Everett City Council 09-28-26

All right.

All right, this is the Everett City Council's Committee on Government Operations, Public Safety and Public Service. This is Monday, September 28th, 2026, and we're at 6.01 p.m. I have...

Yes, present.

Councilor Capone?

Here.

Petitonio, and Councilor Garcia. We have four members present. We do have a courtroom. So please stand and salute the plaintiff. All right, we have one item on the agenda. And this is a resolution sponsored by the entire membership of the Everett City Council It's a resolution requesting that the public be provided with an update on e-scooter rules and regulations.

Before we invite the guest up, can we make an amendment? And Adriana, she is not the parking clerk. She's the director of parking. Is that correct? Can we amend that? I'd like to make a motion right up, I guess. Second?

So if you could please just introduce yourselves, say your proper title and we'll fix that.

Adriana Indresano, Director of Parking.

Sergeant Joseph Gaff, Everett Police Traffic Division and also Traffic Commissioner.

Thank you guys for showing up tonight. This new audit, Section 18-104, is this brand new, Joe? Or has it been on the books?

It's actually from 9-21 of 2004.

Okay, so it's been on the books. And that's why we're here tonight just about this Section 18-104 to talk about are we going to tweak it? What do we...

We can just go over a couple things before we tweet that if that's okay. I have some stuff I'd like to pass out here so this way it can maybe help address some of the questions you have So while she passes that out, the city ordinance of 9-21-2004 we've looked at. A lot of things have changed since 2004 with the different type of scooters, mopeds, everything else that's come out. And the skateboards with motors and e-bikes and everything like that.

We're waiting for a big change to come from the state government regarding the new state laws that are coming out and it's going to be like grade 1, grade 2, grade 3 how they're gonna itemize each Vehicle, how fast they go with their power and energy. So there's a big change coming from that. And we're going to see how That helps us with enforcing this stuff. With the unregistered, now they're gonna have to be registered. getting rid of the CCs and going with how fast they can go, and that will categorize how fast. Regarding the city ordinance it's really hard because There's so many different types of things out there. And whether they're on the crosswalk, I mean if they're

Bike lanes, we still try to look for certification which can be on bike lanes and electric ones are some aren't so it's It's been kind of difficult to enforce this, to be honest with you. But if you see the picture that you have that we gave you... If you see how many scooters that we have captured So as you know, it's very difficult for policemen to go chase people. We all agree with that, right? We can't. We're not going to have our guys go chase electric scooters crash and then we lose our homes because we chased them for an electric scooter. We all agree with that. That ain't happening. Just can't, it's in our policies. So what we have done is we've gone to a different tactic. When we see these scooters with no plates on them, not registered, they're parked at different places. Parked at Everett Square, Glendale Square, the Route 9 guys. I know Officer Ngalis has probably totaled at least 50 of those himself and when we see him unregistered and they're not being driven, that's when we go after them. It's safe.

We take it. That is the route that Boston has taken. We have spoken to Boston PD many times on this. They're not chasing. So that's the route we've taken. We've been successful with that, getting a lot of them off the road. But it's the e-bikes that we really have to take a look at and the scooters and trying to stop them. It's pretty difficult. I'm just being honest with you, Councilman. So we're waiting for more teeth in the state laws that will make them register, because right now they don't have to register and things like that. So we'll hope in January that the new law will come out.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. The chase to school is absolutely not... Someone's Life, the Officer Safety and the Public Safety for Scooter. I fully agree with that statement

And they entice us to do it, right? They want us to. They get our eyes out of it so we just can't do it by rules and regulations.

I mean, I would just hate to publicize it, but you know what? It is what it is. Yes, it is what So, I mean, sitting in your car and something goes by you, could you distinguish it? What it is? And is it...

