh councelor Gino SAA I'm actually taking offense to the Elder Affairs committee I you saying that they're not important Council Kelly no because that's how I'm taking it right now no meant that if like I could understand why maybe a group of seniors would rather be busted at 11:00 a.m. in the morning than 6:00 p.m. at night or or 5:00 p.m. at night he gave the example of the seniors so I was just thinking it might be more convenient for the seniors to meet earlier in the day but I'm not sure if the working public that's going to a job they're working 9 to5 it might not be convenient for them to get to a meeting at 11:00 a.m. in the morning the meetings taking place after 5 o'clock might be more convenient for the rest of the public I'm just I'm saying that it's totally convenient for the seniors I'm totally okay with that and I can understand why they might want to have their meetings prior to 5:00 p.m. in the evening I just took offense to it I'm like wait a minute hear excuse me points made I'm going to I'm going to nip this right but right excuse me all your communication is going to go through the chair this ends now thank you so I have an amendment uh Mr Dio I just want a point of clarification uh my mind is a little fuzzy right now at subcommittee meetings can the general public come in and comment on them yes okay now the question and you know where I stand on this um is there any any way I really and I'm a big proponent I testified at oh Ralph toico 49 Washington Street I testified at City at City at the State House that uh what we should do for for equal access to everyone and this would be a great point for it if we're going to move these meetings before 5:00 that we should do a hybrid try and do a hybrid component to this uh because we do have people that are going to work if this goes to a hybrid and there's a zoom component and that people are working that want to take part in this they're allowed to speak over the zoom um we do have meetings in the city right now that are that are on hybrid or Zoom right now um so I would be in favor if you're moving these meetings early that you would add a hybrid component to it like I've always stated nothing good came out of Co but we've seen what technology can do um so that's that would be how I would be in favor uh of it that if you have move these subcommittee meetings to earlier in the day that you add a hybrid component to them thank you sir so I at this point I would like to reiterate the amendment that I'd like to make and if it passes we can go from there I would like to add the city council subcommittees or subcommittees of the city council worded correctly that way uh to this motion to the ordinance as well uh Madame clerk if you would call a roll on the amendment on the proposed amendment to the motion councilor agenzio could I have a clarification of what we're voting on sure so I'll read the ordinance again an ordinance further am and this is just a proposal this would need to go to a public hearing first if the city council were to do anything with it an ordinance further amending section 2.0 3.05 open meetings of the re revised ordinances Section 1 Section 2.3.0 5e open meetings is hereby amended by inserting the words subcommittees of the before the W school and councelor council president uh Calandro's Amendment would be to also include subcommittees of the city council as an exception uh um to the open meeting ordinance that is currently on the books so this would open the door to have meetings earlier earlier than 5:00 P PM for the city council subcommittees thank you anybody else have any questions or comments or anything this a all right let's let's try the roll call again on the proposed amendment councel agenzio no no councel janino is absent councelor o SAA nope no councelor h no no councelor Haro no no councelor Kelly no no councel McKenna no no councel noeli is absent councelor sylvestri no no councelor zambuto is absent and council president cogliandro yes yes the amendment the proposed amendment fails uh then I would like to take a rooll well actually this will go to a public hearing um so let's order it to a public hearing as as it is calendar item number 15 motion presented by Council McKenna that the mayor request 311 to use the emergency alert system to notify residents of the West Nile Virus cases in reier and address ways in which residents can take precautions to be safe from mosquitoes councelor McKenna thank you Mr President so I've been getting a lot of calls um people are very concerned about what's going on and I know this is on the city web but a lot of people don't get the city web so I just would like a robo call or some sort of call just to announce that you know they're spraying every night or they're spraying once a week and or they're and and this is what you should do is you should make sure that your windows are closed and B whatever it is uh so I just would like more information to to be passed on to the residents because there is a big concern and I think there are two cases in rever one case in Winthrop so thank you very much that's it thank you councelor councelor Yaro Mr President thank you so much and thank you for coun to councelor McKenna for this wonderful motion thank you I want to say you know earlier at the onset of our day I know it feels like we've been here for like 10 hours but uh we had the discussion about translation unfortunately you know we heard from the administration last week or two weeks ago that they didn't want translation or interpretation services this feels like something that really needs translation interpretation Services you know we tried to pass a motion most of you were in favor but I didn't want to put anyone in a tough predicament of taking a hard vote on uh translation um opposition from the administration but maybe we can amend this just so that we can direct the mayor to make all Communications on this particular topic um available in Arabic Italian and Spanish and that'd be great so there's a motion to amend uh m Mr President also maybe put it on revia TV like we do I think they should it's a yeah Public Health you know so very important and that's that's where you can come in with the translations uh counselor thank you I mean it'd be great if they could do it on the website on really all modes of communication I know the I follow the Facebook I I really only see a monolingual Facebook for for a city that's 51% or maybe over 51% not monolingual English it's really hard to stop that particularly public health things are being largely ignored anyone else on the motion as amended all in favor all opposed point of inquiry uh did we amend the motion the clerk just amended the motion oh you did did we take the vote got it perfect thank you sorry Mr President calendar item number 16 motion presented by councelor sylvestri that the mayor request the director of Public Health to appear before the city council to give a presentation on the fy2 opioid trust fund budget councelor sylvestri um motion self-explanatory I know we um appropriated some money last time at the last meeting it was another long night so I didn't want to delay the meeting by asking any questions on that evening so so um I'd just like to get some clarification thank you on the motion all in favor all opposed so ordered calendar item number 17 motion presented by councelor sylvestri that the mayor request the director of Public Health to appear before the city council to provide an update on the opioid abatement funds the focus groups resident input and how the noock Box's program is doing so far counc sylvestri same motion speaks for itself thank you Mr President I've been notified that Lauren Buck will be able to do a presentation on October 7th at our meeting excellent thank you points of personal privilege councilor has thank you Mr President I would just like to wish councelor Chris janino a speedy recovery as I'm sure most the all the council would um get well soon my friend we'll see you soon uh thank you back to the motion all in favor all opposed so woulded continue uh unless there are any other points of person privilege uh this meeting is adjourned everyone have a great night thank you for everyone who came tonight