Can you do that? I know I can't. Yeah, so we can a little bit. What we do now is with the great work of our school resource officers We try to take pictures now. Pictures, you know, we pull up, there's a group there. We try and take pictures of who they are and we try to get to the school resource officers. They know who they So then that's how we also go after them. They speak to him, and we go after him that way. So there's different ways we've been trying to go after it. Like number one, when they're parked, we're telling them. but they don't have a sticker, they don'y have a plate on them. We're hooking them right? Unregistered scooters, they're gone. But when these kids are on there taking off on us we're taking pictures as soon as we can and showing this school resource officer. Unfortunately, a lot of them are from different towns. We might get a few of them that way but if they're coming from other towns even the city owners is tough to enforce because they didn't know

You think it's that age group, though? Mostly the high school age group that's riding around in these. Do you think it said age group?

I think it is twofold, right? Councilman, I think its twofold. I think number one, I thing it is that age-group. There's a select crew that no matter what we do No matter what laws we change, they're going to break them anyways. We got that group. Then we have the other group that is trying to hustle and make money that are the food delivery folks. Most of those now we've seen being... registered, because the food grub and all those companies are making them register their scooters. So that's helped. But they're the ones that are going up the one ways Going up and on the streets, going up on the sidewalks, parking in front of the restaurants. So those are the ones that we can actually have a better chance of speaking to and those are mostly adults.

And they don't follow the traffic lights either.

They're supposed to, even pedalized bikes are supposed to.

Yeah, they don�t do that. So just looking at this motorized scooter. Anything over 35 miles an hour, three feet high has to be registered. Correct. And we're saying combustible? Fluid Engine Gear. So that doesn't even reflect the electric bikes, correct? Am I reading that right? That's correct. So the electric You don't have to register them.

There's nothing?

Nothing. That's what I thought.

So that's why I say, you know, this is great to have some teeth in it for the state audience. But what I'd like to do is maybe come back after the state law passes theirs and we see how that is categorized with each of what they're going to categorize. And I've seen a quick brief of it and it's pretty good when the Director of Transportation, the director of registry was here the other day. I actually pulled her aside and we had a great conversation that I'd like to see us go after where they're sold. Like the e-bikes from Walmart and all that, we're not going to put a dent in, right? But it's the scooters, right, you know, the mini bikes to scooters I'd like to see that be regulated by some type of law, maybe through city council or by state that you have to have a certain class A, B, or C dealership to sell those because now you have know the laws regarding when you sell them.

So that is something she thought was very interesting, this new city ordinance. State law is not going after and I kind of asked her can we look at that to go after where these scooters So they're not being sold just up on Route 99 or mini markets are selling bikes in front of their store and they don't know how to register them, insure them. and I also ask that they look into make sure that the scooters or minibikes have insurance up to $1,000. Most people have a thousand dollar deductible So if we get the scooters and they get in an accident, at least they'll be covered for $1,000. And $1 thousand insurance is about $110 a year for these scooters so there has been a lot of work done on this. We tried to get a bill passed by myself and State Rep Simon Gallagher a few years ago during COVID. We wanted to change a couple words in it, and that would have helped us all back then was just get rid of the CCs because in state laws talks about engine size as CC's Sorry, I've been on 40 years.

I still can't figure out what a 50cc is, right? So we just wanted to go by the speedometer of anything over 25 miles an hour, how to have insurance, how They kind of took that and kind of rolling with this now, so we'll see how it goes. So instead of really trying to enforce this or change this I would really like to wait You know, see how the state law comes out and I think they're pretty excited about what they're going to roll out. And I'm hoping not just rollout a program but I'm hopin' they send out a huge educational PSA on it to teach the public what they do. And we need help from parents, right? It's a three process. It's us, the schools and the parents. Parents have to make sure they know what their kids are doing. And that would help us a lot.

Yeah, because let's face it, the parents, 80% of the parents are buying these schools for the kids.

Correct. They're going to do their homework to see if their child is going to be actually eligible to drive this under the new low-stay law.

I'm glad we had, I'm sure, I didn't even know we had an audience on here for scooters which is good. I know back in the day we had mini bikes and they actually took my mini bike and took it away from me, brought it down the station in the paddy wagon. I remember like yesterday. I remembered because we used to have 10 of us ride around the village. We were the Hells Angels. But I remember them taking the minibike away and taking it down to station, you know. And then obviously you got to go down there with my parents and grab it. It wasn't a good day. It was probably our region.

Was it Officer Reed?

I can't remember who it was, but it had to be one of the old times. You know that. All right, I got no further questions. Oh, no, just one more question. If the state comes down with something, we can always change what we want to do with it with the city. We can do our own ordinance. We don't have to follow this, what the state does.

Well, we would follow the state policy. If you want to make it stricter, I believe we can make it Like we can't say like, you know, Trinkin's 21 and we're going to make it 18 in Everett. We can always make a state law stricter. We just can't loosen it. Am I correct on that? Yeah.

Okay.

All right. Thank you, Joe. You're welcome.

Capone. Just a few things, where I live on Broadway when I sit on my front porch I see people go by all the time, and they're covered. They're completely covered, and there in a group, and their popping wheelies, and going on the sidewalk. So I understand the importance of waiting for the state law, but what can citizens do? And recently there was an accident near my house. and I don't want to wait for somebody to not see somebody on a motorized bike in a bus lane or a lane that they're not supposed to be in and someone dies. until we're waiting for the state law to be finalized, what can the public do? So you're saying we don't wanna chase the people on the scooters.

But if you are just like a citizen sitting on their porch, like myself, and you see people doing wheelies down Broadway and cutting in and out of traffic and going on and off sidewalks. What would happen if a concerned citizen called the police department? Would those people be pulled over, would those drivers be pulledover?

We would try. I mean, let's put it this way. So when I said we wouldn't chase, like we would try to pull them over. We would have the motorcycles out there and we'd have the pedal bikes out there. You know, we're trying to get the motorcycles A lot of these people aren't from Everett.

What about if there were plates and citizens were writing down numbers?

Then they could absolutely give them to me, Look at them. The nice thing is, and I know there's a lot of heat, but Flock is a tremendous, tremendous tool for us for this. right so we can the nice thing about our system with flock is you have to put a case number in to get in it and there's only few people but we can follow them with flock and that's what we've been trying to do. To see where this group is coming, are they coming from Boston? Are they coming for Malden? Are the coming from the South? So if we get complaints and you send us pictures, absolutely. If you can grab a picture of someone we will give it to our school resource officer see if we can identify that group all we need is one out of that group.

So we're encouraging the public if you see something document it

and they can share it with me. There is now a website on EPD that you can go on E PD and you can upload photos and Terreno on our website. Or they can just call me or email me, and I'll take care of it. But if they can take photos or get a plate of a scooter, the best thing is...I know there's a couple out there that are red ones, solid red you know he wears a face mask all the time and we're just trying to narrow down where he's from.

Okay also I know we're waiting for the state law to be changed but I want to increase that fine $100 is a very Would it be possible to increase the fine up to like $500? Because that has some teeth in it. If you're a young person and you get caught, then there's a consequence to that.

Is there any particular on the city ordinance at Malden Court of how far, how much?

Most of the ordinances that I researched for the area around here like the city of Boston and similar cities like around us

Excuse me for a second. How high can we go with the fine? Michelle, can we invite deputy citizens? I'm sorry.

Sometimes when it comes to state laws, I just have something like that.

Can we invite the deputy? Yes, we can invite the Deputy City Solicitor. Thank you.

Sorry he's a prep guy So a lot of the surrounding communities, they are much laxer with the penalties. I can most definitely look into increasing in what would go into that.

Like how high can we go?

That I'm not sure of. I do know that it is much lower in a lot of surrounding communities like the city of Boston. I believe it's a third offense before you start actually seeing some sort of monetary fine and even at that, I believe its $25 to $50

I would rather have a high fine and use it as a deterrent than somebody getting killed or someone is driving down the street and they don't see someone pull out in front of them because they're not following the rules of the road.

I'll go as high as you want. But are we going to get the money from these people when we go to court, right? That's the biggest thing because a city ordinance ticket goes directly to court It does not go to the registry of motor vehicles, so the registry will not get any information on that.

If someone has a fine though and they don't pay it, does it prevent them from putting the vehicle back on the road? Like when you have too many parking tickets.

If it's not reported to the RMV, then likely not. It could inevitably turn into a civil warrant, but if the RMV is not aware of it then they can't really do anything to remove the vehicle from the road.

Would a higher fine help the police department at all? Is there a way that would help people enforcing it?

It might help some people, but it's the group that's like the food people that you're going to hit hard. They're the ones that are on the sidewalk, you know, parking the wrong way. It's the kids that are the ones who are really being nuisance and I don't know going from $100 to $500 when private aren't even gonna get a hundred dollars from them

We could have a teenager, 16 years old, going around the rotary and get killed by a car. And they would say that we weren't strong enough. We weren't protecting them.

I have no problem if the committee wants to go to 500. If that's going to deter things, then that would be great.

Thank you both.

if I may from the chair, I just wanna circle back to Councilor Capone's statement of the teenagers that drive around with the ski masks, because they are driving around like menaces. They come up and down Broadway in Glendale Square and just do a U-turn in the middle of the Glendales Square and come back up. They almost sideswipe me before they drive around the river green Is there anything we can do when they're doing this? Because one time I was going to call the police, but I know there's really not much we can about it. They're on e-bikes. They're not motorcycles, that's for sure. But they go the wrong way down runways. They're going to get hit. They don't care.

No, they don't. But you can always call the police and if we can get one or if we The past, see what it says, the cover face. That's beyond my pay grade I would honestly say that. as you would know that'd be a different thing than the traffic thing. But if it's impeding his ability to drive a vehicle, well then there's that chapter 90 section If something's impeding your ability to drive, we can go that way too. It's a little stretch, but there is some things in Chapter 90 we can do. We can get them for equipment. We That group there, I would say probably maybe 10 to 15, 20% of those are probably stolen bikes.

Well, that's how I know it's... They've covered their face. That's fine. But that's the same kid over and over. And he's always in the same areas.

Same bike. It's the red bike with the black seat. He wears a black jacket. He has a black hoodie. I almost grabbed him off duty the other day. We've got them, the school resource officers are doing a tremendous job helping us out in traffic trying to get us the names. As you can see by the picture there's got to be at least a hundred. There's a whole nother pile to the left that, that's just the one tow company Quillies that has those went down near the other day to take a picture so we are Really going after the popcorn safely and the words getting out because if you really look at this type of scooters, if you drive around the city of Everett now, you will notice that I would say 94% of those type of scooter are registered now. So the word's getting out and helping out with food grub and all them enforcing it. And actually Boston stepping up and doing something really helps too.

Yeah, and it's the adults too that are the issue. It was an adult on a e-scooter that sideswiped me and took off. just plain as day and he was texting when he sideswiped me, he wasn't paying attention. But just to clarify for the public because I get these questions too. These e-bikes, e-scooters all of this do they belong on the bike path?

That's a great question. So the bike lane is supposed to be for Petal bikes, anything with a pedal. That's the best way I can describe it. Anything with a petal like a moped that has a pedal even though it's motorized by something else. It has to be something with a Yes.

Yeah, I would think because it's supposed to be the safety for the actual bicycles. Because it's not going to... And I do see them going in and out, which isn't safe. But the actual bike path 2, the one like where like the community growers have their stand in that area. Are they allowed down there?

They are not allowed down because they do go down there and then the other ones you know you see the ones who just have a wheel when they get on the wheels I mean I don't even think those are supposed to be legally technically in a bike lane

And what about sidewalks? Are they allowed on the sidewalk? So, they just have to be in a street following traffic orders.

Old school days. Cars don't always... Yep, old-school helmets.

So I had a student tell me he's getting a bike. So I said, oh, e-bike or regular bike? And he said, this one takes gas. So for whatever we come up with, would that cover this type of bike too? It seems like we're getting all kinds.

Because it is a gas bike, yes. Class 3? Yep, class 3.

Okay, perfect. I think Councilor Pietrantonio had a question.

Joe, how many have we confiscated? Do we know that number?

In this picture? I mean, I pulled up as much data as I can for you. You asked me to pick up so... Some types of accents you asked for. I mean, right now a grand total 225 since January so that was Type of bikes that we had to deal with. We got four regular bikes, one dirt bike, e-bikes were three and motorcycles were ten. Motorcycles, you know sometimes It goes in different because the officer doesn't know if it's a moped or a scooter or something. 87 mopeds, 13 mopeds slash motor vehicles, moped peds, 19... 19 other pedestrian type bikes, scooters were 34 scooter mopeds 8, scooter motor vehicles 25 so yeah I was like 225 and then Yeah, with accidents.

With accidents it was 86.

So the Everett Police Department is doing the best they can with these mopeds, minibikes, electric bikes. I mean we're out there doing something. We're not just sitting back waiting.

No, I believe we're doing the best we can within the law, understanding the law and trying to balance I like to see the state do a lot of big projects. When they came out with all these, they just let them go. PSA on this. And we're going to talk to Everett Cable, they're gonna be doing some more PSAs. We just did one with the opening school and we're gonna get back involved with doing some TV shows with PSAs and get them out there. But I do believe our guys are out there. They know it's their they're towing these if we find them on the sidewalk chained up with cut the chain We're taking off the sidewalk for parking If they're in Everett Square, Glendale Square or Side Roads and they run in front of restaurants that are unregistered we're taking them. That's the safest way.

You guys can cut the chain legally you guys can get the chain to take it?

Yep because it's illegally parked yep

and just one question for the parking director.

I was waiting for that, it was all coming to me here as usual.

How does your guys and girls fit into this enforcement? Do they have any clout in doing any enforcement with these bikes?

Yes, so if they come across let's say one of these bikes on a sidewalk and it has the plate They will call it in to dispatch. They'll run the plate. They'l tag it If it does not have a plate, that's when they'll send me the information and I pass it over to Sergeant Gaff and his traffic team. And they will go there and remove the bike or scooter whatever it is. So if it has a plate, yes, parking will do what we can to get rid of it. We have towed them. We do ticket them. If they don't have a plate then we do have to refer it to Everett PD

So there is a policy that just to clarify why they can't tow certain things. If a motor vehicle or bike is unregistered, non-insured or unregisted, that's a criminal act? So we don't put the PEOs on allowed to do criminal activity. So if it's an unregistered car or an un registered, then that's when an officer has to respond because of the vehicle is in a criminal act. So if the car is registered, they can take care of it. If a bike's registered, They can take Care of it but anything that's a criminal violation We have to notify the police department. They notify the Police Department, officer responds and we usually send her if it's an unregistered show will send a complaint out

But if it's registered and insured on a sidewalk, they can tag it.

They take care of it? Yes, we do.

And they tow it.

Yes.

Yeah. They can legally tow a tool.

It's like a car. You have the power to tow it. Yes, all they have to do is go out on the radio and say I got this such-and-such, I got a Yamaha, Suzuki, whatever on the sidewalk 158 which is the patrol supervisor has to okay every tow which they will do and then it's towed

What if it doesn't have a plate on it?

Then they notify the EPD and then the traffic guys will go by if we're there. If not, one of the patrol guys will run the VIN number. We'll see if it's stolen 90% of the time. The VIN is knocked off so we can't run it. So, we just get front register and that's why you see a big pile because they have to hold them for 120 days at the tow yard. before they can smoke them. So I'm hoping, what I'm really hoping is and I've talked to Alan we're hoping that we're going to be able to do a nice PSA and show you drive one of these in Everett and we're gonna show them all smashed up. We're gonna bulldoze them.

Yeah, we see that. Didn't I say that on the news somewhere?

What was that happening? So we're going to do something with it just to have – and then just scrap them. But yeah, we're gonna try to do somethin'.

Yeah, it's funny. You can go down to DPW. Looks like on our calendar they bought a new front-end loader.

I don't think he'll let me do that with that. Maybe the old trash truck, we can run over it.

All right, thanks guys. No further questions.

Before we entertain a motion to excuse our guests, I do want to thank our city solicitor team who they did go through and create like a newer updated version of what an ordinance could be. I can share with you both the copy and will regroup when we have to and we'll bring it before meeting But if there's no further questions, I would entertain a motion to excuse our guests.

Do you want, when the new law comes in we can maybe meet after the new and then we can figure out from there. As always if you have any questions or anything like that don't hesitate to reach out to our team and do whatever we can to help as you know that Thank you.

I make a motion to excuse our guest.

All right. And with that, I would entertain a motion to place this on file and we will revisit once the new state laws.

I'd like to make an amendment. put the fine up to $500 like Councilor Capone mentioned because let's think about this. I mean, the age group... Okay, so I'd have to refer it to... Okay. So we got to put this in front of the whole board? Yes. I'd like to make an amendment to raise the $500 and bring it in front Okay, so I want to bring this in front of our next regular council meeting to make amendments that we feel should be made.

I agree with you.

All right, we can do that. Because I would have just said put this on file and revisit once we actually have a new state law in effect so we can actually enforce it. But we can bring this back to the whole group. That's fine. I entertain a motion to bring this back to the general meeting, our next general meeting.

This is actually going to be pleased to work with you.

Okay, so we are doing what we want to do.

Okay. Oh, so I have to do it at my regular meeting? Right. Okay. We have to that at our regular meeting. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Joan.

Thank You. All right. So is there a motion to place this on file from this meeting? Anyone motion to do that?

Place on file until our next council meeting.

And I'll second that. I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Second.

This is the City Council's Committee on Legislative Affairs and Elections. This is Monday, September 28th, 2026 and we're at 6.35pm I have Councilor DiPierro. Present. I have Councilor Marchese. Present! And Councilor Smith. Present We have three members present, we do have a courtroom.

Good to meet you.

Right, the only piece of business is the ordinance up by Council Stephanie Smith as president. An ordinance establishing a tax title payment agreement in the city of Everett

Smith.

Thank you as the city solicitor has requested that we grant further time on this item and We will come back reschedule another meeting to further discuss

Second the motion to grant further time. Rich Vaden, second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? I guess we'll show John, right?

Motion to adjourn.

Second. Bush made second, so adjourned. All That's it.

Thank you.

Good evening. It's 7 p.m. This is the regular meeting of the City Council, Monday, September 28th. Will the Clerk please call the roll?

Alcee Jabouin.

Present.

Capone, DePierro, Garcia, Hanlon, Marchese, Martins, Nguyen, Pietrantonio, Rogers, Smith.

11 members present we have a quorum will you please stand and salute the flag

We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

So just a few notices for the public. We have changed streaming platforms, we're now on YouTube and no longer on Facebook so you can tune in on YouTube. We're also going to present some citations. We have members of the Everett High School Crimson Tide basketball team here, and we're going to If you'll indulge me and I'll go up to the microphone and we can kind of bring you guys forward. Councilor Pietrantonio, if you want to join me, you can. Thank you. If you guys want to come up and then I'll read your names. I might butcher them, but if you would come right up the side. And just so the public knows, if you haven't seen These young members of our community did a great and selfless act last week or the week before.

After the football game, there was a resident whose car broke down on the parkway and these young men came out, noticed, very selfless, stopped the cars, pushed her car, put themselves in the middle of the parkway in the dark with traffic. So this is what teamwork is about. This is what we look for The youth in Everett and I'm really glad to recognize you all on behalf of the city of Everett. And then also their coach, I believe Coach Boyce is also here. and the rest of their team is supporting them. So I'd like to thank them all for coming here. I'm gonna read their names, and then I'm going to read the citation. Councilor Pietrantonio helped me to get their names. Apologies if I butcher your name. So, Kevin Ordonez Sabonage Jaden Alistandor

Emmanuel Nelson, Nate Nelsen, Emanuel LeBeault, Raul Bumarares, Geraldo Cubillas Sabonj. And I'm just going to read one of the citations and then we'll present them to all of the players. But it says, This is a citation, be it hereby known that the Everett City Council in his honor of the mayor offer their sincerest congratulations in recognition of your selfless actions and willingness to step forward without hesitation to help a stranger in need. Your kindness, compassion, concern for the safety of others exemplify the very best of our young people

and serve as an inspiring example to our entire community. The entire city government extends its very best wishes on this memorable occasion, and expresses the hope for continued good fortune going forward given this 28th day of September 2026. sponsored by the entire city council. So thank you all. And Councilor Pietrantonio is gonna say a few words.

Just a little story. So I was out to dinner with my wife and daughter, and I was telling Courtney, my daughter, hey, I'm going to bring the kids up, give them citations. Coney lets me know, Coney had three of you guys? Who had Mrs. Pietrantonio in school? Right? And the other connection were us and Antoine Coleman coached a couple of these kids in the eighth grade. and I think I came down did I come down give you guys a speech right out of practice didn't I yeah so we had a little connection it was just it was funny it was fun it just wanted to tell that little story

Caldo, Serrano, Holtz, Emanuel Elms, Thank you.

I just want to recognize the families too. You guys have raised outstanding young men and this is what we need more of in this community so thank you to the families as well And if you want, we're going to for five minutes have the families come up. They can take some photos if they want, have the basketball team come up and then the city council come up so take a recess for five

Thank you.

Say cheese!

One, two...

Three, two, one.

Thank you.

Thanks for watching!

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, I think we're ready. Thank you again to the young men in the city, their coaches and their family for the selfless acts that they performed and just great teamwork and a great public service from the these young members of our community. I believe we have to motion open public participation?

Second.

Motion made in second to open public participation. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? You guys have it. I believe we have one speaker.

We have one Speaker, Sam Lambert

Good evening Madam President and City Councilors of Everett. My name is Sam Lambert, I'm Deputy Director of the Sierra Club Massachusetts Chapter at 50 Federal Street in Boston and I am here to speak on behalf of Our members and supporters across Massachusetts, but including right here in Everett on item C020526 an act to reduce plastic waste. Every single year, 40 billion pieces of single-use plastic utensils end up in landfills. Even with the best of intentions, plastic utensil are too small, too lightweight and too food contaminated to be processed by most recycling facilities. I hesitated to share that 40 billion number because it is so large of a number, it feels insurmountable but you have the opportunity this evening to make a difference Skip to Stuff ordinances have been shown to reduce plastic takeout waste by approximately 75%.

That means savings for the restaurants, your junk drawer and our environment. This is not a ban. If a customer needs cutlery or single use plastic, they can have it. If the default is that they don't, most food items are delivered to homes and offices which have utensils there. And many of these pieces of utensils are thrown out still in their plastic outer wrapper. Defaulting to a by-request model means the restaurants are saving money by reducing the amount of reordering necessary. In reducing plastic by any level is a win, saving litter our health and our environmental legacy. Small changes can make a big difference, and you can make one by joining the 12 other Massachusetts municipalities and the three states who have already passed skip-the-stuff ordinances and laws. Thank you for your time this evening.

Motion to close public participation. Second.

Motion made and seconded to close Public Participation. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, the ayes have it. Clerk please read item number one.

No. 1 is an order offered by Councillor Stephanie Smith as president, an order requesting consideration of an appropriation of $110,197.59 from the Capital Stabilization Fund and a repurposing of $126,802.41 in previously appropriated but unspent capital funds as attached, totaling $237,000 for the purchase of a front-end loader for the Department of Public Works.

I'd like to make a motion to send it to Ways and Means Committee.

Second. Motion made in second to send to Wways and Means. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? The ayes have it. Clerk, please read item number two.

Item number two, Madam President, is an ordinance offered by Councilor Katie Rogers. An ordinance promoting environmental sustainability by reducing single-use plastic service wear and single-us package condiments.

Councilor Rogers? Thank you, Madam President. So this piece has been in the works since before summer session and it made it through legislative affairs with a favorable recommendation. So I think Ms. Lambert did very well at sort of summarizing what this accomplishes. It is not a ban, so there is no elimination of plastic. However it does It generally is serving as a bridge to raise awareness about how much plastic is being used by both the consumer and businesses. So therefore, we're creating a bridge where It isn't automatically assumed that people need plastic forks when they get takeout. You simply have to ask, or the business would ask you before automatically just putting it in as we find that many businesses and homeowners simply end up with a draw collecting them.

and it's not so much about how many plastic forks that we find on the streets of Everett but any reduction that we can have in our broader footprint whether it's on the street or in a landfill matters. So as Miss Lambert said, this has impacted about 75% less litter in communities that have implemented it. But even if we can only make a 10% difference, we're doing something positive. So I know that Mark is here from the city solicitor's office if anybody has any questions regarding the draft here. But I'm ready to move this forward tonight, and I hope this is something that we can all get behind. It's proven to reduce costs for businesses and reduce litter so it's a win for everybody. Thank you Is there a motion? Motion for favorable action, unless anyone has questions.

Motion made and seconded for favorable I just want to say on the motion from the chair that although don't disagree with this. I just can't vote for an ordinance that I feel cannot be enforced by the city, so I don't want to put another non-enforceable Ordinance on the book, although I fully support what the councilor is trying to do. So I will be voting no on this. Clerk please call a roll.

This is for enrollment this evening.

I have a question. I know the counselor said that it will be optional, How do we make sure that businesses are not going to take it out altogether? That it's optional, that people can still ask for it if they want to.

If the Councilor can answer that question.

If I may, through you. So if a business is already providing forks and Spoons, then they would probably continue to do so. It wouldn't be their prerogative to completely eliminate them unless they had a substitution already in mind but this shouldn't implement how the business practices only that It creates an extra step to not assume that they're giving them out automatically, so therefore they're not being wasted. So what we've seen in the other communities which I think there are 12 cities in Massachusetts is that the business has actually have benefited from ordinances like this because they themselves are actually investing less money. So by reducing 75% of their inventory of plastic forks and spoons, et cetera, they're not giving them out automatically so they're seeing actually that they're saving So overall, it's a positive. Thank you.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Yelsey-Jabouin?

Yes.

Council Capone?

No.

DePierro, yes. Councilor Garcia?

No.

Council Hanlon? Yes. Council Marchese? No! Council Martins? Yes! Council Nguyen? Yes Council Pietrantonio? No Council Rogers?

Yes

and Council President Smith.

No.

Six yeas, five nays you have enrolled the ordinance.

Sixties, Fivenees you have enrolled. It will be on for ordainment at our next meeting. Clerk please call the roll for Clerk, please create the next item.

Our final item this evening, Madam President, is a resolution offered by Councilor Michael Marchese, a resolution declaring the month of October as Italian Heritage Month in the City of Everett.

Councilor Marchese.

It's just an honor to be in the Italian-American city of Everett. It's a neglected holiday and it should be more appreciated and more honored, and this should be just as much respectful The respect for the Italian-Americans in this state, in this country as they are for every other nationality. And I just think it's appropriate to give us one month. But I appreciate if everybody just vote fable for it and honor the traditions of the Italians. What's he gonna say? Italians, what they benefited to the country, building it. They came here at a hard time in the late 80s here and they succeeded and they're very successful People and I just think they should be honored just like everybody else.

Thank you second motion made in seconded To declare the month of October Italian Heritage Month all those in favor opposed The ayes have it.

Motion to adjourn.

Second. Motion made in second and two adjourned. All those in favor? Opposed? The ays have it, meeting adjourned